Pupil Hippus Anyone? (Pupils constricting/dilating)

[Jwarrior77]

Does anyone get bad exaggerated hippus where your pupils go back and forth from constricting and dilating? This is regardless of light hitting them. The pupils will keep oscillating back and forth. I swear I can even feel it do this and my vision will get shaky/jerky when its bad. I don't know how to describe it. It almost feels as if Im having mini brain seizures in my brainstem. My whole brain feels like it is agitated when it happens.

 

[Prefect]

Yup I do.
Some hippus is normal, but too much is indicative of many diseases. Also, really old medical textbooks state hippus as a symptom of Neurasthenia. Neurasthenia is what CFS/ME was called in the early 1900s.

 

[sometexan84]

Anything related to pupils like this is a type of autonomic dysfunction. Pupil symptoms are connected a few different types of autoimmune autonomic conditions.

I have some issues w/ pupils staying dilated in certain light. Multiple people have mentioned it to me.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Here are some interesting comments regarding this type of visual dysautonomia from a thread entitled:
"Does anyone notice pupil dilation (mydriasis)?"

Has anyone noticed that more often than not there pupils will be relatively enlarged in comparisons to healthy individuals around them under the same lighting conditions?

I've noticed this in both myself and my sister, it is not always present that noticeably all the time, but this seems to be something I rarely observe in other people but do in those I have met with ME. Again I think this may be more evident in more severe patients...

I do. It's often accompanied by headaches and light sensitivity. My CFS specialist noted that my pupils were slow to respond. I assumed it was part of the condition and evidence of autonomic nervous system dysfunction. The eye doctor and two neurologists never took notice (or maybe dismissed it).

I've also had this for last 15 years but i often wondered if it were long term effects from being in the dark for 2 years.

Sometimes my pupils are almost the size of my iris's. Sometimes it only happens in one eye

Yes!!! My mum says I also have a "wild" look in my eye!

I notice it. Also my pupils often dilate and constrict continuously, not holding their shape

Yes, and it gets worse the more exhausted I am neurologically.
It's also found in people with Autonomic Dysfunction, (lagging pupils) and ANS dysfunction is part of having ME.

In my case the pupils were different sizes for about two weeks unless I was in a dark room.

 

[Judee]

I don't think I get that but I do get anisocoria--where one pupil will be larger than the other for hours at a time especially after eating gluten.

It makes my eyes feel "googly" like one eye is looking up and one eye is looking down or something. It's very annoying and makes it hard to think clearly when that happens.

I think it is also what causes me to have episodes of double vision.

 

[Pyrrhus]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1417220826257051648

 

[sometexan84]

I've had people comment on my eyes being dilated in ambient lighting.

Also, recently diagnosed w/ Uveitis

Like Pyrrhus the virus posted above, the eye issues are part of automatic body functions, messed up in autonomic nervous system dysfunction.

The uveitis is more autoimmune and inflammation, which I'm getting more and more diagnoses of this stuff....

 

[Martin aka paused||M.E.]

I've had people comment on my eyes being dilated in ambient lighting.

Also, recently diagnosed w/ Uveitis

Like Pyrrhus the virus posted above, the eye issues are part of automatic body functions, messed up in autonomic nervous system dysfunction.

The uveitis is more autoimmune and inflammation, which I'm getting more and more diagnoses of this stuff....

Interesting. I have this when I'm getting extremely severe together with muscle twitching. I blamed low dopamine levels for it.

 

[J.G]

Interesting. I have this when I'm getting extremely severe together with muscle twitching. I blamed low dopamine levels for it.

It's exactly like this for me as well, the eye dilation and the muscle twitching. I've googled "myoclonus" a million times by this point. I also suspect that the cause is dopaminergic.

 

[sometexan84]

Interesting. I have this when I'm getting extremely severe together with muscle twitching. I blamed low dopamine levels for it.

The muscle twitching/spasms is another autonomic dysfunction and peripheral neuropathy thing

 

[Pyrrhus]

Another neurological vision problem that has been described in ME for decades is double vision (diplopia).
(One possible explanation for diplopia is dysautonomia of the muscles controlling eye movement.)

Double Vision
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/double-vision.11372/

 

[BlueCoffeeMug]

NCNED is currently conducting eye measurements study because the eye is particularly rich in TRPM3 receptors which they know are affected in ME/CFS

It involves:
1. Observations of the retina at the back of your eye using OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography)
2. Observation of pupil response to a 1 second flash of light using a hand-held pupillometer.

I'm curious to see their findings.

 

[Pyrrhus]

It involves:
1. Observations of the retina at the back of your eye using OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography)
2. Observation of pupil response to a 1 second flash of light using a hand-held pupillometer.

I'm curious to see their findings.

I'm quite curious too!

Regarding the use of OCT to look for nerve damage in the retina, there are the following related discussions:

Simple eye scan can reveal extent of Multiple Sclerosis
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...an-reveal-extent-of-multiple-sclerosis.21081/

Fibromyalgia Is Correlated with Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer Thinning
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...romyalgia-is-neurodegenerative-disease.46710/

Subclinical ocular inflammation in persons recovered from ambulatory COVID-19
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/neuroinflammation-in-long-covid.81396/

 

[Jody]

When I was in my teens and twenties, my pupils were dilated most of the time, so that there was just a rim of colour around my pupils. Noticeably so, because people would occasionally remark on it. My friends would jokingly say it must mean I was high most of the time. (I was not)

It didn't hurt, didn't feel different in any way when they were extremely dilated like that.

I think whatever that was stopped some years ago. I haven't noticed it at any rate and nobody has commented for many years.

 

[Pyrrhus]

"Normal" size of pupils in different lights:

 

[Pyrrhus]

Related discussions:

Dilating eye drops - took 3 days for pupil to normalise
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/dilating-eye-drops-took-3-days-for-pupil-to-normalise.51404/

Pupils suddenly tiny
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/pupils-suddenly-tiny.60705/

 

[Methyl90]

Acetylcholine (parasympathetic) norepinephrine (sympathetic)