seeing blinking lights

[gbboy]

Have an 8 yr old boy who is seeing blinking lights. He sees them whenever there is a light source present. Even if his eyes are closed and the lights are on in the room he sees them. If we cover his eyes so light can't get in they go away. MRI of the head is normal. Any ideas.

[gbboy]

Thank you Bob,

We have been to a peds neurologist. I call back to the pediatirian and get blood work.

If a migrane variant would he have them every day?

[BobbHilton]

Hi,
In a usual physiologic condition , a bright light leads to increase retinal (the inner part of an eye) oxygen demand which automatically leads increase blood flow to the eyes by 20%.
lets say , for some reasons the blood floww did not increase , then your retina will feel hungry /starve and cause you your symptomes...
The blood run smoothly in our vessels...if
1-any thing Narrowed the vessel esp in the neck (either atherosclerosis, hardening of the vessel wall, in a much older group than your age or due to spasm which happens in Migraine esp in your age group ...could cause the symptromes with or  without the headache..then it could be called Migrain variant )
2- Decreased blood flow either due to anemia, or something making your blood thicker at certain times)

In brief, you son needs to be investigated first to rule out any possible cause could spasm the vessels or make the blood thicker , before we could say this is a Migraine variant. ..this could be done either through a GP, or a referal to a neurologist which would be much better .

Hope this is helpful

God bless
Bob Hilton

Note: if you are from african american background, then your son needs a blood sample to test for sickling (sickle cell disease)

[Jenny Wren]

I get these also, I have ocular migraines, sometimes I don't have the pain, sometimes I do, usually the vision thing only lasts about 10 minutes or so, then the headache starts, not fun.  Does anyone in your family get migraines, they are hereditary, my mom and maternal grandfather has suffered with them all their lives.  Hope this helps, take care, Jen

[gbboy]

Thankyou Carey 01 I'll look that up.

[Carey01]

I get that too.  It was diagnosed as occular migriane.  Blinking lights are a classic symptom and I was shocked to learn that occular migraines usually dont result in any pain.  Run a search, it really sounds like that.