Palinopsia and dialated pupils

[ilikecomputers]

25 yo male, medium myopia, OCD

This morning, I woke up with an alarming visual disturbance: when I glanced around the room, there was a "ghosting" or "trailing" effect. It lasted for a moment, and then went away. I have never experienced this before.

I later discovered, in the mirror, that my pupils would not restrict or respond to light that I flashed in it, and barely moved at all.

I often have swollen eyes in the morning. My eyes will be puffy, swollen, and painful. It especially is prominent when my sinuses are stuffy, or if I ate a lot of salt the night before. I'm not sure if this could have an effect or not.

Drugs currently taking: zoloft 200mg, .5 mg of Klonopin before bed, ibuprofen

Anybody experience something similar? Called my aunt (who is a nurse of 15+ yrs) and she said this is normal and has happened to her before, and is a sign of "aging". I'm not convinced, as I'm only 25.

Thoughts?

[ilikecomputers]

Hi Dr. Hagan. I thought I'd give you an update:

My visual symptoms in the morning have pretty much gone away. I remember that the night before the morning I had my intense ghosting/tracers, I had taken my 200mg of zoloft combined with .5 mg of klonopin shortly before bed. Since then, I had taken it after waking or mid day. To test the theory that the medications are causing my visual symptoms, I took my zoloft last night immediately before bed. I woke up several hours later with the same intense visual symptoms. Not only that, I had some trouble making my eyes focus on one object (slight double vision). This all went away after a minute or so.

Basically, I'm much more at ease now. I'll see what the doctor says but I think this is good evidence that the meds are causing this. Still waiting on a payment so I can get on insurance.

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

While I cannot tell for sure it is  more likely that your symptoms are not due to serious disease and the cause is something minor or a reaction to new medication that gets better or goes away in the future.

JCH MD

[ilikecomputers]

Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by "big deal"? I'm a little bit anxious right now, so apologies for the postings. I am definitely making an appointment tomorrow.

[ilikecomputers]

Also, worth noting that I just started taking these meds in the past month. I also stopped taking Klonopin for a couple of weeks (except occasionally, like that night before I experienced the symptoms).

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

It is much more likely this is NOT a serious big deal than that it IS a big deal. However the symptoms do call for your family MD and an Eye MD ophthalmologist to examine you.

JCH MD

[ilikecomputers]

Going to schedule an appointment with family doctor and possibly eye doctor asap. I'm very scared now.

This only happened to me this one time, and hasn't occurred again. The pupil reaction returned after a few minutes of being awake. I'm so worried right now.

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

This is not aging. You should see an ophthalmologist ASAP and call your personal physician to get in as quickly as possible for an examination. These are not "normal" and call for a thorough examination. Allergy will not cause this. Also call your psychiatrist to discuss whether this might be a medication side effect of your psychiatric meds.  Your aunt is wrong in this case.

JCH MD