Why do my eyes feel weird looking at certain objects?

[mark1001]

Recently, I have discovered this new feeling related to my eyes. The feeling is hard to discribe but its quite strange.

When I look at certain objects such as trees, spears or anything pointy/sharp, I get this feeling within my eyes. This feeling forces me to look away from the object. I wouldnt call the feeling pain its more discomfort.

Sounds really weird but I dont have a clue what it could be related too. If I had to discribe the feeling, imagin someone holding a pin to your eye and slowing moving it forward, your reaction would be to look away, thats the best I can discribe it.

Hope you can help.

Mark

[JohnHaganMD]

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[MerrickReynolds]

Hi Mark and everyone else,

Good news! Im just starting a study on this and hopefully, we can find some relief or at least get it medically documented so people don't think we are crazy ha. Thanks for everyone that has signed up to help on FB and Reddit. Not sure if you will read this, I wish there was a way to not have to scroll through 400 comments to get to the bottom of MedHelp but I hope this finds you!

[Wrestler15]

Hello, I am returning to this thread after my first post in 2011. Wow. It's nice to see there is still an active group for support and looking for answers. I can add that over the years this issue has bothered me less. The "pain" sensation seems to be localized only to my right eye. I now wear glasses with thick frames and this seems to help as my eye feels "protected." I have also noticed that if I look in the opposite corner of my vision (towards my far left) it seems like an eye muscle in my right eye stretches and this gives some relief.

[Teyew]

After reading through this whole thread, the only thing i can add is that i had septoplasty surgery two weeks ago and my symptoms have never been worse.

Visual Looming Syndrome has been causing headaches and making it near impossible to sleep which only makes the symptoms worse.

I have always suffered but since having the nasal surgery it has been a whole new level. Immediately upon waking from the anaesthesia I noticed that the symptoms were ‘heightened’. This may gleam a little more insight that the sinuses/nose may be related.

[aceroa]

So it's been 2 years since I've posted. I can happily say that my symptoms are 95% gone! It's rarely ever a problem, and I'm no longer thinking about it on a daily basis like I was when I first posted.  

What did I do to fix it? Well I stopped wearing the glasses that I felt had too strong of a prescription. Those glasses I felt amplified my Visual Looming Syndrome. I went back to using contacts and told my eye doctor to lessen the prescription so things wouldn't look as sharp and 3D, if that makes sense.

I do definitely think that this problem is also partially mental for me too. Because nowadays, the only time I've noticed symptoms is during times of stress, but even then it's rare. So far this year, there's only been 1 instance for a few minutes, that I was bothered by any pointy objects.

I'm thankful that this is no longer a big problem for me, and that it's essentially out of my life.

My advice for anyone reading this, is to go to your eye doctor and make sure your glasses are the right prescription for YOU. That might mean decreasing the strength of your eye prescription. I would also encourage you to try contacts rather than eye glasses because that's what worked better for me personally.
Finally, I know it's hard but try not to think too much about pointy objects. It sounds silly but I feel the longer I think about it, the more likely it is that I'll have problems. I believe part of the battle is mental. Good luck everyone!

[JohnHaganMD]

Thanks for the follow up and glad it had a happy ending.  There are some eye problems that seem to only exist on the internet, likely because they are so rare, "visual looming" is one of them.

[aceroa]

Thanks! Yeah that's true, everyone I've talked to has never heard of Visual Looming, even my brother who's a doctor. Hopefully my story is able to reach others with this problem and can help them beat it as well. It sounds so obvious, but I really think going to the eye doctor and getting the right eye prescription is key to beating this. It's so overlooked, but at least that was my experience.
Cheers!

[JohnHaganMD]

Cheers.

[Brandonchick]

According to me, your this type of problem indicate the "fear of pointy objects hitting the eye", "weird sensation behind the eyes", "difficulty in focusing on objects nearby, which are moving and are not operated by the observer, such as windscreen wipers or a pencil someone else is holding".

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

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