Losing my night vision?

Question

Obviously I will go and see an optician about this, but i wanted to see if anyone had the same experience as me.

In the last couple of years I've noticed that I have a black patch in the centre of my vision at night. It's really bizarre, it has ragged edges. It kind of fades away if i keep my eyes open but if I close them and reopen them in dim light the patch is back. I mentioned it to my optician a while back and they did a visual field test - couldn't find anything wrong.

I don't honestly think it's getting worse, but, well, until i can afford to see my optician, does this sound like any known eye disease?

Answer 1

An optician cannot diagnose retinal disorders- and some are quite hard to detect. I speak from experience. It took 2 ophthalmologists, 5 very expensive visits to a neuro-ophthalmologist, and finally a 'just in case they missed something' referral to a retinal specialist, in which I was (finally!) given those contrasted retinal photographs.. what do you know, it lit up like a christmas tree.. HUGE macular pigment clumping.

I will agree with others who have said, more likely than not, it is nothing at all. Because our cones, or the cells we use to see colour, detail, and indeed they do give us the ability to see in light are primarily in our central (straight ahead) vision, as opposed to our rods, which allow us to see in low light, in our peripheral (from the corners) vision, it's normal not to be able to see things straight in front of you in the dark while having some good vision from the edges of your sight.

That said, if you think you do have night vision defects.. night blindness is very, very serious and no laughing matter. Save your money (and set your fears to rest) - see a retinal specialist directly. Most allow you to self-refer, but if they don't, calling your usual doctor and asking them send in a referral without you visiting them first almost always works.

Answer 2

This sounds like; Retinitis pigmentosa

It could be anything else, check here;

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/sym/night_...

Answer 3

Before you let the doctors start cutting, have you considered the possibility that you are a low myope?

People are more myopic at night.

Myopes often suffer with reduced vision under dim light conditions.

The center of the eye is less sensitive to light reception than the outer portion of the eye.

Does the problem go away when you look through a friend's glasses?

If you can see better with a friend's glasses, you could see even bettter with properly prescribed glasses.

Answer 4

i have very very good night vision.

Answer 5

Only at night you say...

If your optician did a test and found nothing I would say that the likelihood is that you are ok.

A few things may help you.

Make sure you are consuming plenty of vitamin A. (don't go overboard, too much isn't a good thing).

Also studies have found that green vegetables such as  like spinach, broccoli and kale promote good vision, they are also extremely healthy.

Answer 6

This occurs to a lesser or greater degree in everybody. We humans have the best day and night vision on the planet. In order to do this there has to be a little bit of a compromise.

Our retina in the back of the eye is composed of cone receptors for color day vision and rod receptors for night vision and movement. The cones are densly packed in the center of the eye. As we move from the center of the retina the cones diminish and the rods increase. Our cones cannot see in the dark so when we are looking up at the stars, the star that we are looking at dissapears untill we look at another star nearby. Then that star dissapears and the one we were looking at reappears.

Artificial corrections(glasses, contacts, surgery) can increase this effect. One of the first things that diminishes after wearing glasses for many years is night vision.

When we get blurry vision and glasses we have learned some incorrect vision habits that squeeze our eyes out of shape. This squeezing squelches the circulation to our eyes reducing our eyes sensitivity. This also reduces our eyes ability to pick up nutrients and get rid of wastes. Eye nutrition can increase the nutrients available in the bloodstream for the short term increasing the eyes chances of picking up that nutrition and reducing free radicals.

Relearning to See clearly naturally free's up the tension in the eyes and increases their circulation dramatically.

Answer 7

The symptoms you describe indicate that you are not able to use previously 'good' photo pigments, or are unable to reform them once they've become denatured. Photo pigment physiology is fairly complex. There are  number of hereditary disorders that result in night blindness problems. They vary from retinal dystrophy's, retinal pigment dystrophy's, and choroidal dystrophy's.

You should probably go to a retina specialist who has the ability to do electrophysiological studies such as the ElectroRetinoGram (ERG) and possibly also evaluate the optic nerve with Visual Evoked Responses (VER) to make sure that you don't have MS or some other optic nerve disorder. Since over 90% of the fibers in the optic nerve are from the macula, when there's inflammation or other disease of the nerve, it's manifested as a loss of central

vision.



An EOG (look up electrophysiology of the retina or eye or pigment epithelium or choroid) will also probably be suggested.

I'm sure that squeezing your eyes may alter the circulation in the eye some, but I can't figure out how it would be much. Most people when they 'squeeze' are really squinting to see better and that's sort of a way of pin-hole-ing or using just the central light rays which sort of 'eliminates' the near or farsightedness. As the central retinal artery is the first division off the Internal Carotid...have you any idea how much pressure that is? If in surgery one 'hits' a retinal artery, one gets to see just how much pressure that IS. To stop that bleeding during surgery one has to raise the pressure in the eye itself to over 70mm Hg. which sort of slows it down a bit. And one doesn't have that much time during that period to 'fix' the problem or the retinal ganglion cells will die (not a good thing).

You'll probably need to go to a University where they have the right retinal physiological laboratory and a retina specialist who is sort of the reclusive scientist type. S/he'll know in a second what you have once the tests are in.

There are also genetic tests you can get as well which may show markers for different types of dystrophies.

Answer 8

i have heard of some night vision problems to be associated with a lack of a particular mineral/vitamin in your system.  and the black patches are probably from a light source causing your eye to adjust to the brightness.

if for example, you are in a dark room, and you go to the fridge, and look at the light and then go back into the dark. the part were the bulbs light was focused will take longer for you to see in the dark then the rest of your eye. and looking at a bright screen and then going into the dark will have the same effect. so it could just be totally normal. but it's good that you are going to get it checked out properly.

you haven't had any knocks to your head? or sudden shakes to your head? as this could then indicate something more serious.