Whiteouts, Fainting, Headache

 

Either spoken of as a "white out" or a "grey out" , the experience can be fairly unnerving. The eyes we depend on to live in the world we've been born to and move about in and react to, are suddenly threatened. What do you do when you experience a sudden loss of eyesight? Well, you may feel faint, and you would certainly have flash thoughts of serious problems surfacing in the body and its senses we take so much for granted.

"Fainting can be benign when it's related to a sudden stress."

"Standing up too fast, overexerting, becoming dehydrated or taking certain medications can also lead to hypotension -- low blood pressure-- and potentially, a whiteout."

"An underlying heart condition, such as aortic stenosis, could  cause fainting symptoms, including whiteout."

"Transient visual obscurations, also known as TVOs, last seconds. They can appear as flashes of w hite light and cause a loss of vision."

Sarah Thornton, neuro-ophthalmologist, Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia

PrimeMed

"TVOs are caused by swelling of the optic nerve and can happen when you change position, say, sanding up quickly." 

"closing one eye is actually what you should do if you have sudden vision loss -- close the eye you think is affected You can cover  your eye, but it's best to close it, so you don't spread out your fingers and obscure anything."

"Then see what you see out of the other eye. If everything looks normal you los vision in the eye you've closed, and you can tell your doctor you lost vision in that single eye.:

"If everything looks weird, you've lost vision in your right eye, too. Knowing this information can help your doctor determine a cause."

Dean M. Cestari, neuro-ophthalmologist, Mass General Brigham Mass Eye and Ear, Boston

Whiteouts, remember those? Back when typewriters were in use, long before computers and keyboards and screens made their appearance. Not exactly ancient history, but a while ago. Whiteout was the name of the white goo in a little glass bottle with a brush stopper that was used to coat a word, a spelling error, or anything else. And it could be typed over, once it had dried. As a correction device it beat using an eraser that would degrade the paper and wear it thin and just mess up all that hard work typing produced.

And then came computers, and everything changed. Errors could be quickly modified, erased, replaced, and whiteout went the way of the Dodo. But that's not quite the whiteout that is being discussed by the medical community when the word is mentioned. In that instance, it's the human eye that suddenly malfunctions spelling either a temporary and fleeting condition that may never again recur, or the signal that something is going wrong with the human body.

Whiteouts are generally benign in nature and transitory. Which doesn't mean they can be ignored. A consultation with a physician is always recommended to ensure that a medical professional can assess the situation and diagnose what its cause was. With recurrent whiteouts it can be extremely useful when their real time duration is taken into account to enable a doctor to be guided toward the correct diagnosis. 

Such a situation calls for attention to details, to note when they occur, their frequency, whether faintness accompanies the event. Fainting can be benign in itself, but if it occurs along with the whiteout, that information too should be conveyed to a doctor. Whiteouts and fainting together can be pointing to a potentially serious condition. Such as arrhythmias, heart failure and atrial fibrillation. A whiteout accompanied by headache may presage the onset of glaucoma.

Typically, whiteouts are not associated with strokes or transient ischemic attacks, according to Dr. Eggenberger of the Jacksonville Mayo Clinic. The most compelling advice for those undergoing such incidents remains the cautionary, 'take notes'. Consult an optometrist or ophthalmologist, or your family physician following a whiteout.

"In general, stroke-type events cause a painless sudden onset, and a pure blackout or loss of vision, often involving the upper or lower half of the visual field in only one eye."

"In contrast, whiteouts typically involve both eyes and begin in a 360-degree peripheral  pattern with a slower progressive constriction toward the centre of  your vision."

Eric R. Eggenberger, ophthalmologist and neurologist, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida