Visual snow survey

[Suzette]

Recently someone mentioned that Visual Snow Syndrome is common with people on the spectrum. I have had V.S.S. all my life but did not know others had it too. In fact, I've struggled to get doctors to even acknowledge I have a real problem.

Appearently this disease /syndrome has only been recognised by the medical community since 2014. Currently the syndrome is thought to be rare but researchers acknowledge that there are probably many undiagnosed cases.

I am curious about others experience with Visual Snow. How long have you had it? Do you have other symptoms identified by researchers as often being cocurrent with V.S. such as migraine or tinnitus?
How does V.S. affect your life? Do you see V.S. in your dreams?
Have you attempted to tell doctors or others about your V.S.? How did they react?

Please share your experiences! Add as much detail as you want, the more the better!

 

[unperson]

Had to look it up, no don't have snow but have the last 3. Night blindness is part of aging, night vision worsens with age. Floaters would be an aging thing too, I imagine.

 

[Suzette]

Had to look it up, no don't have snow but have the last 3. Night blindness is part of aging, night vision worsens with age. Floaters would be an aging thing too, I imagine.

Thanks! I didn't think to add a link anout what visual snow is!

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I am curious about others experience with Visual Snow. How long have you had it? Do you have other symptoms identified by researchers as often being cocurrent with V.S. such as migraine or tinnitus?
How does V.S. affect your life? Do you see V.S. in your dreams?
Have you attempted to tell doctors or others about your V.S.? How did they react?

Please share your experiences! Add as much detail as you want, the more the better!

1. All my life
2. Tinnitus
3. Doesn't affect my life.
4. Yes.
5. Doctor,...No. Wife,...Yes. This forum,...Yes.
6. Wife,...no reaction. This forum,...we're talking about it.

VSS, within the context of autism, is a neurological condition. No likely treatment short of a brain rewiring. Doctor isn't going to do anything. Why bring it up.

 

[dragonfire42]

Visual snow and tinnitus for as long as I can remember, occasional migraines since my teens. It’s odd that I’m not particularly sensitive to light with all my other sensory sensitivities. It usually isn’t a problem for me, and just like the tinnitus, for most of my life I didn’t think it was anything unusual, so I’ve never brought it up with a doctor. But the visual snow is less obnoxious to me. I haven’t noticed if I see it in dreams or not.

 

[Unclewolverine]

I've always had snow, just recently learned that not everyone does! I thought I read that everyone has floaters, we just rarely notice them. I don't know if I always had tinnitus or if that is a result of racing. Took me 40 years to figure out I get a lot less headaches if I wear sunglasses on sunny days.

 

[Booknerd515]

Wait this is a thing-I've only heard about it from this forum post. So I might have it. I couldn't get past fifteen seconds of that video without having a slight headache. I get long-lasting migraines that last for weeks or months-not just days and this always confuses doctors.

During the past few years, I have been seeing visual spots of many different colors nearly all the time (not really floaters). They increase with sensory I don't like and majorly increase with pain. I also am very prone to having tunnel vision and fainting. I have ear ringing multiple times a day. I see an image sometimes when it is no longer in my vision, like if I move my head, for instance part of a chair on the right of my vision may be a bent shadow. I typically have light sensitivity and I'm more prone to feeling better in areas with dark lighting sometimes or occasionally I will have the opposite affect depending on how I'm feeling.

I also see visual snow in my dreams and nightmares because they tend to be just as vivid as my vision during the day. I feel everything when I have them including pain.

 

[Suzette]

@Bibliophile715 , visual snow, to me looks exactly like in the video thumbnail picture. But it is dimensional as though partcles in the air, not a filter over my vision. Is that what you see?

It is also interesting that your v.s. started only a few years ago. Has anything changed about your routine like a new medication? Also, v.s. is often cocurrent with migraines but like a.s.d., not everyone has all the symptoms.

 

[QuestJan]

I get those glowing aura squiggles associated with migraines. But no headaches. I might get a bit of nausea.

 

[Progster]

I get migraines and when I look at a blank wall, it isn't really blank, it does look a bit granulated or like TV static, but I don't see it, or don't notice it, when I look at a landscape. I don't think this is visual snow, because if it were, I would also see it when I look at a landscape. I think that what I see is a normal human experience common to everyone?

 

[SusanLR]

I checked other as I've had the snow, but, it left.
I had an eye exam and they dilated my pupils when I was 12.
The visual snow started immediately after the eye dilation.

I told the eye doctor about it and he had never heard of such a thing and could find no cause.
I also saw blue halos around lights at night. Pretty, but not natural, that started after the eye exam.
It's true the doctors knew nothing about visual snow that long ago, over 50 years ago.
I think he just thought I was crazy.

That was also when the tinnitus started. The visual snow went away in about 8 years.
The tinnitus never stopped.

@Progster I do still have what you are talking about when looking at a blank wall.
Sometimes it even looks like it's shakey or moving a bit.
I don't see it except when looking at a blank wall either.
The doctor told me it is a mild ocular migraine with no pain.
Same principle as what @QuestJan spoke of.
Large ocular migraines are only occasional, no pain, but they are large areas in the sight that look like zig-zagged silver areas and they move across the field of vision. Takes about half an hour then they disappear.
Nothing to worry about the eye doctors say.

Floaters are something everyone has, but, just don't notice much unless they have an
excessive amount of them. They are particles left over from birth in the eyes.
Can become more apparent with age.

 

[Thinx]

I get those glowing aura squiggles associated with migraines. But no headaches. I might get a bit of nausea.

My sister's eye doctor called these Silent migraines.

 

[SusanLR]

This is a photo rendition of what the blinding Ocular migraine looks like that I get.

Takes about half an hour to move across
field of vision. It zig-zags in the points also. Visual migraine was another name my doctor called it.
No pain.

 

[SDRSpark]

A note about floaters (I have both visual snow AND floaters):

My floaters are physical, while the visual snow is some mystery neurological thing that (as far as I know) no one has definitively determined the cause of. My eye doctor can see my floaters when she looks into my eyes.

 

[SDRSpark]

I've always had snow, just recently learned that not everyone does! I thought I read that everyone has floaters, we just rarely notice them. I don't know if I always had tinnitus or if that is a result of racing. Took me 40 years to figure out I get a lot less headaches if I wear sunglasses on sunny days.

This is me lol...I didn't realize that not everyone saw that stuff until I was in my 20s. I legitimately thought that the air had texture LOL!!!! I remember trying to ask my dad what the static in the air was (because I assumed everyone saw it) and he had no clue what I was talking about. I asked my mom some years later and she said I was seeing "free energy" in the air. I guess she saw it too (and also didn't know what it was).

I legitimately thought it was a physical thing that's actually in the air until relatively recently.

It doesn't affect my life at all, it's there, but it's never not been there, and it's not severe enough to have a meaningful impact on my vision (that I know of).