I woke up completely blind in left eye, should my husband stay home?

[Chloesss]

I woke up this morning completely blind in my left eye, the vision is coming back now, I’m terrified. My husband and I car share and he’s going to work in a minute and we have a young baby and don’t have any family nearby. Should my husband stay home? I’m really worried and feel I need to see a doctor but hour doctor surgery is too far to walk so I won’t be able to see anyone if he takes the car

He wants to go to work and for me to keep an “eye” on it

Update added by MNHQ - the OP HAS gone to A&E

I guess A&E and the eye hospital didn't see or hear anything that gave them cause for urgent alarm.
The optician will know what's what and can give you a pretty thorough check. But of course you can and should go to the eye hospital if it happens again before you see them.
Wishing you a good trip to the optician and a good outcome.

That is some bullshit a&e assessment, should be managed as a TIA at the very least.

Some opticians have those machines which can look at all the layers in your eyes. They charge extra for it on top of normal sight test but it's really good to use it regularly to track any changes. Optician can refer you for immediate check up at the eye hospital too

Did they not check you properly for a TIA ? This was the reason for my friend who briefly lost vision in one eye.

@Chloesss

THANK YOU everyone so much for your kind messages.

I haven’t had much help, A&E doctor literally looked in my eye with a light and asked a few questions (I guess to rule out stroke) they did say it’s very uncommon for someone at my age to lose complete sight in one eye, and to call the eye hospital, as they Can’t do much at A&E.

I phoned the eye hospital who said as my vision has now gone back to normal that it’s unlikely a retinal detachment, she did mentioned that it could be a vision migraine (without the headache) but she did say it wouldn’t usually go completely black with a vision migraine. Eye hospital asked me to see an optician for a special check thing, the optician wont see me until tomorrow!

They said if it comes back again to phone the eye hospital. Im terrified of it coming back and as no one has physically check anything I can’t see how nothing serious has been ruled out.

Thank you again to everyone who messaged x

If it comes back, don't wait for the opticians to open, just go back to A&E.

Did they do any blood tests when you first went? At the very least they should have done a basic screening for arteritis and automimmune coagulopathy. Gold standard care would also include a duplex scan of the carotid arteries.

The differential diagnosis for Amaurosis Fugax is long and wide, and I wouldn't be too happy with a presumably non specialist in A&E sending you on your way having ruled out what are likely to be 2 of the less serious things on that list. I would want a very high level of reassurance that all of the serious things had been ruled out or considered.

I query giant cell arthritis. I had a similar problem — not total loss of vision but sudden bluriness and my local hospital treated it as an emergency — rheumatology dept was the dept concerned. I was fully “scanned” and put on steroids to avoid possibility of a stroke. Other symptoms were a sore head — not a headache but sore head, difficulty chewing and tmj .
Lately I’ve been most dissatisfied with the lack of knowledge on the part of many physicians — I don’t expect all GPs and general physicians to be able to treat all conditions but a knowledge of symptoms thatwarrant further investigation could be expected and a life saver for the patient concerned.

This could be optic neuritis. Go to hospital.

I don’t understand why they didn’t do any tests. He just looked into my eyes. I’m really hoping it’s a vision migraine, although seems uncommon to get complete loss of vision with these.

Do you think the opticians will be able to see if there is a blood clot or anything?

The problem with a&e is that they don't have the equipment to see what they need.

Do you have an optician appointment for tomorrow?

I don't know about England but in Scotland any optician will see you free of charge for something like this as they then submit a claim to the NHS to cover the cost.

OP please look up giant cell arteritis, just so you are aware of the symptoms.

I hope A&E aren’t doing the bs “you’re younger than the majority of people who get whichever condition so I’m going to just assume it won’t be that and we aren’t even going to check”, thing

@Chloesss I had the same thing a couple of years ago - woke up blind in left eye with sight returning gradually 45 minutes later. It happened again about an hour later but the sight returned much quicker, in about 10 minutes.

I got an emergency optician appointment and he seemed really unconcerned. Said he couldn’t see anything wrong but a floater and apparently they can cause vision disturbances when they form. Also as soon as he heard I suffered from migraines, he thought that was the cause, even though I had no headache or pain. And that was that.

I’m wondering now if I should have had it looked into medically!

A year later I had a very sore left temple, dizziness and new constant pulsing tinnitus. My virtual gp said it was a serious symptom of giant cell arteritis and I needed to see a gp in-person or get myself to a&e. Got a private gp app an hour later and he basically laughed at me, saying it was probably a tension headache. I’ve still got symptoms on the left side of my head but haven’t bothered pursuing it.

I’m not sure if there was something wrong like GCA that the symptoms would come and go as they have done but I just feel like a hypochondriac now.

I would strike while the iron is hot and get the big stuff ruled out if I were you.

An optician will be able to do a thorough check of the back of your eye to check for any floaters, bleeds, detachments etc and also perform a visual field check. A blank area in your visual field can point medical professionals in the right direction if it were something serious such as strokes or tumours.

@Chloesss

I don’t understand why they didn’t do any tests. He just looked into my eyes. I’m really hoping it’s a vision migraine, although seems uncommon to get complete loss of vision with these.

Do you think the opticians will be able to see if there is a blood clot or anything?

@Chloesss I’ve lost vision in both eyes with a migraine, just to reassure you it does happen. Hope you get some answers soon.

Was it one eye, or your left field of vision? I once had a migraine aura which started off as a flashing zig zag line on the left side, and expanded outwards until I completely lost my vision on that side.

It wasn't just one eye though, the left side of my visual field was missing when looking through either eye. I think if it is just one eye rather than part of your visual field then migraine is less likely.

@Utini

Was it one eye, or your left field of vision? I once had a migraine aura which started off as a flashing zig zag line on the left side, and expanded outwards until I completely lost my vision on that side.

It wasn't just one eye though, the left side of my visual field was missing when looking through either eye. I think if it is just one eye rather than part of your visual field then migraine is less likely.

I have had that too! Just the once though. Was in the car (thankfully DH was driving and all I could see on my left hand side was black and white zig zag lines. Had a proper panic and it took about an hour to disappear completely.

Terrifying isn't it?! I was about 16 and convinced I was having a stroke! Fortunately the vision loss only ever happened once, these days I never get aura with migraines.

I get auras & migraines fairly frequently. It often feels like only one eye is affected but closing either eye yields the same effect so it is always both eyes. I've never lost full vision, only parts of the field. The worst is when I'm looking at someone and their nose is missing. Normal face, no nose.

Hope you get an answer quickly, OP.

Glad your vision came back but please look up GCA giant cell arteritis
www.nhs.uk/conditions/temporal-arteritis/
This can cause loss of vision in one eye.

@Justsaynonow

I get auras & migraines fairly frequently. It often feels like only one eye is affected but closing either eye yields the same effect so it is always both eyes. I've never lost full vision, only parts of the field. The worst is when I'm looking at someone and their nose is missing. Normal face, no nose.

Hope you get an answer quickly, OP.

This is exactly what my migraines are like. Very little headache but disturbed vision is horrible.

@Chloesss how did things go at the opticians today? Hope things are ok.

@2022sucksalready thank you so much for checking in went well, they couldn’t find anything abnormal. She said it sounds like a ocular migraine (without the headache) she said if it keeps happening to get it check out again

Well that's kind of reassuring, i.e. that they couldn't see anything when you were examined. But also worrying in that there are no answers as to what it is. Hopefully this won't recur, fingers crossed @Chloesss

Hi OP.
I just want to stress a little that this does not sound typical of an optic migraine, and new optic migraines really shouldn't be diagnosed without a CT head scan anyway.
You've done everything you have been told to do and I know it's difficult when a professional has told you one thing and some randomer on mumsnet tells you another... but if this ever happens again please please take it seriously again and go straight back to A&E. I think you received a really poor assessment the first time unfortunately.

Somewhere around age 10 my ds went blind in both eyes for 3 days (it got progressively worse over this time period). Pediatrician said to go to the Ophthalmologist. Ophthalmologist was on holiday and substitute guy (complete idiot on many levels) couldn't find any optic damage so immediately decided that it was spinal meningitis and announced to my 10 year old that I should take him to the ER for a spinal tap. Poor thing was scared shitless. Luckily Pediatrician called right then and said he's spoken to the neurologist who was pretty sure that it was a migraine (given ds' extensive history of headache migraines) and said to meet us at her office in 30 minutes.
Neurologist examined him (much like what OP describes happened at the hospital) and said that she was sure that it was a migraine, although it was unusual to happen in both eyes as it usually only happened in one. She gave him migraine medication and said that if it didn't start clearing up in a few hours we should meet her at the ER for further investigation.
But luckily the migraine medication cleared it up.
Bear in mind that DS had a multi year history of migraines at this point and was exhibiting all the tells of his headache migraine, so it wasn't a big stretch of a diagnosis. Super surprised more examination wasn't done in the ER.