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Vision issues when exercising?

So today i was walking around, getting my daily exercise, and something odd happened, my vision started going odd on me. It was like my vision was pulsing in front of my eyes, i was looking at the fence in my yard and it was as though it was zooming in and out on me while i was standing still. It was about 100 degrees out (i know i probably shouldn't have been out) and i had been walking for about 12 minutes.

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

I went inside and relaxed a little and it went away, leaving me looking grey, feeling tired, and maybe a little dizzy, but that passed too, and now i just have a mild headache.

Is this just a normal, pushed it too hard, mini crash of sorts? Ive only been sick 3 years this july and the range of symptoms still gets me.

Also i have been weening myself off about 120mgs of codeine, so maybe that had something to do with it?

Thanks all.
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
Could be a blood glucose problem. Diabetic are told to eat something
Sweet to keep their bg up while exercising. I need to eat something
Every 20 minutes. Tc. X
 

WillowJ

คภภเє ɠรค๓թєl
Messages
4,940
Location
WA, USA
yes, could be migraine; this sort of visual effect is common with that.

could also be blood pressure. sometimes that can affect the eyes.
 
yes, could be migraine; this sort of visual effect is common with that.

could also be blood pressure. sometimes that can affect the eyes.


This was mentioned to me by a friend, and like i said it was really hot, and i had been sitting for a long while before i got up to exercise.

Ive concluded it was probably some of combination of heat, sitting beforehand, maybe slightly low bloodsugar, etc.

Nothing to write home about, just another bummer, we've all been there,

Thanks to all, you were very helpful.
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
Maybe, my blood sugar is all over the place, its been as high as 130, and as low as 61 recently when tested. I don't know what that means, but my doctors have never said anything about it.

These are acceptable ranges so your doctor wouldn't need to do anything. My BG stays within the acceptable range too but I have hyperinsulinemia. I over produce insulin so my BG runs low. A GTT + insulin will give you a better idea of what's going on.

IMHO, the easiest way to see if this is a problem for you is to eat something sweet prior to exercising and see if it helps. It took me awhile to figure out that I need to eat something sweet every 20 minutes in order to avoid a long list of symptoms that come from hypoglycemia. We burn through available glucose in 20 minutes.

I'm using DEX4 glucose tablets nowadays but have used orange juice, coffee with a ton of sugar and milk, candy bars, etc as options. I don't do as well with fruit as I do some form of sugar.

BTW, If you have ataxia you may also have ocular ataxia. I had this but it went away when my ataxia did back in 2006. My ataxia appears to have been from gluten since it just vanished 1 year post GF diet. Ataxia can be dx via the Rhomberg. I used to fall over everytime but now I never do. Theglutenfile will have the info on gluten ataxia.

hth ... X
 

LaurieL

Senior Member
Messages
447
Location
Midwest
This was mentioned to me by a friend, and like i said it was really hot, and i had been sitting for a long while before i got up to exercise.

Ive concluded it was probably some of combination of heat, sitting beforehand, maybe slightly low bloodsugar, etc.

Nothing to write home about, just another bummer, we've all been there,

Thanks to all, you were very helpful.


I don't usually participate in symptom calling, it is just so difficult without any history, but this symptom concerns me. You need to write your doc about this. Even though your doc may have warned you about this particular occurrence as a side effect of Rif, it is still none the less one you are experiencing and one he/she needs to know about. Here is my reasoning behind my concern. Some medications can induce vasculitis, and it is not a benign symptom. The reasons why drug manufacturers list side effects, is because not everyone develops them, although some are more common than others. Now what is up to you and your doc, is to figure out why you are. Sure, those factors could of contributed/caused your symptom, but that symptom could indicate something they were not aware of in the first place. Vasculitis isn't just for a certain age group, it is a result and a indicator of something else going on.

LaurieL
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
That sight symptom too can be a result of orthostatic intollerance. I find that my eyes can do all kinds of weird things when I get close to a OI pass out (which can then happen very fast), so take care. (being a hot day when it occurred probably increases the probability that it could of been OI and due to low blood volume).

I went inside and relaxed a little and it went away, leaving me looking grey, feeling tired, and maybe a little dizzy, but that passed too, and now i just have a mild headache

All that sounds like OI too. I find I often get a "mild headache" after my brain has been a little blood deprived due to being on my feet, tiredness is often an after effect too (often still there the dizziness has passed). Have you been tested for dysautonomia eg POTS.... if not you should be checked for BP orthostatic issues and POTS.

If exercising is bringing on symptoms, you really need to cut back to doing a lot less there. Purposely doing "daily exercise", isnt always a good thing for ME people and can be harmful for many (have you read the charts with all the negative physiological things which exercise does in ME as found in consenus doc etc, if not, I suggest you do). If OI is an issue you may also need to consider other forms of exercise where you arent on your feet. Overdoing exercise can leave one stuck with brand new symptoms.

Sometimes its far better to focus on the daily on feet life stuff and getting that done instead, rather then doing something like walking exercise.
 

Allyson

Senior Member
Messages
1,684
Location
Australia, Melbourne
This was mentioned to me by a friend, and like i said it was really hot, and i had been sitting for a long while before i got up to exercise.

Ive concluded it was probably some of combination of heat, sitting beforehand, maybe slightly low bloodsugar, etc.

Nothing to write home about, just another bummer, we've all been there,

Thanks to all, you were very helpful.

yes agree with Tania - this is very common in POTS/OI - man even black right out eg when they put their hands p over their heads...

Yu may want to get tested for POTS if not done so already ...and maybe check out EDS where vision issues are common too.. good luck
World-renowned EDS expert, rheumatologist Professor Rodney Grahame (University College London) points out that, in America, almost 650,000 cases of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) are missed ANNUALLY, based on studies that suggest almost 95% of cases presenting to clinics are missed, most often diagnosed with other things (RA/Fibro/ME/csf, POTS/OI etc.). Check the symptoms of EDS at this link:
http://forum.notcrazy.net/index.php?topic=9571.0
 

Allyson

Senior Member
Messages
1,684
Location
Australia, Melbourne
This was mentioned to me by a friend, and like i said it was really hot, and i had been sitting for a long while before i got up to exercise.

Ive concluded it was probably some of combination of heat, sitting beforehand, maybe slightly low bloodsugar, etc.

Nothing to write home about, just another bummer, we've all been there,

Thanks to all, you were very helpful.


also it is worse in the heat as the extra vasodilatation of the major blood vessels means there is more blood pooling in abdo and hence less blood supply for the upper body
you need to see someone who knows about POTs for a Dx - many docs know nothing about it.

Ally
 

EtherSpin

Senior Member
Messages
257
Location
Melbourne , Australia
this sounds familiar, before I finished work at the end of last year I arrived home one day and seeing my father in law had popped over and was doing landscaping work I (stupidly) pitched in and started shovelling pebbles and moving around buckets of them, its happened many times since but my vision became less clear from the edges in, gradually getting worse and my world did indeed spin but I didnt see any zooming, my feeling was that it was totally cognitive, that i didnt have reserves to process the complexity of my full field of vision
 

Bluebell

Senior Member
Messages
392
post by young&sick

This can also herald the beginning of getting optic neuritis, so keep an eye on it.

I had a few episodes like this over a few weeks (not related to exertion though, I was just out and about doing errands and things) and then my vision/optic nerve was permanently damaged - which was later confirmed by several high-tech tests by an opthalmologist.

My vision has remained damaged for the last 6 months. The opthalmologist said he thought it was either optic neuritis (and because of my particular age, race, gender, and background, if I have optic neuritis now, I have a 75% chance of later being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis), or he thought it was early-onset, low-tension glaucoma that there are no good treatments for and which has a chance of leading to blindness in my 60s.

He's an older guy, and he said he'd hardly seen my pattern of test results before, and only then it was with a couple of his patients who were serious alcohol and drug addicts.

Since addicts' optic neuropathy is usually caused by vitamin deficiencies (B12, Folate usually) that are related to the substance abuse, I asked the eye doctor if my vision damage might have been due to any nutritional problems I might have, and he said it was impossible. (He doesn't know me, and didn't do any blood tests on that.)

I thought he was wrong about that, and I was having a lot of other B12/folate deficiency symptoms, so I decided to look into it myself, and see if I could turn any of my optic nerve damage around, or at least stop it from progressing.

I did the 23andMe genetic test and found out that I have some MTHFR gene mutations that can cause B12/folate problems. I'm now working on the methylation protocol of taking "real" B12 and folate, etc.

My point is, this may not be a one-off incident with your vision, and you may really want to go see an opthalmologist about this. It might be prudent.

Even though in my case there was nothing that could be done to repair the damaged optic nerves, if I knew then what I know now, I would have gone to the doctor even sooner than I did (I waited about 8 weeks to see if my vision would return to normal.)

That is because there are some conditions that can cause that kind of eye symptom (even just once, like you experienced) which need to be checked soon by an eye doctor. Such as brain tumors, all kinds of things. They can usually learn a lot about what might have been going on during that incident, just by doing an eye exam.

Note that from the research articles that I've read (I read and collected many hundreds on Pubmed etc.) the idea of "ocular migraines" was big in the 1980s but generally it's not a popular modern diagnosis today. If you need references for that, I can list them.