Confessions of a Concussed Cyclist: Kaleidoscope Vision

April 21, 2020

Day to day I go about life with many side effects of my traumatic brain injury: post concussion migraine, quick to become overwhelmed/stimulated, photophobia, and poor depth perception, just to name a few.  Then there are symptoms that come out of nowhere, make their presence known, then leave again, only to return at some other random point. Enter kaleidoscope vision!

About a year and a half after my TBI I started having spells where I would lose my vision.  When these spells happen, it is like looking through a kaleidoscope, it becomes impossible to focus on anything as all the shapes and colors just blur together, with squiggly lines added in that slowly work their way across my eyes.  These vision issues come out of nowhere and they can last 10 minutes or they can last an hour. There are no warning signs it is going to start and there is no way of knowing how long it will last. I’ve been home reading, I’ve been driving my car, I’ve been at work and in a split-second my vision is gone.  If I’m home, I just go lay down. If I’m driving, I quickly pull over. If I’m at work, I fake it as much as I can to get by but I have had to ask for help with silly things before, because I was unable to see (and I didn’t want to fess up to what was going on). Today, after work, I was making lunch…now you see it, now you don’t.  One second I could see my grilled cheese in the pan and the next second it was gone.  

Right after these spells started, I spoke to my neurologist and she immediately referred me to a neurological opthamologist for testing. The testing was very difficult because it involved a lot of flashing lights and if you know me (or have read my other Confessions) you know flashing lights now create a seizure effect for me.  The testing showed nothing abnormal so it was decided this vision issue was most likely a result of my post concussion migraines and some damage done when I was hit. Although it did raise questions of why, after over a year, did these vision problems suddenly present themselves, but my neurologist and I shook them off with the answer of “Jen is not one to follow rules or logic so…”  

There is nothing to be done to help when my kaleidoscope vision rears its ugly, unclear head and there is no way to speed it up when it comes on.  The sudden vision loss does not hurt my eyes, but it always ramps up my migraine. Just another not-so-fun side effect of a traumatic brain injury.