Have you ever heard of visual snow? I hadn't ever heard the term, but I've dealt with it for a while now. I thought I was losing my mind until I finally was able to find other stories/descriptions of other people experiencing the same problem that I was having. I tried to tell my eye doctor last year, but he wasn't really listening. I think he was trying to have a normal eye exam, since I was at a WalMart and all, and anything extra was just that. Extra.
Visual snow is something that I have been dealing with, like I said, for a while, but I didn't really have a descriptor for it, except that I was calling it "seeing stars." It was the equivalent of when cartoon characters get hit in the head and have stars circling their vision. I started seeing these stars of sorts after I moved across the country and started experiencing really extreme anxiety. Strangely enough, some correlations exist between not only anxiety and this visual snow, but also with depersonalization, which I experience a lot of.
So, my experience with visual snow has been that, whenever I look at a bright, homogeneous surface, such as a blue daytime sky, or white, bright snow, I get very bright spots like static buzzing in my vision, like you might if you rub your eyes or stand up too fast. It doesn't occur in darkness, but I have horrible trouble seeing at night. I get a blind spot right in the center of my vision that is completely black, even when there is low light that I can see peripherally or low light that is directly ahead.
Whenever I see these sparks of light, I get panicky. It used to induce panic attacks, because I have some fears about getting cancer (doesn't everyone?) that I end up inserting into small pains, aches, or general discomfort, even when I know I've been checked out and am totally fine. I think some of this is part of becoming an adult and thinking you know what to expect out of your body, and getting uncomfortable when something that doesn't make sense happens. But it also is a part of having anxiety.
Well, apparently, there is no cure for visual snow, and most doctors don't ever have a patient that describes it, so they don't have much experience in helping with its symptoms, which might explain why my eye doctor brushed it off without a single question. It also might be because I didn't assert my concern with it enough. Typical woman thing, I think. Next time, I'll make an issue of it.
I guess there isn't much more cause for concern, at least. It's supposedly not degenerative, which is a positive. I just have horrible vision problems, and pay a lot for contacts already, so I don't want to keep shelling out for something that is just helping to damage my eyes. What if I could save my money and get laser surgery? I don't know if that will help. I read (before I found information on visual snow) that seeing stars was an indicator of a slipped disk in the eye, like a tear or something, but the eye doctor didn't mention it during the examination, so I can't believe that would be the problem.
For now, I will just ignore the anxiety around it, and try to study what exactly is going on when it happens, and maybe I can figure out some kind of link. It's also tied to migraines, which are hereditary and something I've grown up with, so there might be something to that. Maybe causal. Maybe not. Anyway, let's move on to something more interesting in the next post. Thanks for reading!
Visual snow is something that I have been dealing with, like I said, for a while, but I didn't really have a descriptor for it, except that I was calling it "seeing stars." It was the equivalent of when cartoon characters get hit in the head and have stars circling their vision. I started seeing these stars of sorts after I moved across the country and started experiencing really extreme anxiety. Strangely enough, some correlations exist between not only anxiety and this visual snow, but also with depersonalization, which I experience a lot of.
So, my experience with visual snow has been that, whenever I look at a bright, homogeneous surface, such as a blue daytime sky, or white, bright snow, I get very bright spots like static buzzing in my vision, like you might if you rub your eyes or stand up too fast. It doesn't occur in darkness, but I have horrible trouble seeing at night. I get a blind spot right in the center of my vision that is completely black, even when there is low light that I can see peripherally or low light that is directly ahead.
Whenever I see these sparks of light, I get panicky. It used to induce panic attacks, because I have some fears about getting cancer (doesn't everyone?) that I end up inserting into small pains, aches, or general discomfort, even when I know I've been checked out and am totally fine. I think some of this is part of becoming an adult and thinking you know what to expect out of your body, and getting uncomfortable when something that doesn't make sense happens. But it also is a part of having anxiety.
Well, apparently, there is no cure for visual snow, and most doctors don't ever have a patient that describes it, so they don't have much experience in helping with its symptoms, which might explain why my eye doctor brushed it off without a single question. It also might be because I didn't assert my concern with it enough. Typical woman thing, I think. Next time, I'll make an issue of it.
I guess there isn't much more cause for concern, at least. It's supposedly not degenerative, which is a positive. I just have horrible vision problems, and pay a lot for contacts already, so I don't want to keep shelling out for something that is just helping to damage my eyes. What if I could save my money and get laser surgery? I don't know if that will help. I read (before I found information on visual snow) that seeing stars was an indicator of a slipped disk in the eye, like a tear or something, but the eye doctor didn't mention it during the examination, so I can't believe that would be the problem.
For now, I will just ignore the anxiety around it, and try to study what exactly is going on when it happens, and maybe I can figure out some kind of link. It's also tied to migraines, which are hereditary and something I've grown up with, so there might be something to that. Maybe causal. Maybe not. Anyway, let's move on to something more interesting in the next post. Thanks for reading!
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