That Shouldn't Be There

A couple of weeks ago I reported on some changes in my eyesight which were quite minor but which prompted me to book an extra appointment with the optician. He reassured me that though my prescription had altered a bit since my last scheduled check in November, it wasn't by very much, and since I hadn't in fact had new lenses for a couple of years what was apparently happening was that one eye was strengthening at the same time as the other was weakening, accounting for my eyes' difficulty in working together. Having diagnosed blepharitis, though, he didn't want to prescribe me new lenses yet, but advised me to start a new ocular hygiene routine to try and sort that out before reviewing what effect that might have on my eyes.

That's fine, although I did wonder whether as he'd just written a Master's thesis on blepharitis, as he admitted, it was looming too largely in his mind. I'm happily carrying on with that, but then at the weekend something weirder and more alarming happened. 

I've suffered from what my regular optician called ocular migraine for some while. This condition isn't really anything to do with migraine at all: it describes a range of visual disturbances which may or may not be accompanied by symptoms of headache. The effects, which I term pixellation in a particular area of my left eye but which a website I consulted more picturesquely names 'scintillation', often appear when I look at an area of single bright colour, such as the sky. They're there quite often, but not all the time, and come and go without any obvious trigger. They are apparently to do with a reduction in blood supply to part of the retina, and nobody really knows why they occur, but they don't do any long-term harm. 'You're lucky it's not in the middle of your eye', the optician said helpfully.

On Saturday I was doing some mild garden work at lunch time before heading down to Messy Church. I'd just finished when I was aware of what looked like an after-image in just that area of my left eye that the ocular migraine symptoms usually appear. Within half a minute or so this had escalated into a pulsing patch in which I could glimpse what appeared to be a picture, completely distinct from the rest of my visual field: I couldn't see it directly as it was off to one side, but I could discern a block of red and other colours and shapes. It was terrifying. As the seconds went on it became larger and more intense, until just as I picked up the phone first to call the Messy Church leader to say I wouldn't be there and then 111, it stopped. Absolutely, dead. Everything back to normal. The whole episode had lasted about a minute.

I can only assume that it's another manifestation of 'ocular migraine' given that it occurred in the same place, though I will keep an eye on it (ha) in case it recurs. Curiously when I mentioned this to Sandra the Messy Church co-ordinator she recounted her own experience of something which was quite like a proper migraine only with even more dramatic symptoms ('Sometimes my face goes numb and I can't speak'), and Marion the curate recounted the first time it happened to her as an 18-year-old student ('My whole visual field closed to a sort of letterbox shape. It was terrifying'). This evening Brian the O/C of the Air Cadets described (without me saying anything) getting flashing lights in his eyes the other day, apparently due to age-related detachment of the aqueous humour.  I can't recall anyone mentioning anything like this to me until I had my experience!

And not only that - the pain in my toe has returned although I don't think I've been neglecting my stretches. Thanks to Dr Google I now know more than I suspect my GP would want me to about the lateral plantar nerve.