Update on visual disturbances

[Shine_on_Syd]

blurry vision

blurry vision

Thanks for reviving the thread Sherry. I thought it was just me!!! And my doctors are of no help.
Lots of good disucussion has been brought forward here, seems that there is a common link between those of us with valve problems and visual disturbances.
SOme linkage to teachers too LOL

 

[Guest]

Hi Sherry,

Thought I'd jump in here and address your concern over your high BP episode. I've had high BP since my mid-20's, so I've dealt with it for some time now. I've also been a teacher, so I understand the "stuff" that can go along with the profession. Dealing these days with the type of student you described (I wonder what his BP reading would have been at that moment! ) or the lack of parental support or the lack, at times, from school adminstration could raise anyones BP! LOL

I really think you would benefit from wearing a BP monitor like Bob has described. I think that would give you a good picture as to how your BP acts throughout the course of the day. If this isn't an option....do you have a BP monitor of your own that you could use at school to monitor your BP between classes? Or ould you set up a schedule with the school nurse where you could have your BP checked periodically throughout the day? Keep a journal of the readings and list how you were feeling at the time...noting visual disturbances or whatever...should you have a high reading. This type of information would be very helpful for your doctor to diagnose what is going on and recommend a course of action.

Thank goodness the end of the school year is upon you. Any chance that you could have that student removed from your room for the remainder of the year? I have a sneaking feeling that this is probably not the first time this student has acted this way? I know that you are a caring and compasionate teacher, but sometimes we have to cut our losses .... no student is worth endangering your life.

Take care

Julia

 

[Shine_on_Syd]

visual disturbances

visual disturbances

I was actually awake at 3:00 am thinking about this. Have we stumbled on something? is this thread just a random coincidence of valve replacement patients or is their a correlation?. I realize it is no a scientific sample.
I just wonder if we are on to something. I believe that I read in another thread that people like us who were on the heart lung machine tend to get a post op fuzziness.... I believed it is caused when impurities are realised in the bloodstream??? Something I was unaware of before my surgery.
Question, do any of you take beta blockers to prevent migraines./ I take Inderal and was wondering if I should try some others?

 

[Lulabelle1]

vision disturbances

vision disturbances

Hi Sid.
I took Inderal for 20+ years prior to surgery... I still had ocular migranes, and still had many many vision disturbances. It was always the same...it still is. The episodes invovle exactly the same areas, I feel & experience exactly the same symptoms as before. They just "let-up" for awhile.
I had surgery in 2001, and the vision problems & facial numbness quit for about a year & a half. But they are on a roll again...happening more frequently. I take Toporal now (among other things) ...it is also a beta blocker. I think it stopped right after I had surgery, because I was finally opened-up...or cleaned out....and was for once, getting the oxygen I needed. Now the episodes are creeping back...I've also been using my nitro more frequent, trying to hold out til cardio appmnt on the 24th....I think I'm re-stenosing (or how ever you say it)
Chest/shoulder & arm pains , discomforts, and the old familiar relentless back ache are once again raising their ugly heads....along with more
"vision & numb episodes". I'm going to ask & see what my doctor has to say about it....but I bet he beats around the bush on this subject. I fear another darn cath..and don't EVEN want to think about any other things worse than that. I do not feel it is coincidental that all us valvers experience similar episodes.
Lulabelle

 

[Susan BAV]

Sherry - Hope you are able to figure out the cause of your visual disturbance!

Melissa - I had what you are describing off and on for the last ten years but it is evidently, at this point, completely gone now, post-op! Also...

Christina - I was amazed when I read your doctor's misdiagnosis for MS on the previous thread (related to this one) because the family doctor that I was seeing, about twelve years ago or so, when I had my first occurence of this freakish optical manifestation, also scared me half to death with an MS "prediction." Fortunately, a visit to the eye doctor ruled out the MS optical symptom. I forget now what they were looking for but it may have been called optic neuropathy. Anyway, I didn't have it. I BELIEVE NOW THAT THE PRESSURE BETWEEN THE EYES AND THE DOUBLE/TRIPLE VISION SENSATION MAY HAVE BEEN RELATED TO MY PRE-OP HYPERTENSION, WHICH IS NOW COMPLETELY GONE! I had been medicated for hypertension for the past decade but the new valve evidently corrected that issue for me!

I still remember the first occurence that I had with this; I thought that I might have been having a stroke. But I was thinking, I don't have a headache. I thought about a heart attack but again I was thinking, I feel fine. The only thing was the sudden onset of the pressure and double/triple vision sensation. It would usually last a minute or so, as I recall. Oddly enough, when I would cover either eye during an episode, vision was clear in that eye. But the eyes could not focus together.

I had the episodes more and more frequently in the months leading up to the surgery, as the valve was giving more evidence of failure, or impending failure.

Another vision occurence that I had pre-op was frequent clusters of lit-up dots passing through my range of vision. The first time I had that was a bit over a year after my first heart surgery, when I was pregnant with my first son (twenty-three years ago) and we lived up in Summit County, Colorado, (very high altitude). It resolved after his birth and it began occuring again when I was pregnant with my second son. Same resolution. Then, at some later time, those occurences gradually became much more frequent. They too are, if not completely gone, so infrequent that I'm not aware of them now, post-op!

 

[Heather Fisher]

I remember my first grey curtain episode in my early 20's. The doc then said it was an ocular migrane and should happen after I was under stress and when it was letting up. I never really noticed that what he told me was part of the problem. Usually it would occur in the form of a feeling of pressure on my left eye with some dizziness. It would usually last less than 30 secs. I've also frequently had the ring of lights arond the perimeter of an eye.
I can honestly say, after surgery I haven't had any more such occurences. I've had a couple of students throw desks at me over the years but have never had the vision problem from it. Mine doesn't seem to be from anything but has been gone since surgery. It's sure interesting to read what others have had to say about this subject. Best of luck!

Heather

 

[Sherry]

Thanks to all for the interesting thread we've created here. Julia, ironically, just this morning, the chair-throwing kid came out of his in-house suspension to get more work from me and apologized for the incident, plus apologized for sending me to the doctor (word gets around). I can put up with him for a week and a half. If it were longer, I may ask for a removal. Yes, our school nurse has agreed to check my b.p. as frequently as I like. Lulabelle, your story concerns me because I have had relentless arm, shoulder, and back pain for well over a year, and no one thinks it's a problem, just chostochondritis or some such. Maybe my visual disturbances and all of the other aches and pains signal some heart-related problem, but who knows. I just appreciate reading others' responses. Calms my fears a bit.

 

[Christina L]

Wow, this is all so interesting - but confusing! I started having my visual spells long before my surgery and have had more since my surgery than the four years preceding it!

Are we ALL having ocular migraines and how are migraines related to the workings of the heart? Maybe it has something to do with the autonomic nervous system - the electrical current going through the heart that is messed up because of the faulty valves - therefore setting up a chain reaction. I'm sure somewhere, someone knows what this is all about. I got on the internet yesterday and tried to find some info - no luck at all except I did find some information about high blood pressure causing visual disturbances.

I truly don't think it is anything to worry about - just something to learn to live with - as long as the spells don't happen in rush hour traffic!!

Christina L.

 

[Christina L]

FYI - I have never had high blood pressure - in fact it was always on the low side before the surgery. Right after surgery it maybe got towards the high side, 130/80, but never got any higher than that.

Christina L.

 

[TSH]

This is still the best website on these visual disturbances I can find.

http://www.upstate.edu/neurology/haas/hpmidx.htm

The site notes that some visual disturbances may be "bright" or "flashy" and others may be "dull" or "gray."

Personally, I am on Topamax and it has worked wonderfully.

Ted

 

[Spring]

update on visual disturbances

update on visual disturbances

Now 79 years old, I have had what we once called pseudo-migraines for many years. Mine usually are the aura without the headache. They can be very distracting if I am driving a car. For many years there would be only one or two instances a year. The last few years there are more. They are totally unpredictable. At times they will come and go several times per day for days in a row. Then again, I will think--oh! No problem for a week, at least. Usually the aura starts around the edges of vision with the same look as heat waves raising from the pavement going on to pretty much cover the whole line of vision. Usually they will subside after a short period of relaxing with eyes closed. Opthamologist says everything checks out fine with health of eyes, thankfully. I have had cataract procedures in both eyes, but these visual disturbances pre-date any development of cataracts. I don't think there is any association there. My MVR has reached severe status over the past year. I am scheduled for mitral valve replacement or repair on May 25. Cardiologist presently has my BP at 125/44 with very low heart rate until the surgery. I posted earlier with questions about post-op. I feel good about the qualifications of surgeon, but can't help but be concerned because of age. I'm grateful to have found this helpful and caring group.

 

[MarkU]

For what it's worth, I suffered from ocular migranes with increasing frequency in the last couple of years prior to my AVR. I was traveling on business a lot at the time and that seemed to trigger a lot of them.
Funny thing is, I can't remember having one since my AVR three and a half years ago...

 

[Shine_on_Syd]

beta blockers

beta blockers

This thread has been most helpful. (BTW is the gray curtain the same as an aura?) Before my AVR,I would get the migraine aura/ ocular migraine maybe once or twice a month. But now things have changed, I am one year post op and I see glimpses of the aura all day long. The docs are useless. The fact that I see it all the time is not debilitating as things don't always get blurry. I just see the jagged lines most of the day. I rarely get a headache. As I mentioned in previous post I take Inderal (beta blocker) that is is supposed to be a migraine preventive, lower BP and a precaution since I had A-fib post op and get occasional palpitations. One doc has just started me on Paxil to see if that helps.
Except for Lula, no one has said if they take beta blockers.
My 15 year old son has migraines and he takes Atenolol beta blocker. He takes Imitrex too. I don't see a need for me to take Imitrex as I don't get the headaches. I know migraines can be hereditary but he has had three concussions playing hockey and that may be part of it.
I would like to hear anyone?s experience with beta blockers and if they helped..
Thanks!
James

 

[Gisele]

I take Topol XL 25 mg as a means to keep my migraines at a minimum. It works for me. Prior to starting this I would go from one migraine right into another one (and mine have been known to last for weeks at a time). Although I still get a fair amount of headaches, now they normally last for a few days to about a week and they are further in between each other.

I suffer from the double vision that some post op patients here are getting. It happened after my first surgery and would occur periodically for years. Finally when it had gone away completely, I had surgery again and viola..........double vision is back. It really is a nuisance more than anything else. Going next week to cardio, I will mention it to him.

 

[Spring]

update on ocular disturbances

update on ocular disturbances

I'm the senior citizen who forgot to add that I was first prescribed beta-blockers in small doses about twenty years ago for an aggravating essential tremor in right hand ( a family trait) and a sometimes detected heart arrhythmia which I now recognize was probably mitral valve prolapse. Through the years I recall atenolol, verapamil, inderal, etc. Presently I am taking Inderal 80mg.LA plus Benicar 40 mg. with 25 mg. of diueretic. until surgery. When cardio was attempting to lower my B/P to this low point to slow the leak, I had added Vioxx to the mix (from my internist) for arthritis pain. That helped arthritis, but I noticed in Vioxx lit. that a side effect can be to raise your B/P. That is what happened to me. Darn. Gosh, I'm not in such bad shape as this post sounds.

 

[Lulabelle1]

vision disturbances

vision disturbances

Hi.
I have a question for you guys that have the ocular migranes....
This may sound stupid, but gloomy days, flashing lights (stop lights, headlights) flashes from moving ceiling fans, or something that rotates, are the normal triggers for my ocular migranes (resulting in flashing zig-zag lightening rods with only a very dull, but long lasting headache). These differ from the double vision & numbness episodes. Does anyone else have these wierd triggers? If so, What strange things trigger yours ?

 

[Gisele]

Lulabelle

Lulabelle

Aaah, the classic migraine..............mine are brought on from glare/sunlight/any visual occurrences such as the sun trying to come out on a cloudy/rainy day. My aura will begin (flashing dots and zig zags) for about one half hour and then the migraine begins. Before the Toprol XL they would last for about five weeks. At times it just seemed like I was going from one migraine right into another. This differs however from my episodes of double vision that I get now. I don't think the two are related. My double vision seems to have been brought on from my cardiac surgery. I am not sure what is causing my double vision, but from what I can see I am not the only one experiencing this.

 

[bvdr]

Ditto to the triggers mentioned above. A couple of years ago our church services began to be filmed for television and the bright lights necessary for that frequently triggers one.

A few weeks ago I was taken off imitrex as my PCP thought it may actually make me more prone to have a stroke. He also inferred that migraines with the headache are more benign. I am now on verapamil as a preventative. Although it is working I now am battling swollen ankles and some shortness of breath so I might not be on it very long term.

Let me ask you all this.........when you go outside in the heat and then back into the airconditioning does that trigger an episode? I am having a problem with that.

 

[Sherry]

My eyes are bothered by flashing lights and the traditional triggers; they're also bothered by horizontal blinds. My mom has a whole sunroom full of them, and it makes me so crazy to look right at them that I have to close my eyes when I enter the room. Betty, you had mentioned that your doc said the visual disturbances with the actual headache were more benign. Did he mention that just the visuals were more problematic? (I never have the headache.) Again, thanks to all who have responded. It helps me to see that other valve patients have experienced the eye problems I have. I do have to clarify though that I've had traditional occular migraine symptoms for many years prior to my surgery. It was right after my surgery, (while I was still in the hospital) that I suffered from my first gray curtain episodes, five in as much as two days.

 

[Shine_on_Syd]

Botox /migraine prevention

Botox /migraine prevention

Interestingly enough, I was alking to a friend who is not have any heart issues but suffers from migaines. She mentioned that here neuroloist has suggested botox....new one on me.
Found this link for those who are interested.

http://headaches.about.com/cs/prevention/a/ahs03_botox.htm

Anyone had any experience wih botox/migraine relief?

Regards,
james