Almost 8 months post accident, still have vision issues
 

Hi everyone,

Does anyone also still have vision issues many months after your initial injury? I am almost 8 months out, and while my vision has improved from before, it is still blurry and "not right" yet. I had and still have other symptoms from my PCS, but this is the worst and most debilitating for me. Has anyone else had symptoms or a situtation like this? Please see my list below:

1)In the beginning, vision looked almost distorted. Looking at black and white text especially was awful. Words looked 3D like on a page. Eye contact was weird. My head hurt all of the time.

Now, the distortion is better, but has been replaced with blurry vision. When I close my right eye, my left eye seems pretty clear. My right eye is blurrier in general. I wear glasses and contacts and have had my eyes checked by 2 neuro-opthalmologists and one low vision specialist optomotrist. They pretty much say my eyes are fine. 20/20. I tried vision therapy and tried using a prism. It just hurt my head and didn't help.

It feels now like my eyes are always trying to focus. My brain feels foggy because of this, and I get lots of headaches. Reading, computer work and going on my phone are much more difficult than before the accident (though have improved since after the accident)

2) I used to always wear contacts, and now my contacts don't feel comfortable. So I wear my glasses which are better, but still not good. I never have found a good reason why my contacts don't work as well as my glasses now.

3) I still have light sensitivity. I turn the contrast down on my phone and computer. I wear sunglasses a lot more when I can. I haven't driven much at all, but being a passenger in the car at night is really bad. My head feels foggy and everything seems blurry. All lights have halos or bright streaks coming out of them.

4) Sometimes it feels like there is a sort of vibration in my vision...better now, but still there. Like if I look at a carpet or patterned floor, or a pile of rocks, there is this vibration in my vision that is hard to describe. I also see it in the white space between black text.

Can anyone relate to any of this? Do eyes take a long time to heal, maybe longer than some of the other symptoms...has anyone experienced this?

Thank you so much in advance.

cholie,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry to hear of your struggles.

It sounds like you may have problems with nystagmus, where the eyes do not more smoothly. I would expect the neuro-ophthalmologist would have noticed that.

Not all vision therapists are of equal skill levels. Maybe another vision therapist can help.

Have you had any treatment for your neck, specifically your upper neck? You may not have any other symptoms of a neck injury except the eye issues. Upper cervical chiros help some. Finding the right specialist to diagnose and treat a subtle upper cervical injury is a challenge.

Is this a continual problem or does it come and go? An occular migraine can cause this but they would come and go.

Your eyes may be 20/20 but what about convergence function? Convergence problems are common to concussions. Some of the treatments are not comfortable but the discomfort is needed to improve.

My best to you.
Eye movements in patients with Whiplash Associated Disorders: a systematic review

Yes!
 

Hi,

I am also about 8 months in and have not had much improvement with my vision. I often see a double image (fainter and to the upper right of the real image), especially with my left eye. It is most pronounced when I am driving at night or looking at a screen in a dark room when I notice problems with both eyes open Is this the same for you?

I have been to 3 doctors (Sports Medicine, Neuropsychologist, Neurologist) and their theory was if they can get my headaches under control, it would go back to normal.

My headaches have improved over the last few months, but no improvement to my vision. I would also like to hear ideas about how I can address this. I am suspicious that it may actually be the vision issues worsening my headaches.

hi everyone

for those of you with ongoing vision problems definitely get your neck checked out and the appropriate therapy if needed

Also, if you have not already done so, have a vestibular assessment done. I thought that after a year of vision therapy and prism lenses, that my eyes were as good as they were going to get. then I decided to get a vestibular assessment for my ongoing balance issues. My vestibular therapy focuses alot on eye exercises and these (while very uncomfortable to do at times) are actually improving my eyes to the point where its much easier to focus while driving, driving at night is easier and I have fewer headaches and no longer need prisms. I do still suffer from double vision but not as frequently.

Hope this helps

lb2k04,

Your vision issue sounds like it may be an astigmatism. An optometrist can check for this. [ I often see a double image (fainter and to the upper right of the real image), especially with my left eye. ] I have worn lenses to correct for this for 50 years. The fact that it is apparent with just one eye suggests an astigmatism and not a convergence or other issue where both eyes need to work together.

If it only happens from time to time, it could be an occular migraine. Astigmatism would be all the time.

If it is an astigmatism, you may have had it all along but you were never sensitive to it. A concussion can cause the brain to become sensitized to this because the brain has lost the ability to filter out the shadow image.

Cholie,

I recognize what you are describing, been there.

I did 8 months of vision therapy to get the eyes working together again. One was off and I couldn’t keep it on the object I was trying to focus on, I could move it to the object and it would wander off of it that quick and it exhausts the brain! Your item 4 above is very much like my experience from my right eye unable to stay focused on the object I intended it too..not talking about clarity but the ability to look at something.

Still 20-15 vision but as I was told that is a separate function, vision is actually much more complex and mental than I was aware of until therapy.

I saw the halos and sunbursts from headlights sometimes, not always and green traffic lights would split vertically, such things are gone now.

When I’m tired I can still notice the eye wandering some but know how to settle it down now.

Mark sent a website for neuro eye docs to me and got me started down the correct path for correcting my problems.

I was right eye dominant pre accident but am left eye dominant now, got whacked hard enough to change some things around I guess.

Bud

Hi Mark,

Thanks so very much for your response. To answer some questions:

1) I looked up nystagmus. Hmm, not sure about that. You can't see my eyes moving? I have been to a neuro and regular opthalmologist and they didn't say anything about that. I can always ask if I have another appointment.

2)I actually do see an upper cervical chiropractor who has helped me so much over the years, even before the accident! He mainly has helped with my headaches (I used to get them daily), and then since the accident has helped with headaches again. Not vision, though, from what I can tell.

3) It's a continual problem, yes. I know I have been tested for everything and I seem ok on it all according to the tests. The one low-vision optometrist I went to said I had a slight vertical eye imbalance, but when I tried to use a small, small prism, it didn't help.

I have this feeling that I just need to wait for my brain to heal, but when I talk to different doctors, they all seem to feel like it's been a long time and that my vision should be healed by now.

Was just trying to see if anyone had visual problems that lasted this long or longer.

cholie, One cannot self diagnose nystagmus. It is the test where a cop tells you to watch his finger move back and forth. A proper function would be a smooth eye movement to follow the finger. A positive test of the eye jerking as it moved side to side would indicate a brain dysfunction. But, the neuro ophtho would have checked that right away.

An astigmatism is a irregular shaped lens in the eye that makes an image look stretched or shadowed in one direction. It would not always be seriously tested for if it is mild but a mild astigmatism with the over-sensitivity of a brain injury could make it more annoying. It does not always effect acuity (ability to see things correctly like the eye chart). I had 20-20 vision when my astigmatism was discovered. It caused mild headaches but did not make it difficult to read letters and numbers.

Sorry, I didn't see everyone else's replies until now!
 

Hi everyone,

I'm so sorry but for some reason I did not see anyone else's responses until now, because I only saw Mark's response come to my email, so I assumed nobody else had responded but him. I was very wrong! Thank you all so much for sharing.

Like many of you, I have been to multiple eye doctors done the vision therapy etc., and while my eyesight certainly has improved it still has a long ways to go. While I am so sad that any of us has to go through this, it always helps to know that you are not alone, because I'm kind of sick of hearing how uncommon it is to have such eye problems for so long, and also hearing that not much can be done. For me, it seems that I'm just waiting for that part of my brain to heal.


lb2k04, my vision is definitely worse at night or as you said, in a dark room. My vision at night in the car seems fuzzy or hazy, and everything has a glare or glow. :-/ Hope you will be able to find answers and help!

Thank you truly, everyone, for your insight and sharing your experiences

Number 4 might have something to do with depth perception. It's also like my brain gets confused because of the complexity of objects perceived.

I have the exact same symptoms as you do, almost 7 moths out. And I think a lot of it comes from the fact that I always have astigmatism as well. Before the concussion, it never bothered me.

Do you find your vision problems more problematic when it is overcast, dark outside?