Eye probems

[Ghostshadow]

Hi dose anyone have problems with there eyes. Since haveing pa. My coulor vision is not right. Why my b12 is low. Colours look different.shade go lighter or very bright. Or change from one colour to another. Iike one time a loaf of homeal bread looked pink. It comes and gos. My GP is very puzzeld. Ive had my eyes checked nothing.

[Steap]

At the start of my real problems I had an aversion to bright light and didn't know what was going on. At its worst point it felt like I was watching a 3D tv too. I know the real world is 3D but it didn't quite feel right. The optician said my vision was perfect (with glasess). I ended up changing to dimmer light bulbs in the house and having to turn the tv brightness down at night (I still do that or it's overpowering). Before supplementing I also had three episodes of what were explained as ocular/silent migraine. That was very scarey until I found out what it was.

A few years ago I noticed that choosing glasses was more difficult as I found it hard not to keep noticing the frame etc.

Just before I took ill i realised that I could see my nose and that's something we automatically filter from vision usually.

I do have something called conversion insufficiency and have prism in my glasses so it could just of been worsened by the fatigue.

Another issue I found was lights etc gave me a little momentary image after I turned away. My shower has an led light and it would leave a trail if I looked at it while moving my head to wash.

All of those issues improved after a short while when I started on the b12 daily. They were worrying or dare I say frightening.

I'm only able to take methylcobalamin sublingual spray because the Gp won't accept my private blood results or prescribe injections.

I hope you feel better soon.

[helvella in reply to Steap]

I have not seen many people describe vision deterioration as you have - and that sounds very much what I felt. My words have always been that the world started to look somewhat more 2.5D than 3D.

I *think* I might have been B12 deficient at the time as oral 1000 microgram methylcobalamin was helpful. But I also was suffering uncorrected hypothyroidism. Definitiely something else to look at.

No longer an issue for me - on adequate thyroid hormones and take B12 from time to time. (Should be more consistent, I know.)

I did a PubMed search and found a few papers that mention "colour vision" and "B12":

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?te...

[helvella in reply to helvella]

At around the same time I had a series of aura-only visual migraines. Have had a few ordinary migraines in my life so I know what they are like. It was very odd!

Have not had any of those either since adequate treatment. Thankfully.

[Lakme_]

PA causes a lot of strange symptoms. My eyes don't water at all when my b12 is low. Also white light looks a little more yellow so I can relate to the color part a little bit.

[Gambit62 Administrator]

what Steap describes sounds like a neuro-psychiatric effect of B12 which may be what is going on for you as well, rather than anything specific going on in the eye - perception isn't just about what happens in the eye it is also about what happens in the brain and the way the brain interprets the signals it is receiving.

[Ghostshadow in reply to Gambit62]

Thank you.your coment has made me think.haveing autism and dyspraxia.already efects my short.term memory and motor coordation. The pa has made these things worse. Its all the brain. Maybe my brain is affected more because of the way it is.l had a brain scan my gp said their wasnt any sigh of demensha like my mum had.when the pa started as well as tiredness my memory got worse id get confused in farmilar places. I suddenly not know where i was .i didnt reconice anything. I was terrorfide.

[Gambit62 Administrator in reply to Ghostshadow]

Hi Ghostshadow - yes, there can be a lot of similarity between the effects of B12 deficiency and autism. B12 plays a part in the processes that reset neurotransmitters which carry messages between nerves. When my B12 was bad I found it very difficult to be somewhere where there was a lot going on because it was impossible to filter out different inputs and concentrate on one thing - like everyone was shouting at me all the time. One way I know if my B12 levels are getting low is that colours will affect me more - red in particular.

I found that some meditation techniques worked well for me as I had problems for many years before I finally found out what the problem was.

[Steap in reply to Gambit62]

I can relate to that, When I'm not too good places like pubs become very loud because I can hear every single conversation rather than filtering them out.

The human brain does a thing called cocktail party syndrome where it does actually listen to everything but you just don't notice until someone's mentions your name etc then you get drawn to the discussion.

The b12 symptoms I guess switch the filtering bit off so it gets very noisy.

I expect people who live with autism experience a similar thing and that's maybe why you often see children with autism and sometimes adults wearing ear defenders or large headphones.

I also seem to be hyper aware of my surroundings so a passing car that causes a small reflection on the wall can be quite startling.

Another issue I experienced was chemical sensitivity. If my wife sprays hair spray or perfume in a room and I walked into it unprepared it hit me like a rock.

I used to avoid the detergent isle in the supermarket like the plague because it was so overpowering.

All of this improved when I took a lot of b12 but I had a break recently and it began to creep back in.

[Ghostshadow in reply to Steap]

Yes with aurtism you can be sound sentertive. All my life sounds can be so loud to me it hurts.some autistcs find light painfull. Im glad ive found someone else that has coulor problems when the b12 is low. I was begining to think i was going insane.knowone understoad.