bright light blindness

[swramsay]

Hi everyone.
I am in Orlando in our second week of Disney World. Everything is going great. I am dialyzing right now in our hotel room as my son sleeps. When I am finished at 9am we will head out to the park.

I am concerned about my vision and wonder if anyone else has experienced the same thing. Bright light and heat cause almost complete white blindness in me. Even with sunglasses. I first noticed it when we went to British Columbia a couple of months ago. It was very hot and sunny and I could't see anything.

Here in Orlando, the sun and heat are intense. Again, even with sunglasses, I am almost blinded. When I go inside, I'm fine but when I go back out into the sun and heat the same thing happens. My eyes ache also when this is happening. I went to an opthamologist a few weeks ago and he saw nothing unusual.

I wonder if this is dialysis related...or God forbid...cancer related.


Any input?  Thanks again.

[kristina]

Dear swramsay,
I don't know if this is of any help, but I suffer from photosensitivity to fluorescent light and bright sunlight and because of this I wear sunglasses with bifocal lenses and it helps me for reading and looking around. I also always wear a wide-brimmed hat when outside. At one time I became so sensitive that the street lights affected me at night when my husband was driving down the motorway. We also talked several times to check-out girls in supermarkets when they asked about my sunglasses or my hats, and when I explained my photosensitivity to them, they opened up and explained their problems with headages and they had a suspicion their constant headages at work were due to the fluorescent lighting directly above their head. I have not found any true in-depth study on these effects. I only came across a very small mention of the effects of UV-rays from fluorescent light sources in an Encyclopedia Britannica 1939. Because fluorescent lighting has been installed in practically every publicly used building, hospitals, etc., and all the street lights have fluorescent lights, it occurred to me that research into the effects of this lighting would not take place because how would they replace or modify fluorescent lights, this would cost a fortune. All our lighting at home is of the filament type and not fluorescent, plus we have dimmer-switches to every light so we can adjust the lighting to suit us.
I wish you all the best and hopefully your eyes recover soon.
Best wishes from Kristina.
   

[silverhead]

Several years ago I had a next door neighbor who was an optometrist, when we discussed fluorescent lighting he pointed out that some of his training involved using a oscilloscope hooked to the optic nerve, under standard (filament type) lighting they had a straight line on the screen, under fluorescent the line became an extrememly rapid up and down pattern, he explained that that type lighting is actually blinking on and off at a rate of 60 times per second (normal 110 volt A/C), you may not be aware of this, but your brain does see it, is it any wonder that many people have headaches and tire easier or have other problems under fluorescent lighting?   

[swramsay]

Thank you Kristina and Silverhead.
This only happens with outdoor sunlight. And it began just recently - since dialysis. I've never had this problem before so I wondered if anyone else on dialysis experienced the same thing.

It's very troublesome.

[Chris]

I would consult a ophthalmologist or a retinal specialist about this so they can see what is going on in the back of your eye and to look for any problems.

When this happens, does your BP feel low at the same time? And does bending over or sitting down hunch over for a bit relieve the symptom?

Any changes in meds at the time it first occurred?

Either way, consult an eye specialist as mentioned above. They specialize  in diseases of the eye and retina.

Good Luck and enjoy your vacation.

[Restorer]

Similar eye problems have happened to me twice due to kidney-related problems:

1. Back in August of last year, a month before I was able to start PD, I suddenly got really uremic. For a week or two before I was hospitalized with emergency hemodialysis, my eyes started to take much longer to dilate properly. If my eyes were adjusted to inside darkness, going outside made everything terribly overexposed and painful to look at for 5 minutes or so. Likewise, coming in from bright sunlight, I had to wait 5 minutes before I could see anything in direct vision. The physiological cause was never really determined.

2. A little over a month ago, I got fluid overloaded and my blood pressure was very high for an extended period. Over a few days, my vision went bad: inside, everything was dark; outside, everything was bright as if I were in a fog illuminated by bright sunlight (all this aside from the blurriness that lasted a week); and things were generally "sparkly" or faded like in the tunnel vision you get with a sudden drop in blood pressure. With bringing my blood pressure down, the vision problems mostly went away, slowly, but I still have some remaining problems now. The physiological cause was identified as optic nerve swelling, but I never received any results from the MRI that was done to try to find a cause for the swelling (aside from speculation about pure high blood pressure).

[swramsay]

I wondered if it was bp related. I have low bp and yes, I do believe I feel more lightheaded than usual with the visual disturbances going on. I have checked my bp a couple of times upon return to the hotel room but it is the same as usual...a bit low, but normal for me.

Since restorer had this happen with high bp, I doubt now it's related to bp. I do believe it is somehow related to dialysis. When I return home, I'll see a good opthamologist. I did see one a few weeks ago but he said everything looked good. When they shined the light in my eyes the tech was a bit confused about the way my pupils responded but no further coments were given.

I will ask about optic nerve swelling. Thanks.

[Stoday]

I suffer from photosensitivity to fluorescent light and bright sunlight and because of this I wear sunglasses with bifocal lenses and it helps me for reading and looking around. I also always wear a wide-brimmed hat when outside. At one time I became so sensitive that the street lights affected me at night when my husband was driving down the motorway. We also talked several times to check-out girls in supermarkets when they asked about my sunglasses or my hats, and when I explained my photosensitivity to them, they opened up and explained their problems with headages and they had a suspicion their constant headages at work were due to the fluorescent lighting directly above their head. I have not found any true in-depth study on these effects.   

You might find more relevant information if you research glare effects, rather than fluorescent lighting.

You can get much higher levels of lighting using fluorescent lights, but if the lighting or the light fittings are badly designed you can get glare, which causes the sort of problems you mention. You don't notice glare with filiament lighting because the light levels are much lower.