in this video we're talking about visual snow syndrome one of the most least
understood visual conditions that is out there and today we're talking about the
symptoms how it's diagnosed and the treatment
let's take a look hey what's up this is dr. Allen here from the doctor eye
health show helping you learn about the eyes vision in fighting the best vision
product so hit that subscribe button down below and turn into notifications
so that we can help you keep taking good care of your eyes. So visual snow
syndrome also known as just visual snow or sometimes denoted as VS. is a visual
condition where people don't see clearly instead they see a lot of little
speckled dots on absolutely everything that they're looking at and kind of
reminds you of this static that you see on an old television set that wasn't
getting good reception and when someone sees this visual snow they see this
static all of the time from the moment they wake up in the morning to the
moment when they go to bed at night now oftentimes when people have visual snow
they see this static into a really extreme degree to the point where
they're unable to read or function to have a car things like that where some
people just have it to a really minimal degree and they can almost just tune it
out and ignore it now interestingly enough this condition
is so misunderstood it's not really in any of my ophthalmology textbooks
nothing in optometry ophthalmology even my visual science book doesn't really go
over what visual snow is it's that misunderstood I had to learn most of
this knowledge from reading a lot of different journal journal articles and
publications as well as some sort of resource articles and I'll include
additional links to these resources in the description below if you want to
read it and review them yourself what I find interesting is that I actually do
have visual snow syndrome and yes I did diagnosed myself and doctors shouldn't
do that but it is something that I've had my entire life since I was a kid and
I've tried to describe it to people but I wasn't sure how to describe it and I
really didn't know that it had a name until other viewers started commenting
on visual snow and I had to do more research on it to understand it now
thankfully I have a very very mild case of visual snow I do see the static most
of the time I just kind of tune it out and ignore it but if I'm in a dark
especially in the morning on the first waking up or maybe I'm in an exam room
when it's really dark or maybe I'm going to bed and I really just kind of tuned
things out I can see the static on everything and even right now in the
daylight and the rooms of the office here I can actually see this little
static on everything that I'm looking at I think one of the reasons that visual
snow is so misunderstood is that people often just don't know how to describe it
or really don't mention it to other people so if you're somebody who has
visual snow or you're seeing some sort of a different visual phenomenon in your
eyesight go ahead and comment in the section below because this again is
something we need to be talking about now visual snow syndrome actually has
other types of symptoms that go along with it one of the most notably is
called nyctalopia which is the inability to see at nighttime
there's also photophobia which is extreme light sensitivity which is also
me hence probably why I picked a career
where I am in a dark room all day there's another one called palinopsia
where people see continuous trails of moving objects in their vision kinda
like moving your hand really fast except that you see you many many hands
trailing afterward and there's something called the entoptic phenomenon which is
when people start to see little different spots moving in their vision
something like a blue field entoptic phenomenon which is when you look at the
sky and you see little moving spots or this could have includes seeing colorful
swirls in your vision whether your eyes are closed or not again that is also me
again not everybody has all of these different types of visual symptoms
however most people who have visual snow have at least two of these symptoms now
historically and not until recently visual snow was always believed to be
kind of an after effect of somebody using hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD
but in more recent publications both neurologists and visual scientists have
concluded that yes you can develop visual snow without any history of
hallucinogenic drug use but it is true that for some people taking those harsh
drugs have permanently altered their visual system and they do see this sort
of visual snow syndrome unfortunately at the timing of this video both doctors
and scientists don't fully understand the exact cause of visual snow however
the popular theory is something called the thalamo cortical
dysrhythmias the lamo cortical dysrhythmias is believed to be a
miscommunication between the thalamus and the visual cortex of the brain at
least when it pertains to a visual snow and visual snow has also been reported
to be a symptom of other medical conditions such as persistent migraine
aura that's when you see kind of or flashing spots in your vision that's a
whole other visual kind of phenomenon that you can experience so I also have
and if you'd like to see my other video I've done on migraine with aura I'll
hook a link up here in the YouTube karp above and again I'll put that link in
the description below again if you haven't checked that out but it's also
been associated with something called optic neuritis which is an inflammatory
condition associated with multiple sclerosis as well as inflammatory issues
after traumatic brain injury you know there are many other bodily symptoms of
social visual snow beyond just the visual symptoms that we've described
already I'm not gonna list out all of them because it's a pretty lengthy list
but the most common ones are migraines a tinnitus which is a ringing of the ears
and vertigo which is the feeling of dizziness so now if you've been
following along in this video you might have been certain to question do you
have visual snow and you might be wondering how is this diagnosed well in
the clinic and eye doctor like myself or maybe a neurologist would have to follow
through a small checklist in order to properly diagnose visual snow syndrome
so this is that checklist number one is that the patient has to constantly be
seeing the static of visual snow in their vision and they have to have it
all of the time number two is that it can't be associated with a constant like
migraine with aura again that's a flashing visual obscuration you can have
in your vision if you're not sure what I'm talking about in terms of the aura
then I do have that video going over or a migraine and I'll hang it hook that
into the video up in the description below number three is that it can't be
associated from any sort of drug abuse multiple sclerosis and inflammatory and get
inflammation of the optic nerve or any other ophthalmic or eye disease. and that
number four is is that it has to be associated with some other symptoms such
as photophobia again the really very light sensitivity which is something
that I have some enhanced in topic phenomenon which is
visual obscurations blue teal blue field entoptic phenomenon looking at the sky
and you're seeing moving dots it's something that I see as well as kind of
maybe other color swirls in your vision that's something that could count for
that you could have nyctalopia the inability to see at night and then
tinnitus the ringing of the ears those are the more common ones and you
typically have to have one of those other symptoms
now since this condition is considered very rare I've only really diagnosed it
on two people myself and one other patient now certainly other people
probably have this visual syndrome however they just often don't mention it
or talk about it because it's so misunderstood and kind of confusing but
hey if you are learning something new in this video and finding it helpful let me
know by smashing that like button for me as far as treatment of visual snow goes
unfortunately treatment is still very limited because it is such an unknown
and misunderstood disease we haven't really found a treatment that is
consistent for everybody some studies have put patients on
different migraine medications however they didn't fully get rid of the static
some studies also suggested changing the diet by decreasing any sort of
preservative of processed foods in the diet which is something that I think
everybody should be kind of striving for and it's overall this good for your
entire body and then some studies even indicate using different filtered lenses
the lenses that have been suggested in studies include yellow lenses blue
lenses and even the FL 41 tint kind of rose-colored lenses for migraines have
all been suggested however in these studies it's all very subjective I know
and I put on the yellow the blue or the FL 41 migraine sort of tint I still
notice the visual snow it doesn't really help me but it's something that
certainly you could look into and try if you want to look at any of these
different lenses that I'm showing here then I'll include that in the link in
the description below if you want to check them out again visual snow
syndrome is very misunderstood and underfunded if you want to learn more
about visual snow or perhaps even donate to ongoing research then I encourage you
to check out the visual snow initiative those are people who are continually
trying to improve the awareness and the research in terms
of visual snow and finding a cure for the visual of snow syndrome I was
actually lucky enough to speak with some of the people at the visual snow
initiative and to get the information to make this video and if you want to reach
out to them I highly encourage you do and you can do that by checking out
their website I'll include that link in the description below hey I hope you
found this video helpful but do me a favor go ahead and comment the section
below if you think you have visual snore if you're having any sort of visual
symptoms otherwise also mention it to your eye doctor because that's gonna
raise awareness to the eye care professional community about this
condition and hopefully we can all work together to find a cure and better
understand the eyes and the visual system again thanks for watching keep an
eye on it and we'll talk to you soon