TBI and Vision Issues or TBI Eye Eye

Posted by hevykevy @hevykevy, Apr 4, 2020

Since Maggie20 joined the group and mentioned vision issues, Colleen recommended that I start a conversation. No pressure.;-)
When I first woke up at HCMC I looked around trying to figure out where I was. That didn't take long as hospitals have some very distinct features. As I assessed the situation, one thing became clear...my vision was not clear. There was two of everything, and to make it worse one of everything was slanted about 10 - 15 degrees. No matter how hard I tried, I could not bring the images together. Of course, this meant I now had two wives and I could see that this would be a source of endless problems! 🙁
Fortunately, this issue corrected itself by the next day. I have no explanation other than, our brains are amazing things and can figure things out all by themselves.
Because of the injury, and because my eye glasses got majorly reshaped by the tree branch, I went to an ophthalmologist and found that my sight had not changed that much. However, about 6 months later when I started having some dizzy spells again, I went to my regular Dr. I noticed that I was again having issues with double vision as well as shadowing of letters as I was trying to read. Different from the original problem.
A few months ago my new glassed broke and back to the ophthalmologist(glad I copied that when I got it spelled right). Come to find out. my eyes aren't producing enough tears now and so when I wake up, my eyelids are stuck to my eyes. It actually takes some time to get them loosened up enough to open fully and see where I am going. During the day, if I don't blink often enough they can stick and the eye will be moved by the eyelid. I now use eye drops to lubricate several times a day.
I can't really say if this issue is caused by the TBI which could cause a communication issue between my eye and my tear production, or i it was cased by the seven hours of surgery on my face after the accident. To repair my upper jaw, they went in between my lip and jaw as well as down between my right eyelid and my eye,
Will things improve? There are so many unknowns. Our heads are so complex that we may never know how everything works. But that is why we are here. To give medical professionals details about our issues as well as helping each other get through this.

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Support Group.

@hevykevy, I love your play on words for eye issues as a results of a brain injury or TBI (Tee Bee Eye 😉

I'd like to bring @maggie20 @lolabelle1 @dragonz @dprins @mugglemary @mkgarrity and @luckylizardlady into this discussion. Some of you have mentioned double vision, issue with peripheral vision, tunnel vision, lazy eye, ghost images, stabbing pain behind the eye and more. Like Kevin said, the brain is a remarkable organ, and can repair some things over time.

How have your vision issues changed over time? What, if anything, have you done to help correct these issues?

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Hi! I dealt with double vision for just over a year until I was able to have surgery at Mayo. It was truly amazing. There had been no improvement whatsoever and after surgery, my vision was completely restored.

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@colleenyoung

@hevykevy, I love your play on words for eye issues as a results of a brain injury or TBI (Tee Bee Eye 😉

I'd like to bring @maggie20 @lolabelle1 @dragonz @dprins @mugglemary @mkgarrity and @luckylizardlady into this discussion. Some of you have mentioned double vision, issue with peripheral vision, tunnel vision, lazy eye, ghost images, stabbing pain behind the eye and more. Like Kevin said, the brain is a remarkable organ, and can repair some things over time.

How have your vision issues changed over time? What, if anything, have you done to help correct these issues?

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I have tunnel vision and double vision as well as weakened right eye rectus muscles so that my eye move are not well coordinated. The prism lassoes help. I have to be cautious when I drive . My latest eye checkup showed improvement.Perhaps my 77year old brain is adapting.
Mike

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@lolabelle1

Hi! I dealt with double vision for just over a year until I was able to have surgery at Mayo. It was truly amazing. There had been no improvement whatsoever and after surgery, my vision was completely restored.

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@lolabelle1 what surgery did you have?

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It was Strabismus surgery on Sept. 26th with the amazing Dr. Bolton.

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