Diabetes complications are real!!

Hi Gingercat

On the subject of your personal light show - you really must get flashing lights or anything similar in your eyes checked by a professional. There can be all sorts of causes and you mustn't take risks with your eyesight.

However - if this is a zig-zag circular flashing area that starts on the edge of your vision and ends up over your central vision before clearing ( shouldn't take too long!) it may be something called 'aural migraine'. At least that's what I think it's called - I'll check on Google when I've finished here and post again if necessary.

They are the sort of flashing light effect that migraine sufferers get, but they can occur with no pain whatsoever, or maybe with a feeling of pressure and a slight headache. I had them for years without pain and thought that maybe they were something to do with dehydration, though I don't know if that's right. Now I only get them very very occasionally. I mentioned them to both my doctor and my optician - I like to nag! - but apparently they're not a problem. They are certainly nothing to do with diabetes 'cos I had them many years before I was diagnosed. So it may be that your effects are nothing to worry about - but you MUST get them checked. And keep on mentioning them if they keep re-occuring.

I'm a long-term contact lens wearer and have had my retinas photographed at my annual eye check for the last 4 years, again pre-diabetes. I have my first diabetic retinopathy check next month, and will be interested to see if they do more than my normal optician does.

Try not to worry too much, see your optician - and never listen to yourself at 3 o'clock in the morning!

Viv

Hi Gingercat

I've checked on Google - what I get are known as 'ophthalmic', 'optical' or 'aural' migraines. If you Google 'optical migraine symptoms' you'll get some good info to discuss with your optician when you go.

Viv

Hi Viv,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I am a migraine suffer and do experience the 'dreaded drizzle' and then the headache followed by a sense of time loss lasting on average 24 hours to 3 days. Up until 8 years ago, I was severely incapacitated by them. No exaggeration to say that they dominated my life and I planned my life to fit around them.. :shock: Anyway, my GP at the time, put me on epilim,an anti-epileptic drug, her words were: 'it will slow down the activity in your brain'! Sure enough, it reduced them by about 50-60%. Then 4 years ago, I developed depression. I didn't know it at the time that it was depression, but I do remember being obsessed with my 'past life', sorry I know that sounds weird but I met someone at the time who I became very friendly with because I had a 'I know you from somewhere feel' - went to the doctor with this information. The doctor gave me a mental health questionnaire to do and I fell into the high risk depression category. So he started me on citalopram, a mood stabliser. Well a rather strange thing happened - apart from improving the depression - from that day on I never got another migraine. For the first time in the whole of my life, I was migraine free!!! :lol: I am still on all of those tablets.
But the sad thing is, that I started getting pains in my eyes, big black floaters and more recently, dark patches of shadow when I am reading. Sometimes the floaters seem so numerous that I find I am constantly drying my eyes. All the time I see lights, balls of lights,spots of lights, streaks of lights. Tonight I asked my husband if he gets floaters and he said no. The stupid thing is that I thought everyone got them...
Anyway, thanks again for finding that out. I hope your migraines stop.