When I had optic neuritis the first time (August 2006, left eye) my good eye started to have problems. My ophthalmologist told me that it was trying to compensate for the ON eye and it was tired.

Have you been reading a lot? I know I tried to read a lot, in the dark, on my computer (dim light made things feel better) and that reading on my computer and dim light was making the good eye wear itself out.

There are computer programs that you can use that will "read" text on a computer out loud to you. On a Windows computer, it's in the Accessibility folder. I'm not sure where it's located on a Mac, but I think Macintosh computers have better voices.

I bought a program for my Windows computers (didnt have a Mac in 2006) that I still use to read even tho my eyes are better now. It's called TextAloud. I bought the full version of the program since the full version had better sounding voices on it.

I'm hoping to buy a Kindle 2 later this spring. (already have a Kindle1) The Kindle is a portable e-book. The Kindle2 has a nice text-to-speech feature on it. (apparently doesnt work for every e-book because the Author's Guild is being a pain in the butt about allowing their books to be read out loud by a Kindle)

If I get a Kindle2, and my eyes go fubar again (they seem to go bad every spring/summer) I'll be able to use it as a portable audio reader and not be stuck using my computer to read to me...and it'll be easier to find interesting books.

I hope your eyes get better soon. Optic neuritis sucks more than numbness does. (well, maybe they both suck equally) Optic neuritis is a lot more depressing, at least to me. Since my hobbies (reading, knitting and crocheting) are easier to do when you can see. (I can crochet and knit blindfolded, but I like to look at the yarn colors)

I never did do any steroids for any of the ON exacerbations that I've had. I just let my eyes recover very slowly. (took about a year for the first case of ON, the others all seemed to resolve within 2 or 3 months or less) I'm saving up the steroids for another bout of vertigo or something worse than that.

Good luck with the steroids. Hopefully they'll start to help.