Recently in the past 2 months I've had visual distortions in my side/peripheral vision. Initially I characterized them as blind spots since I could blot out door knobs and the like looking at a certain angle.
But after digging around I'm fairly certain that I was wrong. That they aren't blind spots, or maybe, not just the normal bind spots everyone has, but phosphenes.
A brief description - I see them based on where I position my eyes and my eye movement. Now I'm not straining my eyes or doing any rapid eye movement, this is just casually looking around.
When I look to the side(left or right, it doesn't matter, both eyes have it), a crescent shadow forms. If I move my head away, slowly or quickly, that crescent shadow becomes a circle-like distortion. This is during the day. At night, it has a pale/dull white outline, dark center. Poked around online and it looks exactly like a pressure phosphene from when you rub your eyes or press your finger on your eye. Except, I'm not putting any external pressure on the eye.
And my side vision does flicker depending on what I'm doing/environment. During the day, next to a white or solid color wall, if I'm eating, it flickers every time I chew. At night, walking in near darkness, if I look to the side as I'm walking it's like a flickering pale moon(sometimes the white outline becomes a full on pale moon). I can also see the pale moon circles just by closing my eyes and tightening my eyelids. Though in my right eye, all the way at the top, there's 2 lines, dark during the day, dull white at night, in addition to the moon circle.
Is this just normal enthopic phenomenon? Or something I should be concerned about? I look up, and its fine until I move my eyes and then two circles appear. Is it supposed to be so easy to see? As for the size, it's like someone stuck a quarter in front of my eyes.
Now, I recently went to both an optometrist and an ophthalmologist. The ophthalmologist did the standard tests, dilatation, the eye mapping, visual field test and didn't find anything any damage and only ruled out that its not a, b, or c. Nothing wrong with the eye except for a high pressure in one.
Optometrist said the same thing except the pressure in both eyes was high, particularly in the eye that was fine at the ophthalmologist - went from 19 to 30. Not sure what the fluctuation means. Recommended I see a neurologist if the results from the ophthalmologist reveal nothing wrong with the eye.
So, is it normal to see phosphenes like this? So easily? Day or night, with your eyes open or closed? The nurse fed me some line about the vitreous gel clumping with age or thinning, but she was just giving me shots in the dark. She gave me the results but I've yet to talk to the ophthalmologist about them or what I should do next.
One theory that I've had is that maybe it's the muscles around my eye? Could be strained? Or is this age catching up to me? I'm 36.
Some other symptoms, both my eyes are occasionally sore, sometimes an ache around or behind the eye. Red eyes. My right eye particularly gets sore a lot faster and after a few minutes of reading my distant vision blurs out. That was the primary reason I went to the optometrist, get a new prescription and get bifocals. I also have visual snow, 24 - 7, usually worse in the morning before it settles into a more static...static. Messed with my night vision and ability to contrast, etc.
So I don't know. See a neurologist? Or am I just hyper-aware and going crazy?