Floaters in the eye

A little bit before my chronic migraine started in December '07, I started seeing these "floaters" in my eyes. I've had the kind previously in my life where I see something in my visual field and it is a little distracting. It looks like there is dirt or dust in my eye. These days, the amount "visual disturbance" has increased significantly and I think they are more than just floaters.

If I had to describe what I see when I look out into the world, I would say that I definitely have floaters, but I also have what I think is an ocular migraine which complicates that ability to determine what the problem is. I see lights, spots, lines, chasers and have vision loss that comes and goes throughout the day. When I get auras and then migraine pain on to of the ocular symptoms and the floaters - I get motion sick just keeping my eyes open.

There is quite a bit of info out there on the web about floaters and a lot of people that are really impacted by them, but my doctors don't have any helpful information for me. I keep bringing it up (to my detriment - I know) with my primary care doctor because I think it is important. When I have bouts of bad ocular migraines, the pressure in my eyes is so painful. That can't be good for my eyeballs and I worry about the impacts I will have down the road.

I started seeing an optometrist a few months ago and he took some initial readings and measure my visual field, eye pressure, etc. He confirmed I had some vision loss, but couldn't attribute anything to migraines at this time. I will go back in a few more months to measure these things again to determine if there is any additional changes/loss.

I know I am not the only one out there with these problems - here are some links to other sites that talk about the difference of and the links between migraines and visual symptoms:

http://www.mdsupport.org/library/floaters.html
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/migraine_headache/hic_the_magical_mystery_of_migraines.aspx

Cloudy Day in Seattle

As the title implies - it is overcast in Seattle and I want to sing. In the summer an overcast day is like Christmas to me! I can be outdoors, stroll through the neighborhood, walk into my open (usually sunny) kitchen and function almost like what I consider a normal person. What a break!

The last thing I blogged about was accommodation in the workplace and I have to tell you that I've had symptoms that I haven't felt for a while. Back when I was working full time in what I consider to be a pretty stressful job/environment, I used to:

1) Have a hard time staying asleep - waking up at 3:00am pretty much every morning no matter what time I went to bed, what I ate/drank, etc. This has happened the last two mornings and the head pain has been pretty bad upon waking. I used to get so anxious about this because I need to get at least 7 hours of sleep to function and the more I was anxious - the less I could get back to sleep. It is a vicious cycle that often ended up in a severe migraine attack and the inability to even get out of bed when the alarm went off at 6:00am.

I've tried melatonin, loved Ambien and Zoloft (but get pretty addicted to them and don't want to use these types of products - I think they also increase the frequency and severity of the really bad migraine days), tried some anti-anxiety meds but didn't tolerate them...right now I am working on just managing fear and stress, but these old habits are creeping up on me and I need to figure something out if I am going to get back to living and working.

2) Get really agitated all the time. Pain, migraines and other symptoms that I can't control as much as I would like lead to fear, doubt and shame. These negative feelings lead me to feel like life is living me and not the other way around and I get so aggravated. I have a wonderful husband and we communicate openly and candidly when I feel this way and it helps, but I know these types of emotions only contribute back to my pain and headaches so I need to find a better way to stop the cycle when it starts before it gets out of control.

So to sum it up - just working through what types of accommodations and limitations I have over the last few days brings up all this history and fear around migraines. I didn't know how deeply rooted some of these feelings were and how much work I have to do within myself to free me from these self-defeating cycles.