Saturday, June 27, 2009
Visual Snow Visual Static or Aeropsia
Its been a long time since Kevin finished his chemotherapy treatments (1/2001). He is cured from the Wilm's but he has a new symptom which is driving him crazy. He has what he describes as visual snow or visual static. He says that its like looking through an old television set. He experiences this 24/7. He also has floaters, he sees rainbow colors, he also experiences depersonalization, diplopia. He is now experiencing headaches which he didn't have before the last couple of weeks. We have been to many doctors already. We've seen neurologists, opthalmologists, neuroopthalmologists, psychologist and psychiatrist. They don't know what he has yet. I saw a neurologist in Hollywood, Florida who I thought was great. She says that he has migraine aura symptoms. She says that he has hyperexcitability of the brain and that he is hypervigilant. This is the best diagnosis thus so far, at least its a name not "I don't know what it is it must be in his mind". Who wants to be this sick and see these things 24/7. I am on a mission to find a cure for my son and we will find it. We have an appointment with a neuropthalmologist at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida. I will give you an update on his situation. If you also need help or just want feedback if you have the same condition, please feel free to email me at sandraisazav@gmail.com or just place a post in the blog. JUST ASK!
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There is a neuro-opthalmologist in Sydney Australia, Dr Fraser, that has recently finished a study into Visual Snow. Her conclusion was that there is a mixup in signals between various pathways in the visual cortex. Hence the relationship to tinnitus. Her fix is to prescribe tinted glasses for the patient to calm the brain through visual means.
FL41's already claimed to do this for migraine sufferers, however they made VS worse in our case. The research suggested a yellow/green tint (ie Green). Prof Goadsby pinpointed a couple of neurons in the visual cortex with hyperexcitability. All these studies are interesting but seem to go down to an unnecessarily low level of detail and really don't help much, when the cause could be something as simple as muscle trigger points in the sub-occipital region of the neck or neuro-lyme disease or a hole in the heart. Many people know that muscle problems in the back and neck can cause migraines, it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to assume the same causes Visual Snow in some people.
LED screens and Halogen lights are also problematic. With new computer monitors 100x brighter in blue light than previous LCD and tube models. There are studies showing eye damage from excessive blue light. My daughter was initially using a new LED monitor at very close range, suffice to say this can cause persistent dots in almost anyone for a certain time. What if some people develop permanent dots from this usage, ie. Visual Snow!
What about trauma, mold, anxiety and MTHFR-based metabolic toxicity. All these are avenues for research, but neuron level research seems to be aimed at developing a drug treatment for VS, which I think would be a mistake given past experiences with migraine drugs and side-effects.
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