Struggling to cope with Eye Anxiety - why is it lasting so long?

[Eyeanxiety]

Hi everyone,

As you can see by the title of this thread, I'm suffering from health anxiety relating to my eyes/vision; I guess hypochondria. It's now nearing 5 months since I first started getting crippling anxiety and panic attacks, which stemmed from a stressful period in my life with my pet dog having a life threatening injury and almost passing, uni exams, and drinking a lot of caffeine. Anyway, it essentially came out of nowhere; I was studying and it's like my eyes became strained and started to get peripheral visual snow/haze I guess you can call it. I immediately booked an optometrist appointment, which unfortunately the earliest appointment was a couple days away which made it worse. Time came around and saw him, to which he scanned my eyes and checked my vision, and came to the conclusion that my eyes are healthy- yes it was a relief and I actually had little anxiety after the appointment and vision almost went back to normal. Few days later I started overthinking and didn't believe the optometrist and visual symptoms started to come back again leading me to see an ophthalmologist, which again, same results; healthy eyes and no sinister eye disease. I was good for a week or two after that and again same thing happened; my anxiety came back and as did my vision problems. Its been about 3 months since then and the last 1.5 months my anxiety has been constant, even a three week holiday in NZ with my supportive partner, I could not stop thinking about my vision and anxiety, even when having fun. I've now seen 2 GP's, 2 optometrists, 1 ophthalmologist, and a neurologist and have had 2 retinal eye scans, a OCT scan of the macular, visual field test, and a MRI of the head; all of these doctors and specialists and all the scans telling and showing me that there is nothing wrong with my eyes or brain. I have one of my regular appointments with my GP on the 13th of this month and will likely ask her for a referral to a neuro-ophthalmologist because I can't help it and can't wrap my head around why my vision seems like its closing in on me when I'm apparently completely fine? I've just started seeing a psychologist who is good for me and my gp recommends that I try anxiety medication, which I'm hoping will help achieve my goal of getting rid of this anxiety by the end of the year.

[Lisag123]

Hi

this is exactly what I am going through now after a high stress last two months.
My eyes have constantly stayed blurry with almost a pressure feeling around them both.

I am wondering if this ever went away for you and what helped?

🙂

[missep123]

Hi Eyeanxiety,

I am so sorry to hear that you have been going through that. Although it has not occurred to me personally, what came to mind for me when I was reading your post was the situation my mother went through!

She had some blurred vision at times and I absolutely panicked, thinking it was Macular Degeneration. I was so upset and anxious everyday and booked her in to see a retinal specialist. After the retinal specialist confirmed that it was not macular degeneration I was so relieved. However, similarly to you in my own life with other health things I sometimes get into the habit of thinking I know more of experts or surely I need a second or third opinion. What I have learnt is to put it into perspective - it is very good you have had many different opinions to compare and mathematically the ratio of everyone having the same conclusion in my mind interprets this as a very good sign. I know that it can be hard for us to accept a professional opinion especially when we are having symptoms like this but sometimes it is our brain.

Our brains are so powerful and sometimes anxiety we are feeling internally can manifest externally. For example I can get hives if I am becoming too anxious about something.

I think it is really great that you are seeing a psychologist - learning tools to cope is definitely extremely helpful, especially to put things into perspective. For example, for myself I learnt that I have catastrophic thinking or black and white thinking. What has helped me is to learn about the 'in between' and the 'grey zone' and try not to let myself go into 'end of the world' thinking.

As a completely normal symptom- sometimes migraines can be experienced with 'aura' - symptoms that seem worrying but are associated with the headache. For example my friend who has migraines has reported temporary blurriness. She was really panicked when it first happened but when she learnt that it was normal she was relieved and started not to panic and 'exacerbate' the symptoms. I have to admit I understand where you are coming from though as when something unusual happens to my body I will start to panic and magnify upon the symptoms which makes them perhaps 'stronger' then they would have been otherwise.

I really hope this helps - basically at the end of the day I want to emphasise that you are definitely not alone and that we are here for you through this journey!