Can pain affect your eyesight. My Cervical Stenosis has flared up and at

[alfredo]

times of severe pain, my eyesight seems blurred. Is that normal?

[Warpy]

1. Not really, the optic nerve pops out of the front of your

midbrain and carries signals through the brain to the occipital lobe in the back. Spinal stenosis wouldn't affect it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optic_nerve if you're interested.

What might be doing it are the medications you are on or the fact that your eyes are simply changing as you age. Do mention it to your doctor, though. No one should be in severe, untreated pain.

[alfredo]

2. I'm going in Wednesday. I just noticed when I am in real pain

my distance vision blurs. The term "blinding pain" came to mind.

Not sure if pain pills would be worse than the pain.

[alfredo]

3. The doctor gave me some Melocicam and has set me up

for an eye test. We have a history of cataracts in our family. My mother and sister had them.

I'm getting an MRI tonight for my cervical spine.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

4. My situation is probably not the same as yours, but I do empathize with your problems.

My neck was screwed up in a bicyclist versus auto accident. You can probably guess which one I was. I knew that something was wrong with my neck right away but since initial X-Rays were negative, I didn't get any further tests done.

Over the next 5 or 6 months, I started having all kinds of problems with swallowing, vision disorders, beyond belief headaches, partial paralysis of my face and other goodies.

After years of progressive worsening of the symptoms and numerous MRI's and MRA's which showed that my cervical spine looked like a train wreck and ruling out ALS, MS, tumors etc., I finally saw a Neuro-Opthamologist.
She confirmed what a few other specialists had been saying all along. The initial neck injury had caused enough swelling that there was permanent ischemic damage to the spinal cord, brain stem and cerebellum which had pretty much fried all of the cranial nerves including the ones that control the muscles involved in all facets of vision.

Sorry for the long winded reply. As I said, I know what it's like to have cervical spine problems.

I hope that they are able to sort out your problem and provide you with some kind of relief. Good luck with your MRI. Hopefully it's nothing that will require surgery or other drastic measures.

[alfredo]

5. I've been to neuro surgeons and they say my condition is

inoperable. My condition came from a slow motion injury: years of carrying a mail satchel, years of construction and farm work.

The medicine seems to be working. In the week of using it, the pain has gone from 8 down to 4 to 6.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

6. Good to hear that the meds. are helping.

You've had jobs that really would stress the neck. My BIL is a contractor and also does a lot of farm work and his neck is pretty much getting to the point that he's in constant pain and having most of the other cervical problems inherent with those types of activities.

The one thing that I've found that helps is Flexeril so that at least some of the muscle cramping in the back and neck eases up.

You hear so much about lower back pain that a lot of people don't realize that cervical spine problems can also be incapacitating.

Good luck in the future! Maybe they'll find something that can help when surgery isn't an option.

:thumbsup:

[alfredo]

7. This is my reward for being a hard worker. I found that

vodka helps. ;)


I hope to find out about the MRI soon. If they feel surgery can help, I will get the surgery.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

8. To paraphrase "Airplane", it looks like I picked the wrong time to give up drinking.

Hopefully the MRI will at least give you a clear idea of what your next move will be. My first Neurologist had been through two neck operations himself so he was able to relate to what people like us go through.

My brother has had two of them also. At least they've made progress in the methods and materials used so that it's not as traumatic as it was formerly.

My last MRI was three years ago and my current Neurologist said that the medical term for my situation is called "your neck is crap"! You have to love the medical jargon.

Good luck with the results of the MRI and keep the Vodka in range.

:thumbsup:

[alfredo]

9. The MRI showed pinched nerves due to Degenerative

Disc disease.

As they say it: Multilevel degenerative disc disease, spurring and bilateral neural foraminal encroachment. Levels include C4-C5, C5-C6, and C6-C7.

the eyes turned out to be Macular Degeneration.