ON or something else?

[SonyaK]

I’ve had ON in the past, but it’s been a long time. But today, I’ve had somewhat blurred vision in the peripheral of my right eye (my previously ON-damaged eye). But what really has me confused is the way that when I watch TV, the faces distort until the eyes make one big eye like a cyclops.

So after noticing this, I tried covering each eye and everything goes back to normal (except right eye is blurrier). Also, when I look to the right out of my right eye peripheral vision (even slightly), things become doubled (unless I cover one eye- either of them). Only looking to the right though. And looking forward into the distance, it’s a little hard to focus (like stuff is jumbled a little). At forward close distance (like reading), my vision seems better.

It’s also worth noting that I think I’m in the middle of a flare, with my left side having a slight numb (can feel everything, but skin feels like it has Icy Hot on it) feeling from my waist down for the past week.

Does this sound like ON? I don’t remember double vision last time I had ON. Should I see an eye dr. first before calling neuro about this flare? I'm getting scared.

[MarkLavelle]

I'd see an eye doc ASAP, *and* your neuro.

I had an episode of 'half blindness' (hemianopsia) last year that started with peripheral hallucinations, and it turned out to be a stroke (fully recovered, fortunately).

[KatPem]

Sounds like it is definately ON to me. I am currently in my first flare up with ON. I had many of the samme thoughts about seeing an Opthamologist first but my neuro is convinced that it (double vision mainly and distorted vision) is a flare-up due to increased numbness on my stomach as well. I have also been wearing a patch as I can see fairly well out of just one eye. A couple fo days for about 20 minutes I had some light going into my patched eye and it was like wavy 'static'. I would definately call the neuro

[saywhat]

Also in an ON flare right now, and the one eye cyclopse thing sounds a LOT like one of my symptoms. I also had pain with eye movement. Had double vision, wavy vision. Things looked tilted when I first looked at them in that eye, but then when I would concentrate really hard they seemed to even themselves back out.

[SonyaK]

Thanks for the replies! Called the eye dr. and neuro. Neuro wanted me to see eye dr. first, so I did yesterday. Eye dr. said a person can have double vision simultaneously with ON (but I don't know if he meant that's what I had going, or just in general). He mostly wrote stuff down to fax it to my neuro.

My eye dr. (who's actually just an optometrist) said one thing he saw is that my left eye is 'overshooting' (or sticking or something like that?) when tracking an object/image to the right. When I look left, no problem. I have never heard of this. But he's having me follow up with an ophthalmologist who specializes in double vision. He said this will most likely resolve itself, but neuro ordered 3-day IVSM.

Thanks again for sharing your experiences. I think I'm going to try to patch one eye too.

[lisa1014]

I had terrible blurred and double vision. I also had a problem reading because when I would look to the next word the first word would disapear. I saw a neuro optomologist who specialized in ms. She took one look at me and said you have a new lesion halfway back on your right side. Sure enough my mri showed it. She called it optic tractitis. She said it was my ms but is different than ON it was causing blind spots in my vision. It cleared up on its own. Worth having them check for.

[Leah27]

I have a similar question. Yesterday at work, I developed, over the course of about an hour, progressively worse vision in my right eye in the center of my visual field. It almost looked like a migraine aura, but I never got a migraine, and it didn't "move" like my auras usually float or move if I have one before a migraine.

Well, it got to the point where I couldn't read anything without moving it to my peripheral vision. Almost like a dark blob in the middle of my vision. I didn't try covering my right eye (duh). It was bad for about 2 hours, then faded, so now it is just a little blurry.

I called my doctor, and she said if it returns, to go to the ER . (Of course today is a holiday- I do NOT want to get tied up in that mess...)

Anyhow, I've been dx with MS for about a year, but I never had visual symptoms before. Does this sound like it could be an episode of ON? The really bad vision only lasted 2 or 3 hours, now only a little fuzzy...... such a confusing disease we have to work with!