My daughter is 8 years old. Today she told us that sometimes she sees a green blob in her vision. It can appear anywhere in her field of vision, and it sometimes ‘jumps around’. It’s not there all the time. She says it’s been there for as long as she can remember, but it seems to be getting bigger now. She says sometimes it even gets in her way at school and she can’t see the part of the blackboard that it covers.
Has anyone heard of this before? She says she can see it in both eyes, so it wouldn’t be a retinal detachment or anything to do with a specific eye. My first thought is that it’s some kind of precursor to migraines or something. I had horrible migraines when I was a child, as did my grandfather, and my understanding is that they are a form of seizure.
Our first instinct is to take her to the eye doctor as soon as possible next week, but I thought I’d see if anyone else has come across this before.
I’ve heard of floaters, what looks like transparent filaments floating in your vision, but not green blobs.
Migraines, as far as my experience goes, started off with “colored static” or “sparkling lights” in the corner of my eye. They were not in my field of vision, and would “jump” if I tried to look at them directly.
If you’re taking her to an eye doctor next week, then I’d wait and see what s/he says.
I thought of that too. I just asked her if it only happens after she looks at a light, but she says no. It does sound like an afterimage, though. I asked her how often she sees it, and she said, “About 36 times a day”.
What I can’t understand is that she claims to have a big green blob the size of her hand that actually obstructs her vision, and that she’s had it for as long as she can remember, but this is the first time she’s mentioned it to us? I asked her about that, and she said “I thought it was normal and everyone had it.”
It can be frustrating trying to elicit symptoms from an 8 year old!
I dunno. Low blood sugar (like, less than 60 mg/dl) will make a large blind spot about that size in both eyes for me, but it only lasts for about 5-10 minutes or so after I come in from the sun, or until I raise my blood sugar. This blind spot can be yellow or green-tinged, but is sometimes grey or silver. It doesn’t sound like the same thing.
When I was diagnoised with “presumed ocular histoplasmosis” at age 19, I had been seeing the “afterimage” for years. I just never closed one eye at a time and concentrated on what I was seeing. When it doesn’t hurt, often you don’t know anything is wrong. And when it is something that can’t be seen by others, they may not take your complaints seriously.
Afterthought to the above post: when your daughter was born, were there chicken farms in the area? Did you have pet birds when she was an infant? The dust from bird feces is the probable carrier for histoplasmosis.
If you can afford it, you should take your daughter to an eye doctor. Odds are it isn’t clinically significant. Unless this disturbs her much, not a real problem.
I missed this thread before but will use this opportunity to brag about “socialized medicine”. In Canada, where I’m pretty sure Sam lives, cost is a complete non-issue. The only thing that counts, the sole “means test”, is medical necessity.
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The only time I was embarrassed to be a doc was when I met a young family from rural North Carolina. I was told that one of the kids had congenital heart disease but that surgical repair was a dream - they could never afford the operation.
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Sorry to babble, but the phrase “If you can afford it”, sounds totally bizarre to my Canadian ears.
Nothing new to report. We haven’t taken her to an ophthamologist yet, and repeated quizzing her about it gets noncommittal answers. Doesn’t seem to bother her a lot, and she says they’ve been there as long as she can remember. We’re going to take her to the doc as soon as possible, but it doesn’t seem to be deadly urgent since it seems to be a chronic problem. I’ll report back when we get a formal diagnosis.