Problems with colour vision

[ThomasB500]

Hello

I am a 36 year old male living in London England; 10 years ago I had an idiopathic brain inflammation for which I was hospitalised for a week
I was treated with high dosage oral steroids and the symptoms went into complete remission, I was fully examined at the time (evoked potentials,MRI, lumber puncture etc) the result were inconspicuous since then have had a few minor relapses normally brought on by work related stress (nothing as bad as the original attack. A neurologist in Harley Street London diagnosed me as probably having MS sic “but in a very mild form”.

Last September I was under a Hugh amount of stress from work but left to go on holiday to South Africa, a few days into the holiday, I awoke the one morning to discover there was something different about my vision, the colours in both eyes seemed to be more saturated/whiter especially the colour red, on returning to the UK my colour vision got better after about 1 month, but have since then experienced recurrent attacks (i.e. gets better then gets worse) always in both eyes with the same problem the colour contrast, my actual vision is still 20/20 and have no eye pain.



What I would really like to know is:

1) Are these attacks likely to be progressive or do they usually settle after a period of time.

2) Is there anything I can do about it, have found acupuncture to help?

Kind Regards
Thomas

[santana8]

What were the symptoms of the first attack 10 years ago? Did you have vision changes from this attack?  Two years ago I had sudden vision changes that I eventually found out were from 10 white matter lesions on my brain and a visual field defect! I had a possitive VEP(visual evoked potential) that showed slowing  in one eye. I did not receive steriods or any other kind of treatment and have been healing slowly for two years.

Eventhough I have had about 75% improvement, I still have residual dysfunction with the visual field defect, visual tracking and spacial impairments, scanning and focusing, and color vision problems. Also some visual disorentation, right left confusion, Acalcula(inability to figure simple math problems),concentration, memory and mild parethesis in my arms and legs occasionally!

All of my blood work has came back completely normal and my spinal tap was negative and showed no O banding! My neuro thinks I had ADEM, which is a monophasic(one time) illness that is very similar to MS except you usually don't have recurrances, but you can have residual damage that can be perminent!

Slightlybroken is right, ON can recover without treatment, but as you can see with me, it can take a long time. Steriods do not change the end visual result, but can speed recovery of ON!

You  really do need to see an opthomologist to find out if this is what is going on with you, Also a visit to a neurologist and  an MRI of the brain would be warranted with your past history!

If this does end up being ON, I wanted to let you know that oral steriods are contradicted in ON, according to the Optic Neuritis Treatment Trials. They have been shown to cause a higher rate of relaps in ON.

Take Care
~Santana~

[ohwild]

sorry to hear about your colour probs, do go back to an eye specialist as soon as possible and get a full eye-check dont leave it!!!! your eyesight is very important!
CJ :)

[slightlybroken]

Hi!

Have you had a recent MRI since the problems with the eyes started to occur? I would recommend having another MRI, if you haven't had a recent one.

You could be suffering from ON (optical neuritis). It does effect your colour vision especially red and green saturation. You could have ON and not have pain. Sometimes ON can occur further back on the optical nerve and can only be picked up on MRI. Are you seeing a good opthamologist?

Steroids can treat ON but it can resolve on it's own without treatment. Steroids don't cure the damage from ON but it helps you get over the symptoms faster. (Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong.)

It's hard to say if these attacks will progress. Most people who have MS can have many attacks and some will have little. It's all individual. We have some good reading materials on this website that you might find helpful. It's in the upper right corner, towards the top of the page. Click on Health Pages. There is a lot of good information.

I hope this helps