Reply To: Miller-Fisher

[QUOTE=Mike]It seems the one thing common to all MFers is double vision, but I find that term thoroughly inadequate in describing just how profoundly debilitating the condition is. To me, double vision means watching a distant TV station on a stormy night and seeing the main picture with a ghost just beside it. If that’s all we had, we could rightfully be accused of being a bunch of whiners. What we had was much much worse. I call it kaleidoscopic vision instead of double vision, but even that term falls far short of describing the condition.

I had two totally separate and distinct images showing up simultaneously on the projection screen in my brain, not a ghost-like overlapping but two separate pictures of about 30 degrees apart. My brain had lost the ability to resolve the separate vision from each eye into a single image, so it didn’t even try and instead showed both of them side-by side. Each image randomly moved around on the projection screen, entirely independent of the other. Up, down, sideways, back and forth. And if the object I was looking at was istelf moving, the combination of its movement and the random motions that my condition was creating made me literally sick to my stomach. I had to wear a hood over my eyes when riding in a car, and I never went anywhere without my vomit basin (isn’t it fun to vomit with an NG feeding tube in place?).

To make matters worse, my eyes were locked in place with the left one turned in so that its line of vision crossed over the right eye’s line of vision. The upshot of that was that objects straight ahead were seen with my right eye and projected on the right side of the screen while objects off to my right were seen with my left eye and projected on the left side of the screen.

All of this lasted for a good 4-5 months and then very gradually got back to normal over several more months. During the worst of it, a pirate’s patch helped. I could cover one eye for half an hour and then switch to the other side for half an hour.

That’s kaleidoscopic vision.[/QUOTE]

I totally agree with you with the double vision – it definitley was not a ghost thing. Two separate pictures every where. After 7 months when I get tired I get the double vision and still have it if I look side ways.
Sally