[JJIII]

Two Saturday nights ago I was carrying some boxes upstairs when I got a sensation that I had looked at a bright light and had a flash residue in the center of my vision in my left eye. I have bad eyes and this was the dominant one. I called the advice nurse and, after they determined it wasn't retinal detachment, told me to call in first thing Monday to schedule an opthamologist appointment. I was hoping it was a optic migraine, but it persisted. The next day it was still there. I called the advice nurse again and got the same response. So the next day I called in first thing and was given a late appointment to see an opthamologist. I had talked to several people and heard about floaters and had almost convinced myself that things were going to be okay. At the opthamologist's office, he concluded there had been most probably an interruption of blood flow to an artery in the eye and that there was retinal swelling. When I connected "stroke" to the event, the warmth was sucked out of my body. I am overweight and take bp meds, but had been working on reducing the weight. My blood work had been previously improving, giving me encouragement. But then this happened. The did the FA procedure where they put dye in my vein and took multiple pictures over 6 minutes to see the flow of blood in my eyes. After some work and consulting with another opthamologist, they determined I had had blockage in a small artery off to the side, one which provided blood dead in the center of my dominant eye's vision. It obstructs my ability to focus and makes reading a bit different. Needless to say that was one of the worst nights I remember.
The opthamologist sent email to my doc(PCP) and told me to call him the next day. I also had to go in for blood tests and a vision field test the next day. The blood tests(10 or so) came back normal. The vision field test said I had corrected 20/20, which misses the major difference in my sight before and after. I got a call from my PCP right as I was going into the hospital. He said he could put me on a statin and did--at the lowest possible dosing of 10mg. My brother is a doc so he had already told me some of the tests I would need. I recall needing to ask the doc for the echocardiogram. He said we would start with the carotid and then the echocardiogram. The echocardiogram would take a week or so because there are a lot of people in line, he said. So I asked him to put in the order ASAP. The next day I had the carotid artery exam. It came back uneventful.
My nerves were getting to me and I went to the hospital ER that night. The ER doc told me it was nerves and offered something for it. I declined. He bumped my priority for the echocardiogram and I luckily got to take it the next day(Good Friday) after a cancellation. They did a bubble test as well. Both were uneventful.
I ended up in After Hours Clinic a day or so later when my bp was lower than normal and my pulse was tacking around 96 or so. The suspect was dehydration and the doc said she would refer me to a cardiologist to talk about the eye stroke since the PCP and herself and the opthalmologist weren't specialized in strokes. My PCP saw that I had a referral in and assumed they would determine if I was doing a trans esophogeal echocardiogram--the next step in trying to find the culprit. I got a call four days later from the cardio's scheduler and I don't think they were aware of the reason for the call because they assumed it was for the Holter and/or event monitor that I had scheduled and set up the appointment for next Friday after I complete the Holter monitor.
I don't feel like there is a captain of this ship anymore, but when I return to town Sunday(I am off-island over the week in Hawaii) I have appointments lined up to install the Holter monitor, meet with the opthamologist, meet with the retinal specialist, and later in the week have the monitor removed and meet with the cardiologist. It's rather scary not knowing the source, but at the same time, I am afraid to find out that something is wrong. I am a 43 year old male with a wife and two young kids and I can't check out on them. This has been terrifying. There are two big fears that I have--that of not knowing if something is looming because I haven't found the cause and protected myself against it and the second is the possible loss of vision. The opthamologist called the other day and said it is possible the vision loss is permanent and described it as "you have done the maximum damage possible in the minimum amount of space in the center of your vision on your dominant eye". Obviously, I'm not endorsing him as a motivational speaker, but it brought the secondary worry to the forefront. I am in IT and need my vision to work. Obviously, I am able to see enough to type, but reading is a bit of a chore. It is like I have a smear or burn-aura in the middle of the focus area. I can work around it, but I don't know how I will take to long days in front of the computer.
Anyway, I was hoping to hear from people who have had similar things. I was looking to hear other stories and commiserate.

[mrsD]

I had a stroke in my left eye over 10 years ago. It healed up
In 6 months.

Did you have your homocysteine levels
Checked? This will elevate if your B12 is low.
The eye can be the first sign of this
Irritation of the blood vessels.

Also low magnesium causes constriction of
Small vessels . Using SlowMag twice a day
May help.

Your B12 should be 400pg/ml at least.
If this has not been evaluated, get it done
ASAP.

[JJIII]

I had read about your experience before posting. It seems we have some differences. Mine was in an artery and yours was in a vein, right? In what reading I have done it seems veins recover a bit more than arterial retinal occlusions. I did have that test done and was an 11.1 where normal is <11.4. The guess is the problem was either from plaque or a clot, but the carotid arteries didn't show problems on the ultrasound and the echocardiogram came back ok(as did the bubble test).

[Kitt]

Welcome JJIII.

A person I know had a stroke in her eye after having chemotherapy and it blinded her. I'm sure there are many causes for it. I wish you well.

[EnglishDave]

Hi JJIII,
Just a word of hope if your vision fails to improve. I have different eye problems compounded by the fact that my dominant eye is switching sides at random. Having read about this I find that it is not rare for dominance to switch with age and one can 'train' eye dominance. This helps when one is right eyed but left handed or vice versa and taking part in shooting/archery sports.
If need be there should be no reason your good eye could not become your dominant eye for work - even if it takes time to get used to it.
Hoping it doesn't come to this for you.

Dave.

[JJIII]

Well, three weeks later and no real answers. I initially did a carotid artery check that found nothing, then an echocardiogram that turned up nothing. The bubble test found nothing. Did a 1-day holter monitor on the heart and it found just a couple early heartbeats. Saw the optometrist and a retinal specialist and have been told that my eye looks normal again, so the damage is most likely permanent. To be honest, I can live with this level of visual impairment. But I can't afford another stroke, especially a more serious one. I just want to protect against it. I am now on 325 aspirin and 40mg of a statin, but no clue as to what happened. Met with the cardiologist last week and no answers. Nobody thinks the trans esophageal echocardiogram is needed. I go in for a Zio patch for 2 weeks and later I go see an aryhthmia specialist just in case anything turns up. They also want me to take part in a sleep study in case snoring leads to atrial fibrillation. Anyway, no answers, just flailing around in the dark...

[EnglishDave]

Hi JJIII,
I was hit suddenly with double vision while driving in 2013. MRI shows a large, jagged lesion through the occipital region of my brain (and rest of brain looks like shotgun blast pattern of smaller white matter lesions). Neuro could not/would not tell me if this was caused by a stroke, TIA or something else. In '08 I had a heart attack, and in '14 I became Brady Hypotensive while undergoing heart tests.

It concerns me greatly that I am going to suffer another 'event' and lose more function. It IS scary when you are dealing with heart and brain matters. You are following the right protocols, seeing the right Specialists and having a battery of tests, although statins are a touchy subject. Do you have high cholesterol levels?

Sleep study is a very good idea, not only for your stated reason, but also for the potential of new research that finds possible links between snoring and early onset Dementia.

Try not to worry too much about possible future issues, it will distract you from fully enjoying your family NOW.

Dave.

[JJIII]

I think I am finally mentally calming down. Thank you everyone for your comments. I am almost done with my first week with the Zio heart monitor and it is going alright. I have only felt a couple of flutters, but not anything major that would cause the stroke. Anyway, it seems the doctors have already come to the shrug diagnosis and are doing these tests out of an abundance of caution. Since nobody knows, the onus is on me to do everything I can. My goal is to lose a massive amount of weight in a healthy way. I have already dropped a good 15 pounds or so, but would feel comfortable to drop another 50. Anyway, fingers crossed and thank you all!