Medical Description

Symptoms

• headache
• sweating
• darkened vision
• decreased range of vision
• hemorrhages visible in the eyeball
• optic disc swelling

General Information

NAION, or “stroke of the eye,” occurs when blood flow is cut off to an optic nerve. The sudden loss of blood flow injures the nerve and can result in permanent partial or total blindness in patients with arteriosclerotic risk factors. Arteriosclerotic risk factors increase the likelihood that a patient will suffer a stroke, and include the following conditions:

• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Diabetes
• Hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol)
• Hyperlipidemia (high fat content in the blood)

Approximately 6000 Americans are affected with NAION each year. Most of those cases are attributable to diabetes, macular degeneration, or cataracts. Patients usually experience a painless swelling of the optic nerve before losing their vision. About 20% of patients affected with NAION in one eye will experience it in the other eye at a later time. Now NAION is linked to erectile dysfunction drugs, including Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis.

NAION is usually first noticed upon awakening to find blurred or darkened vision. The patient may experience a loss of their vision field, whereby their range of vision is lessened, as if someone had pulled curtains in close to their eyes. Some patients report seeing “lightning bolts” at the corner of their vision. Patients may experience a generalized headache and sweating.

The optic nerve head has swollen, and there may be splinter hemorrhages visible in the eyeball. The visual impairment is usually mildly to moderately impairing, and may progress slowly over the first few weeks. Over the course of months, the disc swelling gives way to optic atrophy, and the nerve is no longer able to function.

Patients who suffered NAION while taking erectile dysfunction drugs experienced partial loss of their central and/or peripheral vision. While the blindness was not total in all cases, the blindness was permanent in all. Most men experienced the blindness in only one eye, but it has been reported in both eyes in at least one patient. One man described the blindness as having a “shade coming down” over his vision.

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