Sinus Sufferer with Fleeting/Hysterical Blindness

Hello,
We are relatives of Helen, the lady who is suffering from Sinus and she has explained to us about the escalating problem she is having with attacks of blindness.  Others have been witness to her blind episodes that are causing great concern and the fact that Helen enjoys walking is cause for further concern if she has an episode while she is walking in public.  We will be eternally grateful for any assistance you can offer.  Helen is unable to get online at present due to the backlight of the laptop screen which causes her terrible amounts of discomfort as you may well imagine.  She is very sensitive to light and has been for some time now, and more sensitive as time and the colours and then vision loss escalates.

Let me explain please; Helen suffers from panic attacks so anything that will give hope of fixing her loss of vision may well reduce the panic attacks also.  

Helen explains it this way "Usually a white line appears in her vision in front of the inner part of one eye.  She believed for a long time that it was floaters, but the problem is getting much worse and seems to be escalating now to happen up to a few times a day.  As the white line goes across the eye to the outside of her eye and her line of vision the white line appears in her third eye...... as she is still seeing it with her physical eye.  After a very brief time the white line changes into colours as it approaches the outside part of her eye and this she also sees in her third eye as well at the same time it is happening with her physical eye.  She sees pinks, greens and blues and the weird part is it sometimes goes into her other eye (happens in the other physical eye).  Helen describes the colours as a kalaediscope of colours and then ultimately loss of vision totally.  The length of an episode varies, but the fact is it is getting much worse with each episode that occurs.  At first it happened every so often, say a month or two apart, now it is every second to third day and she is terrified when it happens.  We have done a little research on the subject, but feel we need help with answers urgently.  Researching has caused concerns of a possible retina damage, nerve damage or possible brain tumor.


With the blindness it naturally causes severe panic attacks and causes great concern as to why it is happening.  She has naturally been to the Optomitrist to check out physical problems that may be causing this but the x-ray result was that the eyes are in great condition and there is no sign of retina damage or nerve damage.  Since then the condition grown much worse and events are almost every day now and sometimes a few times a day lasting from a few seconds up to an hour at a time.  

Is there some advice and hope that you can give us to assist Helen to alleviate or totally eliminate the problem of the blindness PLEASE ???  Any suggestions at this time would be very much appreciated.  Thank you so very much for your time and your assistance in this delicate matter.

Kindest Regards,

Karen & Cyndi on behalf of Helen Hutton

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

Please read my other post. See an Eye MD ophthalmologist find one near her at www.aao.org  This could be transient ischemic attack due to disease of eye, brain, heart, blood vessels or could be eye or ophthalmic migraine.

JCH MD