Flashes of light (phospenes I think) in the corners of the eyes, 15 year old

[tia712]

Hi, I'm a 15 year old girl, and I have not experienced any serious health problems until now. I have started experiencing flashes of light in the corners of my eyes when I look to the side in the dark. If I do it repetitively they don't appear, but then if I wait a few minutes they appear again. They only appear after horizontal eye movement in dark spaces. I'm really worried because I looked it up on the internet, and found loads of stuff relating to MS etc - please tell me that this is normal!! I'm kind of a hypochondriac so it's likely that I'm blowing this out of proportion, and I am going to see my optician, but please, please help me I'm really really worried!! Thank you x

[tia712]

Sorry, just to add that the light appears in circles, and sometimes it looks like a dark circle when viewed against a slightly less dark background. Sorry x Please tell me this is nothing to worry about!

[tia712]

This is definitely not related to optic neuritis, right? Sorry, I know I'm over-reacting, and I will definitely look at the anxiety pages, I just wanted to check because previously I found my exact symptoms described on a page talking about optic neuritis (please, please tell me I don't have this). Although it seemed to be a relatively rare symptom of this condition, and it was not posted by a doctor or anything, just a member of the public who'd copied and pasted it from somewhere. Thank you so much x

[tia712]

Is it ok that my brother says that he doesn't get them at all?

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

You might drift over to the "anxiety" forums and do some reading. Many hypochondriacs have undiagnosed or untreated anxiety.
JC MD

[tia712]

Thank you that's really reassured me!

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

What you are experiencing is not at all suggestive of MS. It sounds like a normal entopic phenomena. It occurs because the eye is much more senstive in dim light or the dark and when the eye is suddenly turned the eye muscles pull so hard on the eyeball it stimulates the retina causing these entopic arcs.
JC MD