Shadowy brightness in right eye days after dilation

I'm posting this question for my wife in hopes that someone may have some idea as to what's causing this strange effect, which her eye doctor can't seem to identify.

My wife had her eyes dilated on Monday (11/9/09) at 4 PM.  She was first told that the dilation would wear off in 4 to 6 hours.  However, it didn't actually wear off for almost more than 24 hours, which we've since learned can be typical for someone with light colored eyes.  My wife has very light blue eyes.  As well, during her dilation, her sensitivity to light was extra acute, and she had to remain in almost complete darkness with the only light coming from things like the little green light on the coffee maker or the light coming off the front of our TiVo.  Even those hurt her eyes.

Since her dilation wore off, she's been experiencing in her right eye what she can only describe as a "shadowy brightness," if that contradiction makes sense.  It's not a centralized "spot" and, more or less, sweeps across her field of vision in that eye.  Also, it is constant.  She says it's closest to the afterimage you may see after looking at a bright light.  But it contains no colors whatsoever.  

We went back to the eye doctor (an optometrist) this evening (11/11/09), and after performing another eye exam, the doctor found that her eye was completely fine.  No damage. and her eye pressure is fine, which is a detail she pointed out to the doctor, as she's also experiencing pressure around her eye like that caused by inflamed sinuses.  For lack of better words, the doctor was completely stumped.  He insisted that nothing done during dilation (meaning shining light in the eyes) could have caused damage and suggested ocular migraine as a possible cause or sinus pressure.

Upon researching both these possible causes, I'm wondering if it's either, seeing that sinus pressure usually causes blurry or grayish vision and ocular migraines cause loss of vision among other impairments that aren't exact matches to what my wife is experiencing.  Granted, I'm not an expert, here, so can either of these cause her exact problem?

Later this evening, I spoke to a distant relative who's an ophthalmologist, and he seconded the eye doctor' stance that nothing done during dilation could have caused this and suggested it's merely coincidental.  He suggested to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist for more extensive testing.  However, my wife is a little nervous to put her eyes through more strain and testing.  When the doctor shined a light in her eyes tonight, the problem she's experiencing in her right eye intensified for a little while.  So she's fretful to do anything that might worsen her current condition.

I did find a post from almost two years ago in which the poster experienced something almost identical to what my wife is experiencing now (this is the link:  http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Eye-Care/dilation-drops-still-not-worn-off-after-more-than-48-hours/show/425934) but there was no resolution or outcome.

I apologize for the very lengthy post, but I wanted to be thorough, given the oddity of my wife's eye problem.  Any thoughts or suggestions are so greatly appreciated.  Thank you for reading and responding.      

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

Dilation will not cause this problem.  As you relative suggested she needs to see an ophthalmologist.

Dr. O.