Bearygood
04-10-2007, 12:48 PM
Hi, all. I stumbled across this board by accident and I'm happy I did! I searched for this topic but didn't find anything exactly like what I'm experiencing so I thought I'd post and appreciate any input anyone has.
About 10 days ago I felt some pain in my left eye and it just felt kind of well, weird -- not horrible pain, more discomfort (and NO headache). I didn't necessarily feel there was any reason to be alarmed and was heading out of town for business so I carried on as usual. It didn't improve as the days went on and I realized that the pain seemed to be more pronounced with certain eye movements and that it strangely felt like there was a film over the eye although I couldn't really detect a specific impairment. When I left to go on my trip (other than my eye) I felt fine but by the time I got back I had the beginnings of a nice cold or sinus infection. I'm prone to sinus infections so I thought to myself "Ah, maybe this is the reason!" Amazing what we can concoct but I thought perhaps the pain/discomfort might have been the start of a sinus infection and then the congestion ultimately followed.
Upon my return I made an appointment with my eye doctor and nothing was really detected until she gave me a visual field test -- which was definitely not right. She sent me to an neuro-ophthalmologist for futher testing. At that point I was obviously more concerned but she was calm and suggested that it might still be "nothing" so I wasn't alarmed. Not so much the case after my appointment with the neuro-ophthalmologist yesterday. He repeated the visual field test with the same result in my left eye and tonight I am having 2 MRIs of the brain. I understand that my symptoms are not atypical for some stages of MS or pituitary tumor but that it's still possible it could be something else -- there's quite a list and they range in degrees of severity. Additionally, sometimes the internet both friend AND foe in terms of TOO much information! I'm not jumping to conclusions here but through searching, I did find additional symptoms I've experienced over the last year which I never even THOUGHT to mention to either doctor. Two of these things are my left arm more than "falling asleep" -- not just a tingling feeling -- it went completely limp and also I've had 2 or 3 episodes of my vision kind of "flashing". Last but not least, I also managed to find some symptoms of itching skin associated vision impairment.
All this said, I am not being an alarmist. Certainly, I'm worried but not jumping to any conclusions. I am the type of person who does best when they're informed so that I don't completely lose it in the doctor's office if it's not good news when the MRI results come in. So, this brought me to post on this board. I am curious to see if anyone else has had similar problems and what the outcome was. I did speak to my ENT and unfortunately he said it didn't sound like merely a sinus infection could be the culprit. :( I am also hypo-thyroid and was tested for diabetes last year -- mentioning that because I saw some of these symptoms come up as part of diabetes.
I am obviously hoping that it's a small issue and also that my visual field loss will be restored but I am realistic enough to know that it might not be the case. I appreciate any experience people on this board can offer.
Thank you so much in advance and I wish all of you on here the very best with everything you're going through!
About 10 days ago I felt some pain in my left eye and it just felt kind of well, weird -- not horrible pain, more discomfort (and NO headache). I didn't necessarily feel there was any reason to be alarmed and was heading out of town for business so I carried on as usual. It didn't improve as the days went on and I realized that the pain seemed to be more pronounced with certain eye movements and that it strangely felt like there was a film over the eye although I couldn't really detect a specific impairment. When I left to go on my trip (other than my eye) I felt fine but by the time I got back I had the beginnings of a nice cold or sinus infection. I'm prone to sinus infections so I thought to myself "Ah, maybe this is the reason!" Amazing what we can concoct but I thought perhaps the pain/discomfort might have been the start of a sinus infection and then the congestion ultimately followed.
Upon my return I made an appointment with my eye doctor and nothing was really detected until she gave me a visual field test -- which was definitely not right. She sent me to an neuro-ophthalmologist for futher testing. At that point I was obviously more concerned but she was calm and suggested that it might still be "nothing" so I wasn't alarmed. Not so much the case after my appointment with the neuro-ophthalmologist yesterday. He repeated the visual field test with the same result in my left eye and tonight I am having 2 MRIs of the brain. I understand that my symptoms are not atypical for some stages of MS or pituitary tumor but that it's still possible it could be something else -- there's quite a list and they range in degrees of severity. Additionally, sometimes the internet both friend AND foe in terms of TOO much information! I'm not jumping to conclusions here but through searching, I did find additional symptoms I've experienced over the last year which I never even THOUGHT to mention to either doctor. Two of these things are my left arm more than "falling asleep" -- not just a tingling feeling -- it went completely limp and also I've had 2 or 3 episodes of my vision kind of "flashing". Last but not least, I also managed to find some symptoms of itching skin associated vision impairment.
All this said, I am not being an alarmist. Certainly, I'm worried but not jumping to any conclusions. I am the type of person who does best when they're informed so that I don't completely lose it in the doctor's office if it's not good news when the MRI results come in. So, this brought me to post on this board. I am curious to see if anyone else has had similar problems and what the outcome was. I did speak to my ENT and unfortunately he said it didn't sound like merely a sinus infection could be the culprit. :( I am also hypo-thyroid and was tested for diabetes last year -- mentioning that because I saw some of these symptoms come up as part of diabetes.
I am obviously hoping that it's a small issue and also that my visual field loss will be restored but I am realistic enough to know that it might not be the case. I appreciate any experience people on this board can offer.
Thank you so much in advance and I wish all of you on here the very best with everything you're going through!