one-time night blindness in one eye

[scwater22]

Hi everyone,

To start with, I'm a 20 year old healthy female. I few nights ago something really strange happened to me when I turned out the light to go to sleep. A few minutes after I turned the light off, when my eyes should have adjusted to the dark, something didn't seem right with my vision. So I covered my left eye with my hand, leaving my right eye open, and everything went pitch black. I couldn't see anything out of my right eye. With my left eye I could see the shapes and shadows that you can usually make out in a dark room, but out of my right eye was just total pitch blackness. I turned my light back on, and everything was completely normal; I could see with both eyes. Then I turned the light out again, and once again, I had vision in my left eye but not in my right.

This happened a few nights ago, and it hasn't happened again since. This is probably irrevelant but I thought I'd mention it- I have a couple of enlarged lymph nodes as well as a swollen tonsil on the right side of my neck/head that have all been checked out by a doctor. I also have a new lump on the top of my head, also on the right side. As I said, this is probably all irrevelant to the vision problem, but I thought that maybe since all of this is on the right side of my head, which is the same side as the problem eye, it could somehow be involved.
Does anyone have any ideas of what could cause one-time temporary night blindness in one eye? Thank you for reading!

[Orb8]

Geeeee wizz.....  I woke up this morning and almost sh@t myself...  I was totally blind in my right eye.. Well apart from being able to see this very bright white light but nothing else.

After the initial shock...  I opened & closed my eyes again repeatedly trying to get my vision in that eye back to normal. It seemed to take for ages but I suppose it was only a minute or two before my vision returned. It wasnt perfect when it did return though... It was blurred for another 5 minutes after that.

Ive only recently had a full eye test too and my eyes where found to be fine (well apart from my usual short-sightedness for which I have glasses)

I really hope this doesn't happen again as its initially very concerning indeed.  

[Ninadebrev]

An explanation I hope helps:
1) Close one eye. 2) Cup your palm over the open eye and stare forward... you'll see darkness/black 3)Open the closed eye. You'll notice the eye covered that was seeing black is not seeing "anything". Stare forward and you'll really notice it. The darkness you see at the rim of the inner eye/nose is from the other open eye. 4) You experience this every time you close one eye actually, you just never really notice. The brain concludes that because one eye is "seeing" light the other must be false data and just ignores it.

So any of you lying on a pillow or that sleep on your side this could be it.

[SuziQ12]

And yet another person (57 yr. old female).  This started about 3-4 months ago, woke up in middle of night to use restroom (I do this most nights) noticed a hazy darkness in right eye, closed just that eye and left eye could see normally for me (I am very near-sighted and I do not put my glasses on to use restroom).  ONLY happens at this time of night, most nights, sometimes almost completely blind-occasionally happens in left instead of right eye.  Saw optometrist, glaucoma test-all good.  Saw Opthamologist, he says all good.  It is very disturbing as it doesn't seem to be normal and this thread has not seemed to have anyone receive any 'clarity' (no pun intended:)

[kostrc71]

I've been aware of this issue for at least 10 years; I am a healthy 44 yo male and have been a sporty person all my life. When I wake up in the middle of the night the vision in my right eye is a lot darker than the vision in my left. When it happened for the first time it was really disorienting and frightening. Now I just live with it. It happens every time, but I do not walk around in the middle of the night all that often. Like many people here I've had a full battery of standard tests that found nothing wrong (UK, NHS, Moorfields Eye Hospital no less). Would love to have the correct diagnosis though. It makes you think, what do most doctors know and how much do they really care? For completeness I am slightly myopic L 0.25; R 0.75. I do not wear my glasses much but using them makes no difference either way for my night vision.

[soonerfan555]

I too have transient (lasting several seconds) monocular (always my left eye-only) vision loss. It's always at night or after a nap. It's total vision loss, then slowly returns. Very scary!!!  I have other auto-immune problems so my doctor thought MS almost immediately. However, I went to a neuro-ophthalmologist for a full battery of tests. My optic nerve was fine, which was a big relief as this is usually the case when it's related to MS. I was then referred to a neurologist and he ordered a non-contrast MRI. No lesions appeared. I'm curious if a contrast MRI would have been better?  Anyway, the doctor said it's probably just an ocular migraine. I still am not comfortable with this diagnosis as the symptoms are so specific. I'm slicked that so many others have this!  It still happens on occasion. I also have pain behind that eye. It's blurry during the day at times as well. It has to be something?  There are times it's completely gone. Sometimes that eye twitches as well. When you google these exact symptoms it says MS all over the place. That still scares me. Especially considering I have autoimmune problems already. One last thing, I too, as a few have mentioned, sleep on the same side as the eye problem. As a matter of fact, I wonder if its circulatory in nature, as I've woken up sleeping on my eye...  It hurts after I wake up and is very blurry...

[janetag]

I am a 60-year-old female who spends excessive time on my computer. A few nights ago I suddenly went blind in my left eye. I had just turned off my bedroom light, when I noticed I could not see the lights on my alarm clock or any light the hallway. I covered my right eye and saw nothing but blackness.  ( I never turned on the bedroom light so I do not know if my vision would have returned had I switched on the light) By the time my husband went to bed, I could see with my left eye. I went to an eye doctor who could not find anything wrong. I asked if computer use could have cased the blindness. He said no--just double vision and blurriness. (I have experienced these symptons many times with prolonged use.)I went to my family doctor and she has scheduled 6 tests: brain MRI, ultrasound of my heart, ultrasound of the arteries in my neck, blood work, and two other heart tests. I am a cancer and heart patient, but I think computer use caused the temporary blindness. There are just too many young people on this forum for me to think this blindness ( occurring at the moment that a light is turned off )  is caused by a heart problem or cancer.  But everyone on this forum should consider blindness a medical emergency. If I learn that my blindness was caused by a blood clot, I will post again in 2 weeks.