Just had a shower, don’t like showers… don’t like walking in the poring rain either. You think there is a connection? Often I try to sneak an umbrella into the shower but the shower police (Jo or Johanna) is very alert. Anyway back to business. I’m wondering if any others or maybe all have the experience of , when getting low your eyesight gets bad. I simply can’t read anything and see spots without anything to show for. Yes, I’m under specialist care for my eyes but this is rather new to me, not more than 6 months?
I want to be able to keep looking at the girls in this world, that’s about all I can do now an then under Johanna’s super vision. Do you know I have a steady job in the kitchen, unpaid also! I just do it out of the goodness of my heart and because, I like to eat…LOL.
Hi Johnben, when I go low, I do have a lot of trouble with my vision and always have been this way. Moderate lows make it difficult for me to read, and often I may not clue in, especially if I’m busy. Other symptoms are more likely to alert me. But it’s happened before when I’ve been reading a newspaper article to my husband, I’ll keep pausing, losing my place, and eventually he’ll suggest that maybe I need to test my blood. Usually he’s bang on. When really low I have a terrible time reading and negotiating my meter. Luckily the important stuff is big. As for spots, focusing, greyed out, I experience it all. When my bg gets back into the near normal range, the vision improves for me accordingly.
So if your vision clears up after the low, I suspect that you are really ok, and your Jo-supervised-girl-appreciation activities can then resume, and your eye guy has confirmed that you are ok otherwise, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.
Johnben, I’ve had D for 40+ years. One of the things I have learned is, I need to be alert for my body trying to warn me of lows by switching up my symptoms. One of my symptoms for a <40 low is loss of central vision. It still happens on occasion, but it really surprised me the first time it happened, and it tool a few times expeiencing it to confirm it. Another one that I get every so often, numbness around my lips. At this point, it’s just easier to do a finger stick whenever I notice something off. Sometimes it’s my BG, other times it’s not. But, it’s really nice that my body keeps trying to find new ways to warn me!
Sometimes I see a floating fuzzy yellow sideways “C.” I’ve tried to attribute some meaning to that letter. The best I’ve come up with is C for control–fuzzy at best:) My eye doctor hasn’t found a source either, other than it’s a side effect of a hypo which is really hard on our eyes.
Keep looking at the pretty girls, when you can escape KP. Of course, lovely Johanna gets to check out hunky boys, too.
Our visual capabilities need lots of carbs to be fueled. Going low it is not only the central eye nerve that is irritated but the whole processing part gets disturbed. We have only a little spot of clear vision. The rest is made up by the brain. It is my impression that this whole illusion begins to fall apart at some point while going low.
Although this seems dramatic it is a common reaction to lows and a sort of last resort warning sign. The interesting part in your statement is that these symptoms have changed lately. So I am assuming that you have more lows now and more severe lows. Maybe these lows are happening in the night without being noticed. I had a period of severe lows and in this time my vision was very sensitive and I started to get these symptoms very often and very early. If I remember it correctly I had problems to read a newspaper at 60 mg/dL. Has anything else changed? Are you more sensitive to intense or bright light (in this time I was)? Gladly, after reducing my lows these problems disappeared.
If you are unsure about your frequency of lows I would recommend a CGMS monitoring for some days.
When I get a very rapid drop below 50 mg/dl, I get the laser light show vision thing, too. I’ve always had this (remembering back a good 30 years or more).
It doesn’t happen very often (thanks to my control and handy meter), but always freaks me out just a bit. Because I imagine it’s my background retinopathy getting agressive and I start to think, geez, why didn’t I choose a career that requires less vision?!! Like being a jazz singer or a massage therapist? But then I pop a couple of glucose tabs, wait a few minutes, and everything looks normal again.
I have the same thing. I am not sure when it started, but I noticed it 5 years ago, because I moved to a job where I do a lot of reading and writing. I noticed that I have trouble with reading comprehension, well, and then the vision problems set in. It goes away when the blood sugar goes back up.
II get the huge flaming fireballs also… when I am low… it usually happens if I am low early in the evening or at night… It usually doesn’t happen in the middle of the day when I am out in the sunlight. As soon as get out of a low I am fine. I have spoken with 2 eye doctors about it and they hand no idea, and while interesting, were not to concerned since I only had it with a low.
Take Care!
Yes…I have experienced dark spots and hard to read. Often notice these symptoms while I am on the computer…gets to the point I cannot read the screen easily and test my blood sugar which is always low. I have no other symptoms at the time. It is pretty new…just past year or so and I have had T1 for 30 years.
I mentioned this to the eye doc once and he said “that’s because your retina needs sugar to function”. I get the blotches. Lately when I’m having a hypo at night I can tell by looking at the mini blinds on my bedroom window. If I see blotches, I treat immediately.
I do think it’s a tad unusual that this is only a recent symptom for you. But then, everybody’s different.
One way I knwo if i am low is how well I can read. I know if I cannot read so well, that I am very low. Usually by about 45 and lower, I cannot read a darn thing. As my BG comes up my reading ability returns.
If my low comes fast, the double vision and bright white or yellow flares appear. Often as s result of looking at something right. Slow lows are different, vision is not processing correctly and the letters of images are kind of “wiggly” for me. I understand that the odd vision and the flares are from the brain lacking glucose to do it’s work, as someone described, we really on see with part if our eyes, and the rest is filed in by the brain, the same with the double vision. Try closing your left eye and keep your right eye open. Look at something and hold that image, Then switch open eyes, Right closes and Left open. You will most likely see the image move. You brain make the adjustment to give you a clear image.
Because your brain does the processing and it does not need insulin to work, it is constantly using glucose. When the BG drops too low, the brain looses it’s ability to work as normal. Eyes, memory, taste and your dexterity get bashed, sometime a little and sometimes a lot.
For example, my first sign of a low is my memory recall start to not work so well. That poor brain, it gets all the abuse, and stays attached.
Well thank you all for the great response, the brain needs sugar more than any other part of the body.
I saw one person having a deep low going into a stroke! This scared me, even though I had a stroke in 2003 already but don’t need any more!
