Aa
For those with the bright spot when blinking symptom
There are several of us on here who have a similar eye complaint: seeing a bright flash, like the afterimage of a flash bulb, when we blink, and sometimes, on upgaze. This is transient symptom for most of us, lasting anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. When the "spot" in our visual field passes over a dark background, the spot appears light. When the spot passes over a light background, it appears dark.
So far, the doctors haven't been able to diagnose us, and perhaps that means it is simply some idiopathic phenomenon. But, in any case, I'm wondering what other similarities we might all have that could bring us closer to a an explanation.
For instance, other factors about me which might be clues are:
I take 100 mg of Zoloft a day
I would describe myself as high-anxiety and stress
I clench my teeth, usually on the same side as the effected eye
I have alot of sinus problems around my eyes
I have double vision due to a weak muscle in one eye
I have many floaters and one very prominent one in the eye without the bright spot
How about you?
So far, the doctors haven't been able to diagnose us, and perhaps that means it is simply some idiopathic phenomenon. But, in any case, I'm wondering what other similarities we might all have that could bring us closer to a an explanation.
For instance, other factors about me which might be clues are:
I take 100 mg of Zoloft a day
I would describe myself as high-anxiety and stress
I clench my teeth, usually on the same side as the effected eye
I have alot of sinus problems around my eyes
I have double vision due to a weak muscle in one eye
I have many floaters and one very prominent one in the eye without the bright spot
How about you?
Very glad to hear that it went away. I have the same issues as the most people here. Multiple scotoms in both eyes, all off center. Also the flashy lights from time to time. Went to the doc with no answer as the most of us. I have also noticed if i close my eyes and open them rapidly looking at a medium bright white wall or monitor my scotoms sparkle or glow for 1 second or so. Have no clue why. Bending over helps sometimes. I also had few times a light spot right in the vision center. Luckily it disappeared. Would really love to know what we are all suffering from.
tl; dr:
I have had success treating this with posture.... which sounds bizarre but I found I had tension in my upper back and neck and that supporting my head on my chest rather than pushing it back reduces occurrence and helps resolve any bright spots (like a camera flash after image) I see in my vision.
The long version:
3.5 years ago I had a stressful weekend doing some charitable work and not getting much sleep, eating poorly mostly sugary snacks, getting angry at lack of progress. I woke up on the Monday morning with a bright spot in one eye. Could just about hide a mouse point in it. Went to optician after 24 hours, couldn't help. Went to ophthalmologist, they couldn't help (though have recently found but not yet been to see one who has said they have at least seen two other people with this symptom).
1.5 years ago, similarly stressful week but for work related reasons and I picked up another one in the other eye. Again noticed upon waking n morning. This was also after a period of high occurrence (>10 bright spots per minute lasting for about 30 seconds in average each and over a period of minutes to days under range of conditions: rested, stressed, relaxed, exercised etc).
1 year ago: had first instance of a transient one lasting for more than a few minutes, in this case about 10 hours, before the vision restoring to normal.
6 months ago I started a new job. A week before starting the job I also saw a good osteopath about a strained neck and whose advice I misunderstood / mis-remembered. I thought the stress of the impending job was causing it but I had good days of no transient spots, mixed with bad days of many transient spots, some of which developed into permanent blind spots (with one being a large arc but quite far out from centre of vision and in one eye only).
After 3 months of this much greater occurrence of transient spots I did a meditation course. I made a lot of progress in making peace and accepting that everything changes, and that at some point I will lose my vision either because I go blind or because I die of something else... this definitely helped but didn't stop them coming back with and indeed occurring even when I was at my deepest point of relaxation and just saying "bring it [blindness] on".
A month ago I went back to osteopath because I wanted to see on the off chance if there was anything he could do to help (he's £75 an hour vs £350 for 20 minutes of no help from a neuroopthalmologist... though they are a highly skilled and wonderful person... they couldn't help in my case). As soon as I stood there again he said: "You haven't remembered what I told you have you" * oops *. Since then every time I notice transient spots I __personally__ 100% of the time realise my back is flat and my neck is crooked.
Resolving action:
Pushing my bum out by using my lower back muscles gently maneuvers my chest under my head. I can feel my shoulders relax ever so slightly and move back and down. My breathing comes more from my belly and on breathing in my forehead gently moves up and breathing out moves down. My neck relaxes on the sides and down the back and my head feels more loose on top of it.
Things I tried before:
* relaxing (used all sorts: sleeping, meditating, playing games, socialising, sex with partner, absorbing work, etc): didn't work as would still see transient spots with same occurrence as when in stressful situations.
* bending down to get head lower than heart: worked 100% of time but didn't want to live life like that... also felt uncomfortable doing around coworkers in office even though they were very supportive so would have to do in toilets. Made it quite impractical. Probably worked due to: increased blood pressure in spasming capillaries to help them open again and by relaxing and stretching tightened neck and back muscles.
* taking magnesium: didn't help me though only took 200mg per day... as was scared of the "high strength" magnesium doses some people were recommending... I definitely do not want to suggest the magnesium is not beneficial, just for me at that dose it didn't help prevent or resolve transient ones.
* hydration: difficult to tell but always seems to help though not resolve.
* sleep: most spots developed during sleep and I noticed during the recent period of very high transient spot occurence (sometimes > 30 per minute, but lasting for ~30 seconds and also of more varied shapes) that actually lying down on bed on back made them occur but rolling to side relieved.... again fits with muscle tension in back but perhaps also something about muscles in eye pulling and squeezing eyeball back into socket? Sleep and being well rested is generally a great idea, I notice more transient spots (and that my postures worse) when tired.
* trying to relax muscles around eye: I noticed, again on the deep Vipassana meditation course that I seemed to be holding tension around my eyes and that when I could relax it it seemed to help reduce and or resolve the transient spots. I found it *very* challenging to relax eye muscles in a way I found convincing... it's far easier to tell when your neck is crooked or straight but I'm not convinced I really know when my eye muscles are overly tense or relaxed.
* exercise: reduces stress levels but I found on multiple occasions, particularly about 15 minutes in that I started to get spots occuring and sometimes bigger and more persistent. I went for a jog today and realised I get tired due to exercise and my lower back muscles "give up", resulting in poor posture, much more tension in neck muscles etc... though feeling much happier.
* just not observing them / when they happen mentally saying "bring it on, if I'm going blind, fine, I'll face it and I'll cope": This is wonderful for psychological health but did not seem to effect prevalence of bright spots occuring.
Mechanism:
Less interesting as most people just want to get better by reducing transient blind spots (even though permanent ones will be with us whole life until medical science advances far enough). As mentioned many times on the forum: probably some kind of capillary spasm. I'd guess it's in optic nerve and maybe in retina as well. For me the spots are usually much larger out to the edges of vision which would make sense as retina / optic nerve does compression of data, therefore if a single capillary closes near edge of optic nerve it will affect the same number of nerve fibers but this will be carrying data from much larger area of peripheral vision.
Apologies for the long post, there's way more to include but salient points are there (I think / hope). Hope it's useful for someone.
I have had success treating this with posture.... which sounds bizarre but I found I had tension in my upper back and neck and that supporting my head on my chest rather than pushing it back reduces occurrence and helps resolve any bright spots (like a camera flash after image) I see in my vision.
The long version:
3.5 years ago I had a stressful weekend doing some charitable work and not getting much sleep, eating poorly mostly sugary snacks, getting angry at lack of progress. I woke up on the Monday morning with a bright spot in one eye. Could just about hide a mouse point in it. Went to optician after 24 hours, couldn't help. Went to ophthalmologist, they couldn't help (though have recently found but not yet been to see one who has said they have at least seen two other people with this symptom).
1.5 years ago, similarly stressful week but for work related reasons and I picked up another one in the other eye. Again noticed upon waking n morning. This was also after a period of high occurrence (>10 bright spots per minute lasting for about 30 seconds in average each and over a period of minutes to days under range of conditions: rested, stressed, relaxed, exercised etc).
1 year ago: had first instance of a transient one lasting for more than a few minutes, in this case about 10 hours, before the vision restoring to normal.
6 months ago I started a new job. A week before starting the job I also saw a good osteopath about a strained neck and whose advice I misunderstood / mis-remembered. I thought the stress of the impending job was causing it but I had good days of no transient spots, mixed with bad days of many transient spots, some of which developed into permanent blind spots (with one being a large arc but quite far out from centre of vision and in one eye only).
After 3 months of this much greater occurrence of transient spots I did a meditation course. I made a lot of progress in making peace and accepting that everything changes, and that at some point I will lose my vision either because I go blind or because I die of something else... this definitely helped but didn't stop them coming back with and indeed occurring even when I was at my deepest point of relaxation and just saying "bring it [blindness] on".
A month ago I went back to osteopath because I wanted to see on the off chance if there was anything he could do to help (he's £75 an hour vs £350 for 20 minutes of no help from a neuroopthalmologist... though they are a highly skilled and wonderful person... they couldn't help in my case). As soon as I stood there again he said: "You haven't remembered what I told you have you" * oops *. Since then every time I notice transient spots I __personally__ 100% of the time realise my back is flat and my neck is crooked.
Resolving action:
Pushing my bum out by using my lower back muscles gently maneuvers my chest under my head. I can feel my shoulders relax ever so slightly and move back and down. My breathing comes more from my belly and on breathing in my forehead gently moves up and breathing out moves down. My neck relaxes on the sides and down the back and my head feels more loose on top of it.
Things I tried before:
* relaxing (used all sorts: sleeping, meditating, playing games, socialising, sex with partner, absorbing work, etc): didn't work as would still see transient spots with same occurrence as when in stressful situations.
* bending down to get head lower than heart: worked 100% of time but didn't want to live life like that... also felt uncomfortable doing around coworkers in office even though they were very supportive so would have to do in toilets. Made it quite impractical. Probably worked due to: increased blood pressure in spasming capillaries to help them open again and by relaxing and stretching tightened neck and back muscles.
* taking magnesium: didn't help me though only took 200mg per day... as was scared of the "high strength" magnesium doses some people were recommending... I definitely do not want to suggest the magnesium is not beneficial, just for me at that dose it didn't help prevent or resolve transient ones.
* hydration: difficult to tell but always seems to help though not resolve.
* sleep: most spots developed during sleep and I noticed during the recent period of very high transient spot occurence (sometimes > 30 per minute, but lasting for ~30 seconds and also of more varied shapes) that actually lying down on bed on back made them occur but rolling to side relieved.... again fits with muscle tension in back but perhaps also something about muscles in eye pulling and squeezing eyeball back into socket? Sleep and being well rested is generally a great idea, I notice more transient spots (and that my postures worse) when tired.
* trying to relax muscles around eye: I noticed, again on the deep Vipassana meditation course that I seemed to be holding tension around my eyes and that when I could relax it it seemed to help reduce and or resolve the transient spots. I found it *very* challenging to relax eye muscles in a way I found convincing... it's far easier to tell when your neck is crooked or straight but I'm not convinced I really know when my eye muscles are overly tense or relaxed.
* exercise: reduces stress levels but I found on multiple occasions, particularly about 15 minutes in that I started to get spots occuring and sometimes bigger and more persistent. I went for a jog today and realised I get tired due to exercise and my lower back muscles "give up", resulting in poor posture, much more tension in neck muscles etc... though feeling much happier.
* just not observing them / when they happen mentally saying "bring it on, if I'm going blind, fine, I'll face it and I'll cope": This is wonderful for psychological health but did not seem to effect prevalence of bright spots occuring.
Mechanism:
Less interesting as most people just want to get better by reducing transient blind spots (even though permanent ones will be with us whole life until medical science advances far enough). As mentioned many times on the forum: probably some kind of capillary spasm. I'd guess it's in optic nerve and maybe in retina as well. For me the spots are usually much larger out to the edges of vision which would make sense as retina / optic nerve does compression of data, therefore if a single capillary closes near edge of optic nerve it will affect the same number of nerve fibers but this will be carrying data from much larger area of peripheral vision.
Apologies for the long post, there's way more to include but salient points are there (I think / hope). Hope it's useful for someone.
1 Comments
Thank you, I'll try this! I've also noticed that bending over makes my temporary spots go away.
Well I got another one yesterday which seems permanent annoyingly. It is in my right eye just next to the very first spot I got. A little triangle again, noticeably on contrasting colours and lines with a little blind spot in the middle as per normal.
Shame really as I had been getting on with life and forgotten about the spots mostly. Last permanent one was dec 2015 I think. Part of me thinks this might have contributed to this spot as I haven't been as careful as I usually am when it comes to diet etc.
Interestingly this one occurred a couple of hours after I had been out in the garden along with the onset of nausea from sunburn. Part of me wonders if a damaged bit of my retina got sunburnt, over stimulated or something.
It could have also been the night before as I had a few shots of whiskey and went to bed (which hasn't been unusual this last few months) perhaps I had a bad sleep apnea episode and didn't notice the spot until later in the day.
Any way I am tossing up as to if I should go to the eye doc. They never seem to find anything. I really can't wait until this one fades some. Hate the annoying bright noticeable phase.
Matt
Shame really as I had been getting on with life and forgotten about the spots mostly. Last permanent one was dec 2015 I think. Part of me thinks this might have contributed to this spot as I haven't been as careful as I usually am when it comes to diet etc.
Interestingly this one occurred a couple of hours after I had been out in the garden along with the onset of nausea from sunburn. Part of me wonders if a damaged bit of my retina got sunburnt, over stimulated or something.
It could have also been the night before as I had a few shots of whiskey and went to bed (which hasn't been unusual this last few months) perhaps I had a bad sleep apnea episode and didn't notice the spot until later in the day.
Any way I am tossing up as to if I should go to the eye doc. They never seem to find anything. I really can't wait until this one fades some. Hate the annoying bright noticeable phase.
Matt
Yeah that's how mine are and they wreath around the center almost like the Yelp logo
2 Comments
Lazman305,
Is this a permanent pattern for you?
I see the same thing but it's only during exercise.
Is this a permanent pattern for you?
I see the same thing but it's only during exercise.
They're permanent oval spots that wreath around the center of my vision and look like smudges on glass when I focus on them on a surface with one eye closed regardless of exercise or not.
Hi everyone
I have like others on here been following this thread because last October I started with 'blobs' when I blinked. I began with one noticeable one but when I moved my finger infront of my eye this showed two, and I now have 4.
I visited the opthomologist today and to skip 7 months of various scans that have shown nothing today I had a scan which finally showed something going on in my retina. I have spent some time reading various research and it is apparent only specific tests are showing this problem. My ophthalmologist was so convinced my eyes were fine I was almost discharged two weeks ago and sent to a neuroopthamologist.
I was sure it was my eye and asked for further tests.
The diagnosis I have been chasing is acute macular neuroretinopathy. I have not been diagnosed with this but the opthamolohist is leaning this way. I have requested an infrared scan because this is supposed to be useful alongside the SD-OCT which I have had in such diagnosis.
Would be interesting to know if anyone else has had either of these scans with any findings?
My eyes have looked perfectly healthy on fundus pics etc.
Hopefully if enough of us are diagnosed with this retinal issue more research will be directed towards it.
Would also like to add I know AMN is often associated with women but how credible is this... only 60 patients in some research and I have to wonder how many other people have been discharged as I almost was because on the usual scans things looked ok.
Any questions just ask! And good luck to you all in getting a diagnosis. I know how difficult it is trying to describe this and to be taken seriously when nothing can be seen on standard scans.
I have like others on here been following this thread because last October I started with 'blobs' when I blinked. I began with one noticeable one but when I moved my finger infront of my eye this showed two, and I now have 4.
I visited the opthomologist today and to skip 7 months of various scans that have shown nothing today I had a scan which finally showed something going on in my retina. I have spent some time reading various research and it is apparent only specific tests are showing this problem. My ophthalmologist was so convinced my eyes were fine I was almost discharged two weeks ago and sent to a neuroopthamologist.
I was sure it was my eye and asked for further tests.
The diagnosis I have been chasing is acute macular neuroretinopathy. I have not been diagnosed with this but the opthamolohist is leaning this way. I have requested an infrared scan because this is supposed to be useful alongside the SD-OCT which I have had in such diagnosis.
Would be interesting to know if anyone else has had either of these scans with any findings?
My eyes have looked perfectly healthy on fundus pics etc.
Hopefully if enough of us are diagnosed with this retinal issue more research will be directed towards it.
Would also like to add I know AMN is often associated with women but how credible is this... only 60 patients in some research and I have to wonder how many other people have been discharged as I almost was because on the usual scans things looked ok.
Any questions just ask! And good luck to you all in getting a diagnosis. I know how difficult it is trying to describe this and to be taken seriously when nothing can be seen on standard scans.
3 Comments
Also to add - whatever is going on might not be AMN. But there was something noticeable on the SD-OCT. Will update also when I have had the infrared scan done.
Originally it was thought that I had either AZOOR or AMN, but I was later diagnosed with PAMM and yes, it was finally determined that I had abnormalities on SD-OCT after many negative scans. May be worth investigating PAMM.
Hi midgetEm, do you have any updates since your latest eye scan? I've been reading up on AMN and it sounds very much like what I have been experiencing for the past 10 years.
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