Found out today in the ER that blood clots can cause blindness
Lost my vision for not even 5 minutes a couple of nights ago while I was sitting at the kitchen table playing a chess game on the computer. Vision came back but white streaks were shooting across my eyes for awhile afterwards but that soon cleared up too. Lost my vision again last when I was walking across the living room. This time it didn't come as a surprise and while I stood there, I first closed my left eye and I could see. Then closed my right eye and I couldn't see shit except for what looked like a big grey-brown disk right in front of my eye and I sort of could make out things around the outside of the disk. Open both eyes again and while i could see things, I couldn't tell what it was. Even my big chair appeared as an indistinguishable form and I couldn't tell it was a chair.
The vision came back after a few minutes followed by the white streaks shooting across my left eye for a period of time. So this morning I called my doctor's office and tell the secretary what was happening and I wasn't to make an appointment. She gets a nurse on the phone who tells me to get to ER right away and have someone drive me in. I told her I'm by myself here with no car but I'll drive my scooter to the hospital and if my vision goes while I'm driving, I'll just be on the side of the road and I'll stop and try to wave down someone I hear driving by.
I get to the ER fine and dandy and I'm there for over 5 hours as they run tests on me. Finally, the doctor talks to me and said the test results all came back fine except for the one about my blood thickness level which is way off. Based on my medical history of having problems with blood clots, what was most likely happening, he tells me, is that I have blood clots going thru my blood system and they are getting up into my eyes. That would explain the white streaks I was seeing and on the two occasions I lost my vision, a bigger clot got temporally stuck and my vision returned when it became dislodged. The danger, the doc said, was that a bigger clot or clots could become permanently stuck in one or both eyes and that would be the end of my vision for good.
For the next four days I have to go to the ER and get shots in my gut and take double the dose of my blood thinner medication. My blood thickness level will be tested again on Friday and if it's in the range it ought to be, I ought to be fine.
So I learned something today. About how blood clots can possibly mess a persons vision up and even cause permanent vision loss.
= new reply since forum marked as read
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Maybe you should talk to them about scheduling routine tests (1x/mo or so). If you need to be on
blood thinners of any sort, clots could cause FAR worse things than interfering with your sight.
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Although I recognize the necessity, my Coumadin bothers the shit out of me (not literally -- that's
not one of the side effects 
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Too low? Maybe MAJOR stroke. Too high? It acts like rat poison and my internal organs become
bleeding sieves.
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Check into it, please.
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