It didn’t last too long. It may have been brought on by a fever. But even so, the 90 minutes I spent seeing two of everything was a real eye-opener, excuse the pun.
As my body fights off a virus that my wife, Caryn, brought into the house from America, my typical, below-average body temperature spiked a bit of a fever. It was only a degree or two (Fahrenheit) above normal, but many of us with multiple sclerosis (MS) know what that means:
It was time for a pseudoexacerbation.
At First It Wasn’t Obvious What Was Wrong
In this case, I was feeding the dogs (we have two now!) when, quite suddenly, my world felt a bit off kilter.
I thought it might be the beginnings of a migraine attack, as those are far too common for me. But as I stopped to assess what was happening, I realized that it wasn’t an aura I was experiencing (which are precursors to my migraine experience).
My field of vision was blurred, but this wasn’t the kind of blurring I’d experienced before. It was more pronounced, but at the same time, there was also still a kind of clarity to what I could see.
I wall-walked my way into the bedroom and looked into a large mirror, and then the problem was clear. (Sorry, I did it again.)
There were two of everything.
The first thing I noted was that I could see my eyes and then, at chin level and slightly off-center, were a second pair of my bespectacled, hazel eyes. I was having a proper bout of MS double vision.
With eyes closed — so not to make myself dizzy and vomit or something — I wall-walked back into the kitchen. Peeking through one eye to see if that made a difference (it didn’t) I took up the girls’ bowls, let them out for a pee, retrieved them, and went to lie down to see if it would pass.
Would Resting and Cooling Down Do the Trick?
Diplopia is the medical term for double vision. I’ve experienced diplopia on a few occasions before, and thankfully, it has only lasted a couple of hours, at the outside. I figured if I rested for a bit, with a cold compress on my neck to cool things down a bit, it might pass.
Thankfully, it did after about an hour and a half. But, as I said, it’s not the first time, and it has brought back a fear of mine that I like to keep well tucked in the back of my mind.
I have made the decision that steroids would be something of a last (all right, second-to-last) resort treatment for me. My first couple of years after diagnosis saw me getting eight three- to five-day infusions with that drug, and it really messed up my system.
Besides, some research shows that a person is in the same place 12 months post-MS relapse, with or without steroid treatment.
What If Resting Hadn’t Worked — or Doesn’t, in the Future?
It’s easy to say that we’ll put up with something for up to a year or get used to it until it passes so that we don’t have to take a drug we don’t like or don’t want to take.
It’s a whole other conversation with ourselves and our family when the symptom in question is as life-altering as seeing two of everything.
Fortunately, this was a short episode, likely induced by an elevated temperature. As it’s now something that has happened on more than a couple of occasions, I’m going to have to really assess my strategy if it comes again and doesn’t retreat after a short rest and cool-down.
It’s not a conversation I’m looking forward to having with myself.
Wishing you and your family the best of health.
Cheers,
Trevis
