TBI and Vision Issues or TB Eye Eye. Will things improve?

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.

Profile picture for AnnikaJane @annikajane

Hello, all… I’m new to the group, but wanted to chime in on this. I fell & struck my forehead in my hotel room while attending a work conference in 2012 and foolishly decided to power through the event & fly home instead of seeking emergency care. Flash forward, and I began experiencing a multitude of post-concussion symptoms - including double vision. Of all my symptoms (and there were SO many), I was lucky to be referred to a great optometrist who was able to immediately solve the issue by adding prisms to my prescription lenses & sunglasses. My world, after feeling for months like it was so off-kilter, was once again spinning on its proper axis. No more feelings of carsickness while sitting completely still. It was literally life-changing.
My life is still forever altered by my TBI, but the ability to correct my vision was a game-changer.

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@annikajane - welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. Glad you got such good help and that it's made such a difference with your vision in this post concussion situation.

You mentioned that your life is still forever altered by your TBI. Will you share an example or two aside from the vision of how your life is changed since that incident?

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