Hi - Does anyone have any information on HD related vision problems? 42 yr. old son, CAG 42, no symptoms of HD yet. His vision is 20/20 except there are 2 to 4 where there should be 1, even if one eye is closed. Eye pain, halos around lights, blood shot eyes and floaters. Optomitrist says the eye is perfect. Presents like cataract but eye appears fine. Is this HD related?
Edina

Can you send him to a specialist ? db

There are doctors called neuropthomologists. One of them might help.

He says what "will be will be - there is nothing they can do". He has promised to go to a neurologist - sometime. I just had not heard of vision problems being one of HD first symptoms.
Edina

Toxic levels of Many medications can cause those symptoms. Is he on heart meds? Digoxin? Did he see an optomitrist or opthamologist? There can be a big difference sometimes. Did the Dr have any kind of explanation for the symptoms?

Those symptoms could mean something serious is going on. Is it a certain time of day when it happens?

I would not let him put it off to maybe being hd, therefore nothing he can do about it. I would be concerned about getting it checked out to rule out the worst, like a brain tumor. I havent heard of anyone with hd getting double vision myself, but maybe others know.

It seems important enough to follow up with a specialist. The only information I could find regarding the vision problems you mentioned and Huntington disease is in the following article. But it was only found in relation to the R6 model mice.

[hmg.oxfordjournals.org]

Steve I



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2007 06:57AM by stevei.

He is not on any medication. Optomitrist said symptoms were similar to cataract but cornea was not cloudy. Symptoms are the same all the time day or night. It has been going on for 2 + weeks. There was a problem with mold in air system prior to symptoms. He also has sinus problems and I was hoping it was pressure on the optic nerve but DR. says no. He lives in a remote area with few specialists.

steve1 - I read article - a little deep for me. Unfortunately, he is as stubborn as his mother and is going to wait a few weeks to see if it goes away!

I had an eye doc as a kid who said I just wanted glasses like a my friends when I told him the music notes moved on the staff. This doc did magnificently with my brothers kids and missed mine, so I went around with wrong glasses...he did catch the astigmatism which my dad had. On the whole I thought it very funny that the eye problems were attributed to my brother's wife.

Sounds like the way my eyes work. most eye docs just do one eye at a time. my daughter barb had sticky focus so the eye person in Arthur said but she was not reading and someone at school said try this doc in guelph she does wonderful things with difficult kids.So Barb's problems were defined, and proper glasses prescribd. Then the doc, this comes from either you or the father so step into my chair. At the age of 39, I finally had glasses which allowed me to see one sun, one moon,, one car headlight. All my kids have this to a lesser or greater degree. Me eye doc is such a hero in my life that we invited her to Barb's wedding.
When I told her that I had HD, she gave me an article about sacaddes
[www.emedicine.com]
which are covered well in this article.
One of the ladies in my support group had so trouble with saacaddes that she was virtually blind.
You need to learn a lot about sacaddes and work with an eye doct who does bin ocular work.
Dusty

I have slow eye saccades Dusty. That's one of the things they used to diagnose me as being symptomatic. For me it just makes reading difficult, and i get vertigo. I dont get double vision though. Can slow saccades cause double vision too Dusty? I was wondering about that.