Almost 1 Year - Side Effect?

[lieb2101]

Hey all,

Haven't been here in some time. My surgery was about 11 months ago and I feel better than I've ever felt in my entire life.

However, I do have a troubling side effect and I wanted to see if anyone else has ever experienced anything like it: At random intervals, a few times a week, and sometimes following exercise, I get a dizzy spell and my eyes go in different directions. This lasts for a couple minutes and then everything clears up and my eyes go back to normal.

I've been to an eye doc and got a clean check out there...
I talked to my cardiologist, and apparently, there is another guy who had my same surgery from the same doc who has an almost identical issue. He's currently reviewing my case with an opto-neurologist. Apparently it may be some kind of ocular migraine? Not sure as I have always had regular migraines my whole life. I guess being on reverse bypass for 7 hours and being chilled down was destined to leave me with some kind of crazy side effect. I'm just concerned as it sometimes seems like it's getting worse. If that's all I get in the way of "pump head", then I guess I'll take it.

Peace,
Brian

 

[Eva]

Brian,

Good luck with the results. Hope it is nothing serious. Sorry, I personally did not hear anything like this. You said random, but do you notice any pattern of what you were doing just before this happens?!

 

[Bina]

During my first year post op I had many brief dizzy spells with vision issues....the second year I only had a very few, and this year I've probably only had a couple. I am still on the same meds, Metoprolol and Coumadin.
HOpefully your episodes will diminish just as mine have, but pls keep us posted on what the docs find out.

 

[JeffM]

Brian - Like you, I have suffered from migraines for years. I had the double vision, which typically lasted less than a minute, a handful of times over the years. I had never associated it with my migraines. I thought it might be sinus congestion. Then, after my surgery, my migraine frequency jumped from 2-3 per month to 2 or 3 per day, but they rarely were accompanied by pain. I was also getting a dramatically increased number of double vision incidents. As the migraine frequency dropped off over the weeks, so did my double vision incidents. Now, I'm still getting more frequent migraines than pre-op and more double visions than pre-op, but I'm hopeful the frequency will continue to diminish. I also notice a daily incidence of something I prefer to call "pre-migrainal symptoms", in which, I get these tiny dots that float from one side of my field of vision to the other in about a second or two. The dots appear white and illiuminated. Typically, when I get these, I am more likely to get a migraine. FYI, I have seen other posts on VR referring to double vision suspecting a connection to migraines. I personally can't believe there isn't a connection and that the increase of double vision and migraine aren't associated with the surgery, the heart/lung machine, the anesthesia, the post op meds, etc, etc. Interestingly, no medical professionals warned me of this possibility.

 

[Bina]

Yes, I've had "visual" migraines with the sparkling aura for about 25 years. When I was younger I got horrible nausea and pain with it. Thankfully that is no longer the case.

 

[Ross]

What prescriptions are you on?

 

[lieb2101]

Thanks for the replies gang! Good to know I'm at least not alone...
JeffM, it sounds like I have the EXACT same thing going on... I certainly get the pre-migraine symptoms more often without an actual migraine developing. I'll let everyone know if I can talk to a specialist about it.

Ross, as for medication, the only thing I'm on is 25mg of toporol and baby aspirin, hardly anything really. I have noticed that the toporol helps with the pain that usually comes with my migraines but I'm trying to stay on a low dose of it because I was getting some nasty depression side effects from it.

-Brian

 

[JCSydney]

Hi Brian,

I'm 10 months post surgery and suffer from positional vertigo every now and then, as my cardio calls it. I've been told not to worry about it. It generally only lasts a minute or two, I grab a hold of something until it passes. I'm told it in an artefact of the hours on the heart lung machine.

Best wishes and a safe and happy Christmas and New Year to you and yours.

Jeff