Amaurosis fugax is scary

So, quite a while back, I suddenly turned “blind” for an hour or so. I decided to go for a nap and see if that fixed it. It did. That was a relief. It’s scary. In one moment, you can see just fine. In the next, you see less… and less… and then everything is just black and you can’t do anything about it. Drink a lot of water, get some fresh air, and take my iron supplements – nothing really worked.

I should have called an ambulance immediately. I didn’t. I went to a doctor a few days later given that it was the weekend and given that most doctors are closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

The eye specialist didn’t have a diagnosis. He just named the symptom “amaurosis fugax”. It’s the word for “eyesight goes black”, apparently. I was sent to the internal specialist. He suspected a stroke – for which I’m too young by the way. I was sent to the hospital. I was freaking out. There they couldn’t find anything wrong with me.

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It happened five or six years ago, too. I was incredibly well prepared for this vocabulary test we had in our Latin class. Then, though, I suddenly couldn’t see much for about half an hour. I still was able to see a little from the corner of my eye but it didn’t go away.

I told my teacher back then that I can’t see anything. I literally couldn’t see the paper in front of me. He said that that’s a weird excuse. I told him that I could yell out the correct test answers right in that instance. It’s not about the test. It’s literally my eyes.

Hence, I was sent to the infirmary – or rather that room where people feeling unwell are sent. It wasn’t really an infirmary. After half an hour, my eyesight got better. It didn’t happen again, so I didn’t think much of it.

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Thus, it happened once. Skip to the present: After a few years, it happened again. Now, it has only been a year since it last happened… and that’s worrying me. My eyesight went fuzzy again on Wednesday. Then again yesterday.

Maybe I’m overthinking it but it appears that it’s more frequent now. The next time I’m seeing black and just black, I will call an ambulance. There is literally nothing that can be found when you go see a doctor once the issue is “fixed”.

It’s like having a cold and only going to the doctor about it once you’re completely healthy again. Pointless.

So, I gotta take this more seriously. My father has this sort of thing as well – but he’s older than me, naturally. He had three strokes already in his life but according to him, the issue is related to stress in his case.

In my case, it’s most likely the same… but according to a search on the internet, I’m supposed to call an ambulance the next time it happens.

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And well, iron doesn’t really seem to help and hydration doesn’t quite help either. It’s not anaemia or something else that I know about. It could be migraine attacks but that’s just speculation at this point.

So, amaurosis fugax is scary. I gotta take care of myself better, I guess. Maybe I just worry too much with exams going on and the added stress of my partner moving away soon and us going long-distance. Maybe I really am just overthinking it at this point and that’s causing stress and that stress translates into temporary blindness or something.

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!