vision

[aruba]

well my anxiety is back. i was driving with my boss and all of a sudden i got where i could not see for a few seconds. really scared me and i went on with my day. had a few anxiety attacks that day. then the next week i had the samething happen three more times. each time i was under stress but one time i was worring about it so much it happened. went to the er and they ran cat scans, ekg, and blood work and found nothing wrong. has anyone had vision problems before anxiety attack? could stress just cause this to happen?

[Paisleegreen]

I've only had spots when I was taking beta blockers and was weaning off. Someone said it was due to low blood pressure or oxygen to the brain. So you might be closing off your oxygen levels to your brain that made you think you were blind.

[Flyer99]

Aruba, when you have anxiety and your body starts pumping out all those wonderful chemicals (like adrenaline) one of the things that happens is that the pupils in your eyes get bigger, so you can see better and be more aware of your surroundings. Thus, if you have any vision abnormalities like harmless "floaters" (I have those), you can see these visual disturbances with much more awareness. Also, many people have ocular migraines before, during or after an anxiety attack. These cause visual field disturbances but normally no headaches. Another thing, once we have these visual disturbances we become hypervigilent. In other words, we are now looking for them, for ANY small vision changes, and if we see one, we get more anxious and round and round we go. And, yes, stress definitely can trigger anxiety.

You have had all those tests and were cleared. However, just for your complete peace of mind, you may consider getting a complete eye exam by either an optometrist or opthalmologist. If they give you an okay, then certainly you have NO visual problems and can chalk it all up to anxiety and then just relax if you have another visual disturbance.

Good luck!

[Paisleegreen]

Thanks Flyer99-- I forgot about us becoming super vigilant in our awareness, but it is so true! I see every flaw everywhere! Ugh. It is good to get the reminder why I'm doing that. Paisleegreen