Consequently, friends, family and doctors are often perplexed when sufferers try to explain their symptoms to them. Visual Snow Syndrome is a little-known condition, even within the medical profession. Secondly, patients receive a lack of understanding from others. Therefore, Visual Snow Syndrome can directly impact patients by disrupting routine tasks such as reading, driving or even going outside. Another example is pattern glare making it impossible to read. For instance, as you can see on the Symptoms page, the visual snow can be so dense that it obscures whatever you are looking at. VS seems to impact patients in three main ways.įirst and foremost, the symptoms themselves can be debilitating. For others, the condition is very bad and greatly impacts their lives this is evidenced by the sad accounts of peoples' experiences with VS which you can watch on the Real Stories page. For some the symptoms are almost unnoticeable, causing little impact on their lives. Visual Snow Syndrome’s impact depends on how severe the symptoms are. Nor is VS a sign of a brain tumour, as often feared by some VS patients. So, the problem is in the brain, not in the eyes this would explain why all eye tests come back normal for patients. Ultimately, even though the exact mechanism is yet to be established, the research suggests that VS is a neurological problem. Other hypotheses include visual cortical hyperexcitability and thalamocortical dysrhythmia. It is still unclear exactly what role the cerebellum plays in VS. For example, a healthy person's brain usually filters out entoptic phenomena such as floaters, but VS patients' brains fail to do this resulting in them experience excessive entoptic phenomena. It is believed that since the lingual gyrus is overactive in VS patients, the suppression system malfunctions and fails to filter out VS symptoms. A research review on VS suggests that the lingual gyrus plays an important role in an active system in a 'normal' person's brain that suppresses the symptoms experienced by VS patients. Essentially, it means that those parts of the brain are overactive. Currently, there is no cure for the disease and it is yet to receive widespread recognition within the medical profession.Ī study in 2015 found that patients with Visual Snow Syndrome have hypermetabolism in the right lingual gyrus and left cerebellar anterior lobe of the brain. VS affects a patient's vision 24/7, which means that they never have any relief from it – even when they close their eyes. Most patients experience many other additional symptoms these are also explained and illustrated on the symptoms page. the patient’s eye exams produce normal results, and they have not taken any psychotropic drugs). Attributable to another disorder (i.e.a migraine that produces visual symptoms), or Consistent with a typical migraine visual aura (i.e.Enhanced entoptic phenomena (floaters, blue-field entoptic phenomena, self-light of the eye or spontaneous photopsia)Īdditionally, their symptoms must not be:.At least two of the following four categories of additional symptoms (which are explained and illustrated on the symptoms page):.dynamic, continuous, tiny dots in their entire visual field) for three months, and According to the study, patients must have: A landmark study published in 2014 proposed diagnostic criteria which provides the best definition of VS. Visual Snow Syndrome ('VS') is a devastating neurological condition that can affect an individual’s vision, hearing, cognitive and other functioning.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |