posted
on one of my exams I found in my medical record the doc (not LLMD) said "possible slight blurring of the optic disc" does this happen with lyme? Anyone else have it?
Posts: 68 | From COATESVILLE, PA! | Registered: Mar 2004
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minoucat
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5175
posted
Optic disc blurring is one of the indicators for intracranial swelling. It's one of things they look for in cluster headaches and hypertension, among other conditions. Given that some form of encephilitis is common with LD, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of us have this at some point.
Pub Med has quite a few references to optic disc swelling and lyme disease. Here's the only one I found specific to optic disc blurring:
Retinal vasculitis in Lyme borreliosis.
Leys AM, Schonherr U, Lang GE, Naumann GO, Goubau P, Honore A, Valvekens F.
Department of Ophthalmology, Universitaire Ziekenhuizen Leuven, Belgium.
We observed retinal vasculitis in seven patients with clinical and serologic evidence of Borrelia burgdorferi infection. Three patients presented with abrupt loss of vision due to acute retinal vasculitis. Funduscopy demonstrated engorged veins, hemorrhages, perivenous infiltrates and retinal white spots. Fluorescein angiography showed leakage from the veins, from the white spots and from the optic disc. Moreover arterial occlusions were observed in two patients. Four patients had signs of chronic uveitis with vitritis, cystoid macular oedema and retinal vasculitis, which was associated with neovascularization and vitreous hemorrhage in one patient, and with optic neuritis in another patient. Six patients received antibiotic treatment and three patients received systemic corticosteroids. Marked improvement in the three acute retinal vasculitis cases occurred within several weeks, the fundus changes disappeared in another few months, and no recurrences were observed. The final visual acuity was excellent in these patients, although optic disc pallor and visual field loss persisted in one case. In the four patients with chronic uveitis visual blurring improved following antibiotic treatment and the retinal vasculitis and vitritis slowly regressed. The proliferative retinopathy of one patient required panretinal laser treatment.
I had this...actually still do...although my vision and head have improved...
It was explained to me that the optic disc has pressure being applied on it(I did have recurrent meningitis from brain swelling like explained above, not that it showed up in MRIs or Cscans according to Drs )...
I actually worked in an optometrist office where we have a Retinal camera and I got an actual polaroid type photo of it...I still get it taken annually ever since for comparison, but despite symptoms that made them look at this, now getting better, it appears my optic nerve is forever changed...??
Kira
Posts: 802 | From Chicago suburbs, Illinois | Registered: Jun 2002
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