Hey ((((((((((Karol))))))))) :hugbetter:
I'm sorry to hear about what happened... It sounds very scary indeed....
If I remember correctly you've been diagnosed with aps too right? Are you on any blood thinners for it?
At some point a couple of years ago in between my almost regular optic neuritis episodes I experienced 6-7 very strange episodes of transient vision loss. There would be no pain, just like you describe, my vision would go completely from one eye (it felt like a black cloud of sorts was covering my visual field if that makes any sense) but just as I was starting to panic and thinking I should call my doctors or go to the hospital etc my vision would come back.
My neurologist evaluated me and thought I was suffering from complex focal seizures and my rheumatologist actually had the nerve to suggest it might be a psychogical defense mechanism to the possibility I was going to go blind from the recurrent neuritis and to be honest with you I liked the psychological explanation a lot more than the possibility of having focal seizures and I was under an incredible amount of stress at the time so I accepted it for a little while but these episodes kept happening and at odd times too when I was completely relaxed; in the middle of a bath, whilst watching a movie et cetera. So I called my opthamologist and my UK rheumatologist and they both nearly fell off their chairs when they heard what happened and what my docs suggested might be the cause.
They explained to me that what I was describing was in all likehood something called amaurosis fugax (which literally means transient darkening), that is a type of monocular transient vision loss. Amaurosis fugax can last a few seconds, a few minutes or a few hours and it has many causes from vasospasms to clots but basically all its causes breed a significant decrease or blockage of blood flow to either the retinal, ciliary or opthalmic arteries in the eye. To make a long story short my opthamologist called my rheumy and neuro and when he told them what his thinking was they immediately increased my heparin dose and these episodes never recured.
Visual hallucinations are incredibly common when one experiences major vision decreases, in fact there is even a special name for them; they're called Charles Bonnet hallucinations or Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) and they can be complex and last for a little while but they are due to the vision loss alone and nothing else. What helped not go mad when I was experiencing them was thinking of them as the brain's way to try and some sense of a fragmented or incredibly blurry image. People with Charles Bonnet Syndrome can experience these hallucinations for several months but they nearly always go away in the end. :blush:
I don't really understand why your doctors haven't mentioned the possibility of amaurosis fugax to you, especially the neuro-opthamologist. If you haven't done so already, I think you definitely have to be seen by a doctor preferably before your vision is restored completely and if possible by an opthamologist. Even if amaurosis fugax isn't the cause of your vision troubles, a visit and evaluation by an opthamologist might give you more clues as to what is going on. Some tests, like visual evoked potentials for example are incredibly sensitive and can pick up abnormalities in the electrical conduction of the optic nerves even months after an episode of optic neuritis, but other tests are more time-sensitive and need to be performed during or soon after a problem has occured to yield useful results.
Here's a couple of sites with information on amaurosis fugax and sudden visual loss in case you want to read a little more about it:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000784.htm
http://www.revoptom.com/handbook/SECT52a.HTM
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1216594-overview
I hope you get to the bottom of what's going on soon
Sending loads of hugs your way and keeping my fingers, toes and eyes crossed that a long, long, long time will pass before you have another episode like that again....
:flowery:
Zoi
