Several months ago I got an email from a patient asking for treatment options for a condition called Visual Snow. I was intrigued because I had vaguely heard about it but had never really seen any patient with this condition. That had me go digging. This is a rare phenomenon also known as Visual Snow Syndrome (VSS) . How rare is it? This is so rare that if you have it and explain it to your eye doctor, he/she may not believe your story and send you for anxiety/psycho-analysis.
There is a good chance your eye doctor hasn't even heard of VSS. There is no objective diagnostic test to confirm the diagnosis of VSS. Frequently patients who suffer from this condition have had a history of multiple blood tests, CT/MRI, Electro-encephalograms (EEG), Electro-retinograms (ERGs) etc with normal results. This is what we call in medicine as a diagnostic dilemma. We can't even put a number to this…
