Double vision and blindness

I'm 23, male, 5'11", 160lbs.  I'm coming here for help because I have been to an ophthalmologist, neurologist, and had MRI and intracranial MRA tests completed. Nobody knows what's wrong with me.

Over the past year I have had dozens of episodes where I lose vision in my left eye and also get double vision. I am also positive the blindness has happened a few times in my right eye also, but it's mostly my left eye.

The blindness slowly fades into a solid dark gray color, and stays there anywhere from 1 minute to 10 minutes. The double vision happens instantly and lasts 2 to 3 minutes, I can cover one eye and still see normally. Then it passes.

Recently during the past few months I have been experiencing dizziness, or a general lack of being able to walk properly, and it has been progressively getting worse to the point where I almost fell over today. I am always tired and feel depressed for no reason at all. I get sharp headaches that always occur in the exact same position.

The neuro looked at my MRI/MRA results and said everything looked normal.

The neurologist and ophthalmologist don't have any answers for me, and suggest it may be something cardiovascular. I feel really let down and now I have these huge medical bills stacked on my shoulders.

If you know of ANYTHING that may be happening to me please let me know.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Those are serious symptoms and its obviously not something that is easily diagnosed. My suggestion would be to ask your ophthalmologist and neurologist to refer you to a neuro-ophthalmologist at a medical school in your town. These are not symptoms you can ignore and you almost assuredly will need further neuro-ophthalmic-cardio/vascular work up.

The best this could likely be is an atypical migraine or atypical seizure disorder. On the more serious end would be intracranial tumors or vascular disorders like A-V malformations or aneurysm or tumors.

Keep pushing, its important. If you find out let us know what it is. Good luck.

JCH MD