Hello Everyone,

I've noticed my MG symptoms have gotten worse the past week because of the unbelievable amount of mental stress I am under. I am slower than usual and my reflexes aren't as sharp. I know this is MG because I have been here before. I am having a tough time with vision problems that we don't know the cause for yet. It's not exactly double vision, although if I stare at an object for a while, I will get a doubling effect. My Neuro is sending me for MRI to check for Neurological because I am having trouble with slight metamorphopsia. When I try to read, especially black text in a white bakground, the letters slighty move around and get bigger and smaller and it's hard for me to read it. Certain patterns on carpets and walls shimmer and look like they're moving. I don't expect anyone here to know the reason for that, I guess I'm just looking for hope. I see a Neuro-Opthamologist Wednesday and Ive talked to quite a few people with MS but I can't find anyone with this symptom. I'm starting to wonder if it's a constant Occular Migraine because if I take a xanax, its barely noticeable, and first thing in the morning its not bad. It just gets worse as the day progresses and the more I am scared about it. Please pray for me. I went through hell getting MG as a diagnoses because a lot of doctors thought I was crazy. I was postive with the main blood test. We checked at too different labs to be sure. I'm getting 3 MRI sets with and without contrast in the next week too so we should find something out. I'm just stressed/scared and venting helps me. Thank you all.

I've figured out that everything about this disease is hard to understand. The first thing I learned is that MG effects four parts of the body

- Ocular muscles
- Neck muscles
- Chest muscles
- Trunk muscles

I have generalized MG, which means that I have weakness in all areas. Sounds to me like you have ocular muscle weakness. I have had a horrible experience with that. I have had two instances where my eyes will lock and I can't move them left to right and then I ended up with double vision. My neuro said that prednisone was needed to solve the vision problem and any swallowing problem. Well it did, that was four years ago, and I have been slowly reducing the prednisone dosage. Meanwhile, the prednisone has given me an advance form of osteoporosis which has resulted in fractures of my spine.

Why is it that you take something to help one problem and it causes another.

Good luck with finding out what is causing your visual problem. Keep us updated on the results.

Southern Bell

I'm so sorry you're going through such a rough time. Mental stress seems to make MG symptoms much worse, or at least it does for a lot of people. It can be a vicious circle, because MG symptoms, especially new ones, cause mental stress.

I'm very glad to read that you're going to see a neuro-ophthalmologist. From what I've read on this forum, those guys really know what they're doing. A lot of us got diagnosed by a neuro-oph when we couldn't get a diagnosis anywhere else.

I know how scary this all is, and I hope you get answers soon. It's pretty common for MG patients to have good spells in between flares. I hope you start feeling better very soon.

Abby

I get a lot of the visual type disturbances you mentioned, especially the shimmering. I have found that they are not as bad as long as my head is level and I am looking straight ahead. If I tilt my head or look to the side, things go wonky. I have a lot of double vision as well. I always attributed all the vision issues to the MG. The mestinon does improve the vision for a while and letting my eyes rest. Ice packs also help a lot. The pregnisone has not improved my eye symptoms.

I hope you find some answers. I had a very good experience with the neuro-optomologist. I am still pursuing more serious generalized weakness due to MG. Most days, my vision is the least of my troubles. They did note an enlarged optic nerve on my more troublesome eye.

kathie

Just an update. I am doing okay. I can only be some what functional on xanax, which is horrible. That is not my personality and I don't want to rely on any kind of drug to cope, but it's giving me some peace. Some days are harder than others and I have called the MSHelp line many times just to talk to people. The symptom that I am experiencing is oscillopsia, but without the repeated bouncy-ness. It happens when I am still or moving, and if makes any sense, its like words very slowly drift around like in Alphabet soup. Maybe its some kind of weird double vision-thing where my eyes are trying to compensate and it keep stay focused in one place. I've only had the generalized form, without ocular symptoms of mG. It's in both eyes, constantly. Anyways, I am okay, still scared, but, thank you to all of you with your support. I will keep plugging away. It's hard finding happy thoughts at times. '

Food for thought- When we look at a glass half empty or half full, remember, it's technically full either way, half air and half water. Kind of stupid but hopefully that makes someone chuckle... I'll talk to everyone soon

I had to look up oscillopsia. This is one of my eye symptoms too but with the bounciness. I get it when my right eyes is weak and I can physically see the eyelid tremble with weakness. This happens especially at night. Please let me know what they recommend to help alleviate these eye symptoms.

Are you on mestinon? Mestinon does make the eye symptoms better for a while with me. I take effexor for the stress of this disease. It does not make me more tirerd or less functional. It is just enough to take the edge off this stress. Good luck with your treatment.
Kathie

Im currently not on anything because my symptoms have been mild. Ill post the results on here after my appt. with the neuro ophthalmologist.