Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with blindness

My EYES! What have you done to me EYES!

orville sash — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:33:57 -0800

I know YANMED (you are not my eye doctor) but why the hell is it harder for me to see after my prescription was updated? I went to the eye doctor about a month ago to get my prescription updated and get new glasses. After about a week and a half, I began to notice that things were actually al ittle blurrier than they had been (it was kind of hard to tell at first, because it's not a stark change, but I ride my bike to and from work, and I found myself feeling like I had a harder time figuring out what was going on when I was riding down busy streets because I couldn't focus as well.)

I made a follow up appointment with my eye doctor and had them recheck my eyes, and they basically came up with the same prescription (the doctor in question said it was a difference of "about a quarter," whatever the hell that means). She then had me put on my new glasses, set the eye chart on the other end of the room, and asked me if I could read it. I could. She told me "If you are able to read that, that's 20/20 vision."

She went on to explain that because I work with computers, it's possible that my eyes are tired from looking at the screen, and I should try resting them every 25 minutes or so. However, I just can't get over the fact that I went and got a new prescription and it is now WORSE than it was previously. I have tried the "resting my eyes" technique she suggested - staring out the window and focusing on the furthest possible thing for about 30 seconds before going back to work - but it hasn't really made a difference.

Can anyone out there explain to me what might have happened in this scenario? More importantly, what should my next step be? I obviously don't want to have diminished eyesight, but I also don't want to have to throw a ton of money at getting my eyes rechecked somewhere else.

What chance does our cat have of recovery after seizures and coma?

geekgirl397 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:37:06 -0800

Cat in recovery from suspected poisoning. Came out of post-seizure coma, now has suspected blindness, partial paralysis. What do we do next? We found our otherwise healthy 7-year-old cat unconscious on our (5th floor) back deck yesterday at 6.30am. Got her to the emergency room within a half hour. She was limp, unresponsive, pupils constricted almost to vanishing. Tests & X-rays showed no trauma, but hypothermia (low body temp) & hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) as well as shock. She had seizures, both before and after we found her.

After ~24 hours on a glucose drip, in an incubator, with supplemental oxygen, antibiotics (in case of undiagnosed infection), atropine (I think - some kind of antidote for an unknown poison), stomach pumping & ingestion of activated charcoal, she woke up and started eating, responding, moving.

HOWEVER, as of 3 hours post-coma, she still could not support herself on her back legs, and the vet suspected some neurological problems. We've taken her to a neurologist where she is awaiting a consult (while still on an IV). The intern who did see her thinks she may be blind, but i guess we'll know more when she's had a full workup.

This cat's recovery so far is just miraculous. We thought that she was a goner for sure, and I'm pretty certain so did the emergency vet practice, as there was a real sense of surprise & jubilation when we came to get her this morning.

I wonder if anybody else out there has had a cat go through seizures/unconsciousness and then had residual problems. Were they temporary, or permanent?

From the internet research I've done, it looks to me like neurological symptoms such as temporary blindness and paralysis are not uncommon post seizure. What I'd like to know is how soon we should be expecting a change.

We've been warned that the neurologist may want to do an MRI (at a cost of ~3K). We don't want to put our cat through anything unnecessary but we do want to give her the best chance. On the one hand, if, via the MRI, they found swelling putting pressure on nerves, spine or brain, that they could fairly simply surgically relieve, and therefore 'repair' - it might just be worth it. And I imagine we'd want to get this diagnosed & treated ASAP.

On the other hand, she was very, very, very ill and she's been making progress since waking up that you can literally measure by the hour, we strongly suspect is still in with a good chance of recovering on her own (or maybe with some anti inflammatories, steroids etc.). In the ~2 hours between leaving the first emergency vet office and being seen by the neurologist's intern, she had gone from being unable to use her back legs at all to being able to crawl a bit using them.

Anyone seen anything like this - an unidentified poison causing seizures and coma? What about recovery after seizures anyway - could we still be seeing "spontaneous" recovery days rather than minutes after the incident?

We don't want to put our cat through unnecessary pain & distress if it turns out she's unlikely to be able to be treated, or if treatment may not give her any quality of life. But we don't want to give up on her too early.

Any advice?

thanks!!

Careers in the dim future

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:16:51 -0800

I have some long term degenerative eye problems that may result in blindness over the next 10-20 years. What are some fields in which I could prosper despite this potential handicap? I have seen a number of eye doctors about the condition and there are no current treatments likely to change the progression of the disease. I have made my peace with this eventuality and am not depressed about it.

I'm in my mid-thirties and currently do light programming and sysadmin work in the healthcare field, but am looking for a change. Possibilities include law, clinical trials work, biostatistics, or some type of software implementation work. The job needs to pay reasonably well to keep up with increasing healthcare costs as time goes on. I am not an extrovert but enjoy interacting with people.

What the **** happened to all the lights?!?!?!

parjanya — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:46:16 -0800

How do I rationalise the prospect of suddenly going completely (and permanently) blind? I'm trying to lessen the fear I get when I think of losing my sight - because for me, my vision is the most important sense I have. I love reading, I love watching movies, basically most of what I love originates from sight. I can't imagine what life would become if I didn't have my sight. How would one prepare themselves so that if they ever did lose their sight, it wouldn't feel like the world has ended? How do you, I guess, lessen the shock factor?

And for anyone who has lost their sight completely, how did you adjust?

Risks of T1 Diabetes and pregnancy

mccn — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:56:10 -0800

As a Type I diabetic, the two risks of 1) passing the genes for diabetes through the population and to your child at a 100% greater risk than in the general population and 2) pregnancy-induced retinopathy (which could eventually lead to blindness) make me seriously doubt whether pregnancy is a viable option. How did other people think about these issues, and what made the difference in making this choice? I have Type I (juvenile, insulin-dependent) diabetes; I’ve had it sine 1985. Over the past ten years at least, I’ve been very well-controlled – when I was in highschool and college, I struggled with it, and didn’t keep great control then. I’ve used an insulin pump for almost three years now. My A1cs have been under 6.5 for at least three years straight now, and the only complication I have yet experienced is a case of trigger finger, which cleared up with a cortisone shot a while ago and hasn’t yet come back. I’m otherwise pretty healthy, though I need to go more exercise than I do.

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately about Type I diabetes and pregnancy. I know that many diabetic women can – and do – have healthy biological children. But there are two issues that I can’t really decide how to think about. I’d love input both from diabetic women who’ve thought about these things, whether they decided to have children or not and anyone who has some good insight into these. I think, in the end, the choice of whether or not to go down that road has to do with an individual’s personal risk tolerance – but I’d greatly welcome insight from others to help inform my thinking.

The first issue is the issue of transmitting the disease. Leaving aside the question of whether I have a responsibility not to pass my genes on in the gene pool (which I do consider), I am concerned about the likelihood of passing the disease on to a child – and how I would manage to deal with the consequences of having done so. The ADA’s web site compiles the statistics conveniently: in my case, I am older than 25 (risk to child: 1/100), but I developed the disease before age 11 (doubles the risk – 1/50). I do not believe that I have type 2 polyglandular autoimmune syndrome – although, I don’t actually know – which would make the risk 50%. 1 in 50 is a 2% risk; that’s as low as the risk of a child developing AIDS if the mother has AIDS if proper preventative measures are used. It’s the approximate risk of a child developing Downs for a mother age 42-43. The risk of a child having Type I in the general population, however, is 0.0037% - 0.02%. Which, if I’m doing my math right, means that by having a child myself, I would be increasing the risk of my child having this disease one hundred times. How could I justify that as a parent? Isn’t my job to always strive for the best health and safety options for a child? In that case, how can I expose a child to one hundred times more risk of a disease that I find extremely arduous and difficult – and one that has scary consequences? Also, anecdotally,, most biological mothers with Type I that I have encountered have at least one child with Type I.

The second issue is the health risk to me. The complication of diabetes I fear most is blindness. When I initially examined the idea of pregnancy with my endocrinologist, she mentioned that if I wanted to do that, we would need to keep a close watch on my vision because the one thing they see in pregnancy is eye complications – ‘even in women who haven’t had them before.’ I researched the issue a lot – and I’ve come up divided. Some articles say that pregnancy will result in retinopathy even in women without pre-existing eye damage; some say that good control is key and you can get through pregnancy without damaging your eyes. Part of me thinks that even a small risk of causing damage to my eyes isn’t worth it. But then, still other articles say I’m going to get retinopathy anyway, no matter what I do. And then, the other part of me says – if I’m going to get it anyway, well, then this is a non-issue.

How did people think about these issues? What really made the difference to you? (In the interests of full disclosure, I’m not even sure I want to have children in the first place – but I figure I should try to work this stuff out as soon as I can, and if we do decide we want to have kids, we’ll also have to decide whether we want to try for bio-kids or adopt.)

A glass darkly

Artw — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:21:38 -0800

When and why did it become the convention that blind people would wear dark glasses? Would the purpose be to hide the eyes or to act as a signifier of blindness? Is it something that is done less these days and what are the reasons why?

Please help.

srs — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 11:15:10 -0800

Are there any famous or not-so-famous epidemics with blindness as an indicative symptom? If so, which? How and/or why? Also, how could you make the argument that blindness is an epidemic, if schizophrenia were to "cure" blindness, or vice versa? I'm sorry if I should have posted that one separately in the "religion & philosophy" category.

Is my cat abnormally stupid, or is she a little blind?

gwenlister — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:57:50 -0800

Is my cat abnormally stupid, or is she a little blind? (note: I'm leaning towards that she is stupid) I adopted my cat, Rhubarb, from my local SPCA in January. I love her so hard, I can hardly breathe, but her behaviour is weird. I have had cats before, but they have seemed fairly intelligent. Rhubarb, on the other hand, seems ridiculously stunned. For example:
- Every morning when I wake up I call for her and she comes into the bedroom for her morning cuddles. More often than not when she attempts to jump onto my bed she misses and ends up jumping head first into the side of the mattress. She'll do that once or twice until she gives up and just meows from the floor until I pick her up. (In her defense, it is an extra high bed, but still...)
- she has yet to figure out how to open a door that is already slightly ajar (ie. she hasn't figured out how to put her paw in the door and open it enough to fir through)
- I put a sock on her head once (it was loose, don't freak out) but rather than trying to get it off she just sat there and didn't move until I took it off....
- she sometimes falls off the bed during her morning cuddles. She likes to flop down on her side so I can rub her tummy and sometimes she kinda flops off the side of the mattress.

Someone suggested to me that much of this could be due to her maybe having problems with her vision. Could this be the case? Cats are supposed to be graceful and gymnastic. Should I get it checked out? I mean, she seems fine apart from being a bit stupid/clutzy.... And she isn't a clutz all the time (last week she managed to jump right into the freezer into the one tiny clear area in it), just often.

Opinions?

Sudden partial blindness -- what's it like?

creasy boy — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:05:50 -0800

Are you blind in one eye? Please give a newbie advice. A friend of mine lost sight in one eye in a squash accident. He's freaking out. Apparently he has very peripheral vision in the damaged eye but is as good as blind looking forward. Now he gets a headache reading or watching TV. What can he expect? Will he be able to read normally with practice? Is driving entirely out of the question? How long does it take to adjust?

these tired ol' eyes o' mine....

oigocosas — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:01:57 -0800

best surgical procedure for extreme near-sightedness (-12 diopters) + mild astigmatism? best doctors in sf bay/napa area? your own "blind but now i see (or dont, as the case may be)" cautionary tale? thank you as always excellent mefite mind. ps: anybody had the lens implant? and what about presbiopia (?) aka age-related farsightedness? bi-focular lasik? lens implants?

Clap if your momma loves you

BE ADEQUITE — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 06:24:37 -0800

I learned in various sex-ed classes that some STD's, if undiagnosed or improperly treated during a pregnancy, can cause blindness in infants. Can you tell me more about this? Which diseases do this? At what point during a pregnancy could it be determined that the baby would be blind, or would one only find out after?

Is it possible for the mother to be infected with something that provides her only minor or no discomfort, that isn't identified as an STD until after the damage is done to her baby?

Temporary vision loss after exercising

Ritchie — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:25:33 -0800

Why did I experience temporary vision loss after exercising at the gym? I am epically unfit, and in an effort to improve my endurance and general energy levels I recently signed up at the local gym, and made an appointment with a trainer to teach me how to use the various machines and other things, and generally instruct me in how to exercise.

So last night, he took me through how to do a warmup, how to use the weight-training equipment, and then how to use the cardio equipment, and then how to stretch. It wasn't a full workout, it was more like he would demonstrate and then watch me to see how I did, correct my form, work out what my limits were and so on.

Even so, by the time I finished (on the rower), I was feeling a bit bizarre - 'lightheaded' comes close to it, but doesn't really capture it. I was wobbly and feeling both hot and cold simultaneously, and feeling a bit disconnected and unreal. I could walk okay and understand what was being said to me perfectly. But after we got through the stretches and the session was over, I suddenly felt it would be a good idea to sit down.

As soon as I did so, all the things I had been feeling up until then just seemed to get ten times worse, I wasn't struggling to breathe, exactly, but I couldn't lift my arm or do much more than wobble my head around or murmur. At this point my vision went. It didn't turn off suddenly, it was more gradual than that, but it still went before I realised what was happening. All my other senses were intact and I decided that panicking was just going to make things worse.

The trainer must have seen me groping around weakly and put my water bottle in my hand. I managed to raise it and took 2-3 swallows of water. A few seconds later I could distinguish between light and dark, and then I could see distinct silhouettes, and then my sight came back. The whole thing, from sitting down to getting up again, may have lasted 2-3 minutes.

My questions (which probably overlap) are these:
1) Why did just my vision go? Why didn't I just pass out or lose multiple senses? What was happening in my brain?
2) Why did it happen when it did, i.e. after I finished exercising and not during?
3) What was the likely cause? The return of vision and easing of symptoms seemed to coincide with drinking some water. Is this a clue or just coincidence? I may very well have been drinking less than I should have throughout the session - by the time I got off the weights, my arms were twitchy and I kept missing my mouth with the bottle.

Crazy visual anomaly

phrontist — Thu, 31 May 2007 22:45:24 -0800

WTF-Filter: The left side of my visual field is being overtaken by what can only be described as... a crawling anomaly. If you imagine the sorts of random colors and shapes you see under certain circumstances with your eyes closed, or in the dark, it's like that... except there is also a feeling of movement... as though everything is sort of undulating kaliedscopically. The anomaly tracks along with my eye movement... so I can't look at it... it's always in my periphery. What would cause this, and how can I make it stop? It was making it someone difficult to read a moment ago, though it seems to have drifted a bit from the center of my visual field.

I've never done any psychotropics, haven't stared at any bright lights except my computer monitor, and haven't suffered any head injuries.

Helping to cope with blindness at the end of life

hermitosis — Tue, 22 May 2007 09:19:02 -0800

How to reach out to someone who is going blind, when you can't be there? My grandmother is a smart, classy lady who has accepted all of the ravages of age without complaint, and has gone to great pains and personal expense to make every possible arrangement for her care so as not to burden any of her family. She's 86 years old and lives in Montana.

Recently she was diagnosed with macular degeneration, and her vision is fading rapidly. She has gone from reading with glasses to reading (with difficulty) with a magnifying glass in a matter of months. She has begun to train my grandfather to do the bookkeeping and so forth, again looking out for everyone around her. However this has shaken her like nothing else; reading has been her passion all throughout life, as have sewing, writing, and gardening. Now more than ever she is coming to terms with her death, and so are we.

I got to see her a couple of years ago; it's very expensive to fly to Montana from NYC, so it's not a trip I may be able to repeat. She and I exchange letters and occasional phone calls, and have sort of a special bond. It is hard knowing that even if I do get to visit her, she will never be able to see me again, and I've begun to realize that while she still has at least some vision left, I have the opportunity to provide her with a final image of myself and our relationship or an impression of life itself that she can hopefully enjoy even after her sight is totally gone.

I want to know first of all what kinds of gifts I can send to her now to comfort her throughout this process, or that will offer comfort after she is blind. I'm aware of the basic array of gizmos and helpers available for the blind, I'm looking for things that satisfy needs on a more human level, the kind of thing I don't think others in our family can be relied on to think of or understand.

I also would like suggestions on ways to reach out to someone long distance who I know I may not see in person ever again. She's not a very sentimental person, but genuinely appreciates and respects acts of consideration and thoughtfulness, or things that others have put time and effort into. Should I send pictures of myself and my life here, and is there a way to do this so that they will remain special even after she can't see them?

Just so you know, their house is basically pre-Information Age, no technology more advanced than a cordless phone and the truck in the garage.

Could schizophrenia protect against blindness?

srs — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 07:48:07 -0800

This research claims that there aren't any blind schizophrenics. Basically, it says that blindness could protect against schizophrenia, but because of typically later age of onset for blindness (mostly results of glaucoma and macular degenration), I wonder if schizophrenia could somehow protect against blindness. Does anyone have an opinion on this? Short Communication
No blind schizophrenics: Are NMDA-receptor dynamics involved?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Glenn S. Sanders a1, Steven M. Platek a2 and Gordon G. Gallup Jr. a1
a1 Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Albany,
Albany, NY 12222 gallup@csc.albany.edu www.albany.edu/~gallup
www.evolutionarypsych.com
a2 Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19102
steven.m.platek@drexel.edu www.pages.drexel.edu/~smp43
Abstract
Numerous searches have failed to identify a single co-occurrence of total blindness and schizophrenia. Evidence that blindness causes loss of certain NMDA-receptor functions is balanced by reports of compensatory gains. Connections between visual and anterior cingulate NMDA-receptor systems may help to explain how blindness could protect against schizophrenia.

What do Blind people find sexy?

jason's_planet — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:21:18 -0800

For most people, physical attraction is visual. So how do Blind people become attracted to someone in the absence of visual stimuli? For most people, especially men, physical attraction is a heavily visual thing. We're drawn to the curves of the beloved's body. We like faces. We like shades of hair. We like the way the clothes they pick flatter their figures.

So how do Blind people find people sexually attractive in the regrettable absence of all this wonderful visual stimuli? Blind people are sexual beings just as much as sighted people. So what turns them on? Voices? Smells? Personalities?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from Blind people or people who are, or have been in relationships with Blind people.

How did Blindness win a Pulitzer?

ORthey — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:16:37 -0800

Can someone explain to me why Blindness by Jose Saramago won a Pulitzer? At the risk of violating the chatfilter rules, I've been puzzling this one over and thought I'd ask. The book has come up a bunch of times in AskMe, so I thought this would be a good place to get some answers. The book frustrated me to no end because it has such an amazingly simple, beautifully devastating concept, and very competent storytelling.

But my issue was the actual writing. I thought I could get into it, but it just didn't happen. I quite frankly thought the writing was beyond clumsy - it was poor. I generally love simplitic writing (Carver, for example), but this was too much. I frequently felt like this was written by someone just discovering commas.

Did anyone else have this problem, or am I nuts? Would I not have thought this way if I could read it in Portuguese?

Progression of a feline uveal tumor?

amro — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 11:06:11 -0800

CatFilter: My 17 year-old cat has a uveal (ocular) tumor. If she were younger, then she would probably have surgery to remove her eye. At this point, however, she is unable to tolerate the anaesthesia and general trauma attendant with surgery. Unfortunately, the veterinarian wasn't super helpful when it came to answering my questions regarding how quickly this will progress, and whether my cat is in discomfort. I figured I would google the condition and learn about it on my own, but everything I find is directed at veterinarians and fairly complex. Can anyone point me to an online resource that is directed more towards the pet owner, or at least possible for a layperson to follow? Also, personal anecdotes and/or information regarding feline uveal tumors (and brain tumors, since this is close to her brain) would be appreciated. Please, no comments telling me to put her to sleep - she seems to be comfortable at this point and that is a bridge I am not yet willing to cross.

Our landlord wrote a curse on a Post-it and stuck it to our doorframe. What now?

jeb — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 14:32:39 -0800

Apparently, our landlord has put some sort of a hex or curse on us. What would your response to this be, if any?

overcoming obstacles filter

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 09:11:35 -0800

My brother-in-law's sister has a beautiful six month old baby that was recently diagnosed as blind. She is close to my sister but as the mother of a healthy 3 year old my sister feels awkward. How best to show your support in a situation like this?

Additionally, any web resources that you recommend?

Familial anecdotes on how to cope are welcome.

What would a blind world 'look' like?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 27 May 2005 10:28:20 -0800

What if most people were born blind, and seeing was rare? Literary mag The Believer has an Idea Share section, which is a collection of (apparently anonymously submitted) hypothetic book premises and themes, shared online in the hopes that someone will make a book out of it. I was particularly intrigued by this entry:

The field of alternative history has been created out of “what if” questions—(“What if the South had won the Civil War?” etc.) This practice should expand to other fields. Alternative Biology: “What if two intelligent species had developed at the same time?” Alternative Sociology: “What if the majority of people were born blind, and seeing was rare?” Sort of an academic sanctioning of science fiction.

I think there's a gold mine of hypothetical scenarios here, and the two examples given are sublime. Let's focus on the blindess one for now - if this goes well, I'll let someone else ask the (paleonto-)biology one (indeed the seed for a book of its own), or feel free to come up with your own alternative science premise.

So, what would a world where most people have no vision faculty be like?

Percentage of blind since birth persons who are homosexual?

billysumday — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:35:11 -0800

Interested in percentage of blind since birth persons who are homosexual. [mi] Last night I read a short story by Lorrie Moore wherein one of the main characters was both gay and blind from birth. I'm just wondering if (in the real world) there has been analysis of whether this occurs as often or more or less often than those who have sight. Also, how this information plays into current research dealing with the development of homosexual behavior or the genetic predisposition to homosexuality.

How do the blind see in their dreams?

davebush — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 13:48:59 -0800

This has puzzled me for a long time. People who've been blind since birth - how can they dream images? Do they? Without a visual history for reference, how can it happen?