Blurred Vision Last Several Months

[Sithtiger]

I've posted here before but I didn't get much of a response.  I'll try and put it altogether as short as I can.  Ok, I seemed to get blurred vision almost overnight.  I think it probably took a couple weeks to a month.  I started out trying to get new glasses and I went to 4 different Optometrists and got glasses at each of them.  They said I was overcorrected with my old glasses.  I'm 38 and I've no problem with these glasses until about 6 months ago.  Even when I got new glasses with a lower prescription it barely helped.  My eyesight is not too bad at long distances (with my glasses that is) and moderately bad at medium distances and horrible at short distance.  My pupils have become quite large too.  They almost look as bad as when you get your eyes dilated....in fact that's what they are.

Sometimes my eyes are better than others but they are always blurry to some extent.  This isn't apart of aging as I said, this came on so fast and if it were then a lower prescription glasses would do the trick.  Now I did hit my head fairly hard (didn't need to go to the ER or anything) about 6 months prior to the blurred vision, but I didn't have any blurred vision until about 6 months later.

I had a diabetes test and my A1C is 5.4 which is borderline I'm told but they said I did not have diabetes.  Actually the first thing I thought it was, was my medication.  I'm bi-polar and I took these meds at the time.  Wellbutrin, Lamictal, Lunesta, Unisom and Zyzal (for allergies).  I went off all meds for a week and nothing changed.  So I switched the meds that I thought might cause it, even though I didn't notice any change while off.  I'm wondering if I need more time off the drugs like two weeks.  I've stopped all meds now to test that theory.  I am taking (well I just started off everything just yesterday) Prozac, Trileptal, Lunesta, Unisom and Xyzal.  Could any of these drugs cause my problem??

Actually there is one drug that I started taking every night prior to the blurriness.  I took Cogentin and I know for a fact that, that caused me to have blurry vision for a couple weeks, but I'm not taking that anymore because of that.  My only other thing I can think of is a neurological problem.  I went to two different Opthomologists and they said my optic nerve is fine, although I have high pressure so they gave me drops for that.  I forgot about the drops but I was taking them to prevent glaucoma.  That said I had blurred vision a month or two before I started the drops.

When I'm looking through my glasses (which is always, I'm nearsighted) it does look as if my prescription is way too strong.  Like I said before though they only dropped my prescription .25 on each eye and it makes very little difference.  Can anyone tell me perhaps if it's the drugs I take?  Oh and I don't do any illicit street drugs either so I know it's not that.

It's also not allergy eyes or dry eyes too as I have moisture drops for them and they don't help at all.  Also when I blink it doesn't get better.  If it is the drugs I take, how long should I stay off of them before my vision comes back to normal (assuming that's the problem).  I sometimes have slightly high blood pressure but that's just recently and it's not real high. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Sithtiger]

Thanks for the response.  I have had my eyes dilated and checked.  They say my optic nerve is fine.  I'm getting a head CT and I'm gonna drop all my meds for a couple weeks to see if it clears up.  I know it's not good to do, especially if your bi-polar like me but I have to know if it's the meds or not.  Already experiencing withdrawals from the psych meds. I didn't realize that I would get w/d from these, but oh well, I won't be doing it again if it doesn't seem to get better.

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

Some of these drugs can cause visual problems.  I suggest you get a cycloplegic refraction (a check of your eyes when dilated) and stay with one ophthalmologist to determine the problem.

Dr. O.