Eye On Vision Foundation

I recently read about Visual Snow (VS and VSS) and immediately identified with many of the symptoms that I have recognized since I was a kid. Yet, I have never met anyone personally that understands exactly how I see.

The symptoms for me consist of the persistent flashing of a static-like screen of circular, light reddish or sometimes clear rings with a black dot in the center, yet I can see shapes and colors of objects seemingly clearly. WHen I close my eyes the rings are bright red, black center dots flashing. There also sometimes is a moire-type pattern of a tone on tone shadowy cloudlike movement. For example, it almost looks like air passing from the left and from the right that bypasses one another. Yet the direction of the movement is not limited to left and right. It's like witnessing clouds or smoke moving from various opposing directions but it's very subtle. Yet there is always that separate cloudlike movement screen that is layered behind the flashing rings. There are some more visual descriptions but attempting to keep this as short as possible.

The symptoms mostly don't bother me but I am sometimes bothered by my eyes themselves. In the past, I worked in the photo industry and the strobe lights always bothered me. I have a very quick reflex to flash photography and it's hard to capture me with my eyes open with a flash. It is very hard for me to find the right prescription for my eyeglasses and am often unsatisfied.

When I was very young I would ask my mom about them and she would just say that maybe other people don't see them because they're not looking closely enough. I've discussed this a number of times over the years to various people at parties, with friends and family and it would just be something they would laugh with me about. I just chalked it up to being convinced that we all just see and sense things a little bit differently. Twenty years ago I tried looking it up online and found a little chat group on red dot syndrome which was a chat group of theories about people talking about it. So I knew only then that there are other people out there but didn't know until today that it was a recognized neurological syndrome that's being studied.

I'm happy to contribute to any future studies because I am certainly curious how people see uniquely on a spectrum. A 23 & Me genetic test alerted to me a while back that I have precursors for Macular Degeneration and my grandmother had it in her later years.
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Brynne Rinderknecht
44 years old

I wanted to personally reach out and thank you for the generous donations that we continue to receive here at the Eye on Vision Foundation Corp. If you have not had an opportunity to contribute for 2022 we welcome each and every donation that we receive. EOVF is currently supporting several research studies into VSS. With the Monash and Colorado studies funded, we are concentrating funds received now on Dr. Schankin's new exciting treatment trial. Please go directly to EyeOnVision.org

As Dr. Schankin's research will begin to get underway funding is needed now to ensure that there are no financial delays in progress. Please consider donating today to research efforts to accelerate a cure for Visual Snow Syndrome.