NO EYE PROBLEMS WITH MS

[marti]

MY OPTHAMOLOGIST DOES AN IMAGING TEST ON MY EYES WHICH ALLOWS HIM TO SEE IF THERE IS ANY MS DAMAGE TO OPTIC NERVES. HE SPECIFICALLY LOOKS FOR MS DAMAGE. GLAD TO SAY I AM IN TIP TOP VISUAL SHAPE.

I JUST WONDERED IF THERE ARE MANY OF US WHO DO NOT HAVE EYE PROBLEMS.

[Alicious]

What great news!

My eyes are fine too, thankfully. I've had other issues with them, but none related to MS.

[SNOOPY]

Hi marti,

In my 25 years of diagnosis I have never had eye problems related to MS.

[akafearless]

Mine 3

So far my eyes are fine.

Eye Woman Takes Off

I been studying around at the symptoms on here. So I'm back with another rant. hrrrrrmphhh... Makes you wonder -- does MS have another type othere than 4 or 5 types that already exist? An eye type and a non eye type? I have studied people's leg and body symptoms very much. I am sure my leg and other body symptoms and neck and head symptoms are very very similar to those with MS diagnosis on here except that so far mine get pretty bad but not totally bad and then go away after short or long time. But I am 64 and have always so far regained after a body attack.

Certainly the eye attack was the worst and very different in a lot of ways. In a way you could say it was the same as a body attack (numbness, tingling, pain, etc.) but like a volt in the eye area. This is a very destructive attack I had which went at my eye, the area on skin around the eye, the sinuses, like brain swelling, the optical nerve; the dilation mechanism of eye; a pain from eye into jaw like nail; sounds of crunching and sawing bones and sand dripping sounds in head and ears; a complicated and wide spread syndrome that changed. One day I realized that I was unable to look in mirror and decide to close one certain eye...these symptoms f Bell's Palsy are hard to describe. There was also the feeling like bing in a wet electrical field and tears seeming a bit like hot electric tears and flowing like rain for hours out of my eyes. This was an immense attack on the whole head eyes and brain and ears and horrible feeling like my neck was literally going to break off or was being chizeled off with an ice pick. The doctors thought I was malingering for pain pills. I am makng sure I never get diagnosed with having MS. Is stubborness and meanness the final cure?

[Redwings]

The estimate is that half the people with MS will have vision problems, the other half won't.

For those people who do have vision problems, I'd like to take this opportunity to say that, for anyone who wants their posts read by as may people as possible, please don't type in all caps. All capital letters removes the visual cues that tell what letters and words are and makes the posts very hard to read. I usually skip posts typed in all caps, and I know that some other readers do, too.

To reach readers with vision trouble, it's better to type in all lower case than all caps. Also, reserve colors and special fonts for special emphasis. Otherwise, anything other than the default font -- in black on white in lower case -- is too hard for some of us to read.

I figured it out about ON and MS

I think about this a lot. Okay here it is my theory: the bug that does MS damage can attack certain organs and parts of the body. In some cases it attacks mainly the eye and eye nerve portion of body. In others it attacks legs or arms or feet. In some it attacks torso or neck. In others it attacks spinal chord or voice box. In others it attacks the eardrums or fingertips. BUT IN SOME IT ATTACKS THE BRAIN ALSO. And those are the people whose MRI's show the lesions on brain. So logically speaking therefore: All of the above problems could be caused by the same virus/toxin/germ/heavymetal/etc. and it just depends on what area of body it attacks as to what the symptoms are. When it is able to actually attack the brain it shows lesions but the person could have the other damages and symptoms outside of any particular brain damage. It's sort of like a predictable tossed salad portion of damages. Some have 3 areas damaged like eye/leg/arm and others have various combinations of damaged areas PLUS BRAIN AREA damages. Could this possibly explain the fact that some people with the worst MRI lesions have less symptoms than somebody with only mild lesions? Just wondering in Oregon Pacific Coast.

[TED_lucky]

MS can cause any nerve damage, it's very random.

It's often noticed in the eye because the eyes are so sensitive. Some other minor nerve damage you might not notice, but even a slight vision issue you will notice and go to a eye doc.

My eye doc noticed what you thought was MS several times, later found out he was right. Eye not working properly and nothing wrong with the eye....

[Redwings]

Some other minor nerve damage you might not notice, but even a slight vision issue you will notice and go to a eye doc.

Ted, that would be great if it were true. What has baffled me is why so many people with MS who have vision problems WON'T go to the eye doctor, but either do nothing or call their GP or neurologist, neither of whom is trained or equipped to function as an eye doctor.

Is there anyone with eye or vision problems who'd like to tell why they chose not to see an eye specialist but to do nothing or call their neurlogist or GP -- or talk to their hairdresser or mailman about it instead?

Why not go to eye doctor with ON

Well you really have to go to an opthal-neurologist or whatever they call them to get an ON diagnosis a lot of times. I think each State or area has different kinds of ways of being an eye doctor. For one thing, regular mall eye clinics do not have certain tests needed for ON testing. I think that color blindness type blotchy color test thing was most telling about my vision damage. It was so odd to me to realize that I could not see the color thing right at all in order to see the X or O I was supposed to see highlighted in another color on the first blotchy color. Also the "fly" test as Dr. Keltner calls it. This is where you look at the 3D fly and can tell whether it is 3D or not.

Regular eye doctors to a certain extent with me seem to be evaluating you for "can you see well enough to function"....they cannot seem to "get" the subtle yet horrifying and disabling effects of severe ON. I observed they were not correct in writing down my symptoms as I had stated them. Obviously I am a brainy type who looks over every detail of everything. I got the files and studied them because I finally felt the need to know why they were treating me this way. It took 10 years to discover one reason was that I did not have typical visible damage inside eye that they can easily see.

I was having this new ON attack in hotter weather and was driving to eye doctor and my cell phone rang. The eye doctor called to say the ofice was closed to a power failure. I got upset and shouted into cell phone"OMG I am going blind and oh this is just terrible....."..... It was years later that I saw the file entry this receptionist did to my file. She lambasted me and exaggerated my insults and things to her on phone. I have been the victim of drama queen receptionists before so I know about this.

I finally got back to them and had my appointment. This appointment was made by me in reaction to another local eye doctor (very mature man) who had shoved me out of his office yelling "there is nothing wrong with your eyes and nothing wrong with your vision". This had been a very upsetting thing because I was unable to see his hand or arm in the confrontational visual field test he gave me. I guess he thought I was lying. He was violently rude. So I was now in second eye doctors waiting room with 3 young girls behind desk looking at me and talking behind their hands and making me feel they were talking about me negatively. They were. It turns out one of the girls standin there did not work there but worked for the first eye doctor who had insulted and misdiagnosed me. She spoke up to me rudely; "I work for Dr. X. He is really nice and good to me. (She was obviously there to jump me for my criticisms of him).

How odd to be badgered like this while trying to get medical help. They gave me no tests that could have easily indicated my problem. Like showing you that page with black lines all over it and if you have ON damage you can' see part of it right. Or the color test I mentioned above. No they just give you this standard test that shows nothing. Therefore after the tests they seemed interested and even indicated they thought I may have spinal lesions. Whythey said that I am not sure. However they offered no explanation, advice nor anything else and did not even offer the amber sunglasses that are supposed to help. In fact, I never received a bit of "help" from any eye doctor with this problem. Some of them told me to go to a regular doctor instead. If I did that then I could be sure to be jumped on and accused of lying.

I hope this partially answers your quetion of why we don't go to eye doctors anymore after first few times.

[Lois Shea]

Eye problems

My first symptom or almost the first was eye problems. I went to see an eye doctor but nothing like I described was wrong but I did need to get my glasses made a little stronger. By the time I went to pick up my new glasses they had completely quit moving so he knew something was wrong and recommended I see a neurologist. This was in 1967. This past year I have been having lots,of problems that I'm sure are due to MS. I will be seeing a neurologist Tuesday. I went for years without seeing one because I felt they couldn't help me. That MS was something I'D have to live with.

I have had MS a long time. It sounds like a terrible disease and it does not go away but their are lots of terrible diseses out there I'd rather not have.

Lois

[jojo18]

eye problems: sorta

i see double(ish), no longer a full double and sometimes see spots of light but other than that, no

[Leola Stotts]

Interesting question. My eye issues have always been seeing double, one view on top of the other. In recent months the top view has moved slightly off to the left.

I have seen a neuro-opth and have been told that I do not have any issues with my optic nerve. So. . . why the eye issues?

[Lois Shea]

Eyes

For the past year I have been having lots,of trouble with my eyes, breathing and voice.I do not know if all, part or none of this is a result of MS. I feel certain it is. My otolayryngologist thinks there's a good chance that it is. My cardologist hasn't gotten a chance to offer an opinion yet but I have had lots of test recently so hopefully I will find out soon. I see the neurologist Tuesday so I'll find out what he thinks. In the meantime I'm going to ignore it.

Lois

[rdmc]

Interesting question. My eye issues have always been seeing double, one view on top of the other. In recent months the top view has moved slightly off to the left.

I have seen a neuro-opth and have been told that I do not have any issues with my optic nerve. So. . . why the eye issues?

That's the same as me. I don't have ON, never have, my optic nerves look great. But I've had double vision for awhile...check into getting prisms in your glasses (if you wear glasses.) It costs a little more but has almost eliminated my double vision problem.

From what the eye doctor said, ON and double vision can both be symptoms of MS, but ON is specifically an optic nerve symptom, and double vision has to do with weak muscles in the eyes that can be caused by lesions in the brainstem or cranial nerves.