6 ms·

I have a (thankfully mild) inherited retina disorder. If you read the part about lasers and eye damage it’s basically that, but the “lasers” are faulty genes ra

I have a (thankfully mild) inherited retina disorder. If you read the part about lasers and eye damage it’s basically that, but the “lasers” are faulty genes rather than anything external causing the eye damage. And I can verify that at first my brain did an incredibly good job at error-correcting over it, but in the last couple years it’s finally been able to “peek through”. One day I was hiking and suddenly had black spots in my vision. Then after that I woke up one morning and noticed large black halos in my vision that went away after a couple seconds of being awake. A couple weeks later and I started getting flashing visual artifacts in the edge of my vision. Which is/was terrifying because I didn’t know this was a multi-decade process I was just becoming aware of and instead assumed that if I just noticed this much visual degradation in a couple weeks then surely I’ll be completely blind in a couple more? Thankfully that’s not how it works, the damage has been increasing at a slow steady constant, it’s just that the processes in place to correct for said damage do a _really_ good job at hiding it, until they don’t, so the rate of degradation seems much worse than it actually is. That said, please if you notice any new visual artifacts get them checked up on _immediately_, while my case is a slow genetic issue sometimes it’s a detached retina, which can happen for any number of reasons and can usually be reversed quite easily with surgery if caught early. I was “lucky” mine was genetic rather than physical trauma, since I didn’t go see someone until things got noticeably worse.

lijogdfljk 4y ago
I have self diagnosed (never saw a doc) Ocular Migraines, and the first time i encountered one it both amazed me and terrified me. I was working and i noticed something was off with my vision, i couldn't read a label. I went to the bathroom and didn't see anything. I eventually realized i had a large deadspot in my vision that my mind was just... autocompleting. It looked flawless, but then i'd pass my hand slowly infront of the deadspot and there would be this strange artifact. My hand would be missing a finger, or this odd blending with the mirror behind it, etc. It was like some poorly ML generated object removal. The scary thing was i had several, and had no idea. As i experimented with it further that day i was able to disappear entire vehicles (i wasn't driving thankfully), forklifts, etc. I've only had ~half a dozen in my lifetime that i'm aware of, but i'm still quite fearful of experiencing one while i'm driving. As i likely would not realize what was wrong with me, immediately. edit: Oh i should note, as the "migraine" clears, it turns the blindspots into this weird crystalline structure. Kinda like looking through a prism. It's a pretty crazy experience.
- mym1990 4y ago
  I get these as well, it seems very random. I might have one 3 days in a row, and then not have one for 3 months. About 15 minutes before the shimmering happens, I can already feel that something is off with my vision. The shimmer basically moves left to right/right to left until it dissipates in about 30 minutes to 1 hour. It started in high school, and back then the migraines were the absolute worst pain I had ever experienced. Now they are more or less just normal headaches(sometimes no headache at all even).
  - Analemma_ 4y ago
    Have you checked if there's a correlation with caffeine? I get these too, and like one of the other replies to the parent mentioned, in my case it's definitely connected to drinking too much coffee.
    - franga2000 4y ago
      I remember a recent-ish study that found a strong correlation at 3 or more (or was it more than 3?) coffees in a day, but was inconclusive below that amount. I don't know what the unit of coffee was (probably standard espresso) and I unfortunately no longer remember the source. There are a bunch of different triggers though and they vary from person to person. Coffee is one I hear very often. For me, the worst is the combination of at least two of {hunger, dehydration, physical activity}.
    - mym1990 4y ago
      Sounds about right, I drink a massive amount of coffee. The weird thing to me is that my routine is pretty consistent, but I get the auras pretty sporadically. I have also heard that dark chocolate can be a trigger, and some other things.
  - philsnow 4y ago
    > About 15 minutes before the shimmering happens, I can already feel that something is off with my vision. I've had only a couple of these in my life, both brought on by stress. For me they've both been preceded by about 15 minutes of a "feeling of impending doom" (which apparently is an actual medical symptom).
Tijdreiziger 4y ago
That reminds me a bit of tinnitus (chronic ringing of the ears). You expose yourself to loud noises (e.g. at a club or party), damaging your hearing, and afterwards your ears ring for a while. Your brain adjusts and the ringing stops by the next morning, so you think to yourself, "well, this is fine". Until the day comes that the damage is too much for your brain to compensate, and the ringing never stops.
- xSxY3fj5gVCmvWE 4y ago
  Wait, is that actually how it works? Makes me sad about my hearing. Not sure how I wrecked it - must have been headphone use at loud volume as a kid.
pissolati 4y ago
I have the exact same symptoms you described, holy shit I'm scared. But I already know it's also a genetic issue because my father has this kind of genetic issue...

lijogdfljk 4y ago

I have self diagnosed (never saw a doc) Ocular Migraines, and the first time i encountered one it both amazed me and terrified me. I was working and i noticed something was off with my vision, i couldn't read a label. I went to the bathroom and didn't see anything. I eventually realized i had a large deadspot in my vision that my mind was just... autocompleting. It looked flawless, but then i'd pass my hand slowly infront of the deadspot and there would be this strange artifact. My hand would be missing a finger, or this odd blending with the mirror behind it, etc. It was like some poorly ML generated object removal. The scary thing was i had several, and had no idea. As i experimented with it further that day i was able to disappear entire vehicles (i wasn't driving thankfully), forklifts, etc. I've only had ~half a dozen in my lifetime that i'm aware of, but i'm still quite fearful of experiencing one while i'm driving. As i likely would not realize what was wrong with me, immediately. edit: Oh i should note, as the "migraine" clears, it turns the blindspots into this weird crystalline structure. Kinda like looking through a prism. It's a pretty crazy experience.

mym1990 4y ago
I get these as well, it seems very random. I might have one 3 days in a row, and then not have one for 3 months. About 15 minutes before the shimmering happens, I can already feel that something is off with my vision. The shimmer basically moves left to right/right to left until it dissipates in about 30 minutes to 1 hour. It started in high school, and back then the migraines were the absolute worst pain I had ever experienced. Now they are more or less just normal headaches(sometimes no headache at all even).
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  Have you checked if there's a correlation with caffeine? I get these too, and like one of the other replies to the parent mentioned, in my case it's definitely connected to drinking too much coffee.
  - franga2000 4y ago
    I remember a recent-ish study that found a strong correlation at 3 or more (or was it more than 3?) coffees in a day, but was inconclusive below that amount. I don't know what the unit of coffee was (probably standard espresso) and I unfortunately no longer remember the source. There are a bunch of different triggers though and they vary from person to person. Coffee is one I hear very often. For me, the worst is the combination of at least two of {hunger, dehydration, physical activity}.
  - mym1990 4y ago
    Sounds about right, I drink a massive amount of coffee. The weird thing to me is that my routine is pretty consistent, but I get the auras pretty sporadically. I have also heard that dark chocolate can be a trigger, and some other things.
- philsnow 4y ago
  > About 15 minutes before the shimmering happens, I can already feel that something is off with my vision. I've had only a couple of these in my life, both brought on by stress. For me they've both been preceded by about 15 minutes of a "feeling of impending doom" (which apparently is an actual medical symptom).

Tijdreiziger 4y ago

That reminds me a bit of tinnitus (chronic ringing of the ears). You expose yourself to loud noises (e.g. at a club or party), damaging your hearing, and afterwards your ears ring for a while. Your brain adjusts and the ringing stops by the next morning, so you think to yourself, "well, this is fine". Until the day comes that the damage is too much for your brain to compensate, and the ringing never stops.

xSxY3fj5gVCmvWE 4y ago
Wait, is that actually how it works? Makes me sad about my hearing. Not sure how I wrecked it - must have been headphone use at loud volume as a kid.

pissolati 4y ago

I have the exact same symptoms you described, holy shit I'm scared. But I already know it's also a genetic issue because my father has this kind of genetic issue...