The “visual snow syndrome” was recently identified by the medical community, and has not yet delivered all its mysteries.
- The “visual snow syndrome” is accentuated when we close our eyes.
- To date, there is no curative treatment.
As the first snow falls, some people constantly see this painting superimposed on everyday images. Long ignored by doctors, this mysterious illness now has a name: “visual snow syndrome”.
Sensory disturbance
“When I first suggested researching this condition, my colleagues thought I was completely, completely crazy”said at the Guardian Eyesight and migraine expert Professor Peter Goadsby.
Concretely, what is this ophthalmic problem? “Visual snow syndrome is a form of sensory disturbance in which an individual continually perceives small dots throughout their visual field. can we read in an article published in the journal Nature. “This phenomenon was first described in 1995 but has only been characterized in detail in the very last few years,” write the scientists.
For the diagnosis to be definitively established, the patient must see, superimposed on the normal images, small white and/or black dots, and suffer from at least two of these symptoms: extreme sensitivity to light; poor vision in low light; the persistence of the images that we have just observed in the field of vision when we have turned our head.
An unknown prevalence
The prevalence of the phenomenon is still unknown, but a recent study demonstrated that out of 1,104 patients who reported suffering from snow visual syndrome, 1,061 people were actually diagnosed as living with this vision problem.
This same study found that most cases of visual snow syndrome began at a young age, with 40% of people surveyed reporting having had the condition for as long as they could remember. It is also interesting to note that the incidence of migraine and tinnitus was high in patients with intense snow visual syndrome.
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