Seabelle suggested that the problem with my eyes might be Labyrinthitis.
To find out from the neurologist that I saw in 2005-06 why this wasn’t diagnosis for me, I had to have a real appointment. That was today.
It isn’t Labyrinthitis because I do not have circular vertigo, it affects both sides equally, it comes and goes, it is not affected if I keep my head still or move it.
I might have some sort vestibuloocular reflex as a result of an acute bilateral peripheral lesion. Nothing threatening, just really really annoying.
No idea how it would have happened. There are some medications that can do this damage but I didn’t have them and they are used only in hospitals and I wasn’t near a hospital at the time this showed up.
And interesting quote from the eMedicine.com the dr. gave me…
Although an impaired VOR is generally the result of an injury to the vestibular system, note that VOR may be affected by systemic disease processes such as migraines, depression, and anxiety disorders. With migraine vestibulopathy, one may see an elevated gain with visually enhanced VOR (VVOR), a testing paradigm where the VOR rotation stimulus is done in a lighted (ie, visually enhanced) environment rather than in the traditional dark booth. Patients who experience anxiety disorders may have an increased vestibular sensitivity resulting in significantly higher VOR gains and shorter time constants.7 Finally, those patients with major depression have been shown to have hypoactive vestibular nuclei, resulting in a decrease in the slow phase of the nystagmus. All of these disorders should be screened for and considered when testing an individual with vestibular dysfunction.
Since I have the migraines and depression and am very aware of the anxiety lately. Nothing has change on those fronts that would have triggered the eye problem but that doesn’t mean it isn’t related.
Oh the joys of annoying but not life threatening health issues. Le sigh
when I first saw the post title, my brain immediately went to labyrinths — as in oh no there are medical conditions associated with spending too much time tracing or walking or looking at labyrinths.
best of luck to both your doctors and yourself in getting this solved.
I was prepared to crack up if I had Labyrithitis. It would be so circular.
Well I’m glad you now know what it is though..sometimes I guess the wrong question can trigger the right answer!
Still don’t know what it is. Just crossed another possibility off the list and got back into the system again. I spent years trying to figure this out and after the neuro-optomologist dude said he had nothing for me, I gave it a rest. This just restarted the investigation again.
Still don’t know what it is or why it is happening but have some leads that can be followed up to see if they go anywhere.
Hmm it sounded to me like you did because of the triggers etc..oh well.
Did they ever suggest keeping a journal of when it happened? I was getting migraines at one point and went to neuroligist and she had me do a journal of what I had been doing, thinking and eating when I got one. It help to figure out mine were stress related etc.. and moved towards avoiding them.