Beginning signs (painful eye movement + other things)??

[JustCurious413]

Hi, I'm April and I'm 24yo.

I've been experiencing occasional sharp, stabbing pain behind/around my eyeball (within my eye socket) when I look to the far left/right/up/down. This comes and goes... usually hurting for 2-3 days, sometimes 1 eye, sometimes both, and then will go away for several weeks/months. It's been happening for a couple years now. When I mentioned it to an optometrist, he said I might just have dry eyes, but even with using lubricating drops, it still happens.

I do notice that it's worse in the mornings, and by evening it feels slightly better (but worse again the following morning, until that "spell" ends).

Another eye "quirk" I've been having is the past few weeks, whenever I move my eyes (looking from one thing to another, or in turning my head), it seems everything is more blurry than it should be, and things jump around (like I'm not able to scan things smoothly like I used to be able to, it's like watching a stop/start-action film, kinda choppy ).

Also, when moving my eyes as described above, I sometimes see double of things that my eyes pass by (particularly illuminated things like lamps, street lights, the microwave display, etc.) In the same time frame, I've also been getting a little light-headed when I'm walking around (ie looking around), or if I look left to right (not moving head) several times in a row (even slowly).

The above happens regardless of whether I'm wearing my [current prescription] glasses or not.



Now, looking up painful eye movement, the one thing that keeps popping up is optic neuritis. Does what I described sounds like that (as far as location of pain and the duration/frequency)?

And reading over other early MSsymptoms, seems like I do perhaps experience some of them, including...
* loss of balance - where I'll go to walk across the room (from a standing position), and suddenly feel really lightheaded , and stumble/swerve (my husband jokingly asks if I've been drinking since I look tipsy). This isn't a sustained feeling, just randomly will happen and pass within a few seconds, and happens once every couple/few weeks.
* muscle weakness - I've noticed my arms feel weak/tired just from things like blow-drying my hair (ie holding something away from my body). I'm not overweight and I'm a fairly active person (I have 3 children, ages 4 and under, they keep me busy! )... surely I'm not that out of shape?? This seems pretty consistent.
* I sometimes have trouble recalling very simple words, and even say the wrong thing without meaning to. For example, the other night I was cutting up chicken, and my husband asked from the other room what we were having. For the life of me, I could not recall the word "chicken" even though it was literally right in front of me. And after "ummmmm"ing for a minute, I yelled back "peanuts", completely unconsciously. I have NO clue why I said that, but it just came out. Immediately after it did, I knew it was wrong and a second later I was able to remember "chicken".  This happens once every few weeks, but still have general forgetfulness quite often.
* Fatigue- some days are worse than others, but I will go through days of feeling SO tired, even though I got a good night's sleep. Not so much mentally, but physically- my body feels zapped of all energy. I don't have any motivation to do anything because my body feels like lead and it takes so much inertia to get it moving.
* Sensitivity to heat - I get hot very easy, and am constantly fighting with my husband about the thermostat.  I haven't noticed feeling worse physically (see below, though), BUT when I get out of the (hot, but not super sauna-hot) shower, I usually do feel very lightheaded and disoriented for a few seconds.

I haven't noticed any correlation between when these things happen, but then again, I've always thought these were completely random, unrelated issues and never thought about it. I had another "pain when moving eye" spell the other day, and once again tried to find info which brought me to reading MS symptoms a bit more closely, and thinking... hmmmmm.

Any thoughts?? TIA!

[skimordiegirl]

P.S. I was diagnosed with bilateral vestibular damage, but not MS. I haven't had another MRi for well over a year though.

[skimordiegirl]

Do you still come on here? I am having the same symptoms and am not sure what to do..... They came up out of the blue for no reason. I really hope you have found an answer.

[giggling88]

have you been checked for glaucoma? my husband had similar eye issues to yours. and as he prepare for his recent deployment they discovered that he had glaucoma and told him he was luck to not be blind. they said based on the severity of his glaucoma that if he didn`t start treatment immediately then he`d be blind before he came home from his deployment. i`d have that checked.
giggling88

[JustCurious413]

Thank you SO much for your response, Deb.  I really appreciate it.

I will definitely make an appointment with an ophthalmologist, and see about getting a referral to a neurologist, just in case.  :-/

Thanks again.  
Love & Light, ~ April

[Deb61]

Welcome to the forum.  I hope that you find this forum as helpful as I have.  

You could have written my list of symptoms.  Yes, they could be attributed to MS.  However, don't jump the gun just yet.  There are many mimics of MS.  Visit the health pages (see upper right hand corner of this page) and read what you can about MS.  

I've had optic neuritis, and what you've described sounds like it.  You do need to see an opthamologist instead of an optometrist to begin with.  There is a difference.  The opthamologist is more versed in diseases of the eye.  You need to set up an appointment ASAP.  You don't want to be driving your car when your vision goes out or go blind.

Plus, you need to set yourself up with a neurologist, probably an MS specialist.  Even if you don't have MS, this specialist can help you.  When you see the neurologist, ask to see if you can get a prescription for medication that will help with the fatigue.  Provigil has been a life saver for me.  I started this medicine before my MS diagnosis, and it's really helped with not only the fatigue but with the cognitive issues.  If you can't have Provigil, there are other good medicines you can take for fatigue.  You don't have to have an MS diagnosis to get help.

So, get yourself set up with a neurologist (MS specialist) and an opthamologist.  

Deb