Dimmer/Darker central vision

[Jonezy16]

First of all I'd like to thank all of the doctors on this forum for answering all of our questions..

I am a 33 year old female with the following:
*inactive ocular histoplasmosis
*factor V leiden (hetero form)
*controlled hypothroidism
*CSR (last year due to a stressful situation)

I recently just had a baby boy (3 months ago) via c-section.  Here is my problem:  8 days ago I noticed that my central vision in my left eye was dimmer and text seems a bit smaller than the right eye.  For example when looking at the colour fire engine red; my left eye would see this colour as darker and not as bright as the right eye....

Since the birth of my child (November 2009) (especially the 1st month) I haven't been getting a lot of rest.  Unfortunately I lost a baby in utero at 5.5 months in November 2008...so this has been very stressful for me.

I also went to my optometrist 4 days ago regarding this situation with my left eye.  He checked the pressure, it was normal.  He dilated my eyes and told me that the histo was not active and he didn't see any fluid behind my eyes..(I thought CSR??)  Basically he couldn't see that anything was wrong and told me to come back in 2 weeks and that by this time things hopefully will improve or if not come back in immediately.  3 weeks prior to this I had my followup appointment with an eye MD who said everything in my eyes was fine other than minor pigment changes in the retina of my right eye. (I had something like this last year after the loss - but it seems a bit worse this time)

I would like to know what could be the problem with my eye then? Could you tell me what possible condition this may be?

Thank you for your time.

[Jonezy16]

Hello Dr. Sandra Brown,

Thank you for your helpful reply.  I was just wondering in the case of wrinkling of the central retina, is this something that can be fixed? And will the vision get better after it's fixed?

Thank you.

[Sandra M Brown, MD]

The sense that objects are smaller (and sometimes dimmer) than they really are is called micropsia.  Micropsia in one eye only is almost always due to wrinkling of the central retina.  What happens is that the retina gets stretched out relative to normal, and (due to everything being reversed) you see objects from that retina as being smaller.  This could be due to subtle edema (swelling) in the macula, which could be caused by blood pressure changes induced by delivery, by CSR returning from stress and fatigue, or from other causes.  The cataract probably doesn't have anything to do with it.  You should be evaluated by a retina specialist who can do a test called an OCT on you.  Find one at www.aao.org.

[Jonezy16]

1 more thing I forgot to mention above...when I went to see my optometrist he did say that I do have a bit of an opague lense back of my left eye...He said it's not a concern right now..but wondering if this has anything to do with my problem??

[Jonezy16]

I just wanted to add that a week prior to me having this issue with my left eye my body felt very exhausted upon waking up in the morning and had a few major headaches at the back of my neck and close near my eye.  I also had these same symptoms before I had the same kind of episode last year...