Alright y’all, figured I’d sit down tonight and type out this whole dang episode. Been meaning to share it since it freaked me out good. So, couple mornings ago, I woke up like usual, shuffled towards the coffee maker – ya know, half asleep – and BAM! Saw weird flashing lights in my left eye. Like tiny sparklers goin’ off in the corner. Thought maybe I just rubbed it too hard, so I blinked a bunch, rubbed it again. Nope. Still there.
Seriously spooked me. Made my gut twist. Sat down real quick at the kitchen table, coffee forgotten. My mind started racing. Was this serious? Should I just ignore it? But those flashes weren’t normal for me. Not one bit.
Pulled out my phone right then and there, typed something like “flashing lights in eye.” Scrolled past the usual stuff. Found a few things mentioning high blood pressure, which made me pause. My dad had it, I knew it could be bad, but never connected it to my eyes. Figured I needed facts fast. Read a bunch, mostly health stuff aimed at regular folks, not doctors. Kept seeing warnings about this being a possible red flag.
Here’s what stuck out to me as potential warning signs related to high blood pressure messing with your peepers:
- Seeing sudden flashes of light or bright spots (hello, that was me!) especially in one eye
- Noticing dark spots floating around that weren’t there before
- Getting a sudden blurry patch or loss of vision in part of your eye
- Having pressure pain way back behind your eyes
- Feeling suddenly dizzy along with weird vision stuff
Panic started bubbling up again reading that. Couldn’t sit on it. Did the only sane thing I could think of: I called my doctor. Got a spot for later that day. Felt like the longest wait ever. I kept testing my eyesight – looking around, covering one eye, then the other. The flashes in the left one kept happening every so often.
Walked into the doc’s office feeling like a bag of nerves. Told the nurse exactly what happened: woke up, saw flashes, thought nothing, then scared myself googling. She nodded, understood. Then the doc came in, listened to the whole story. He took it seriously, man. Did the thing with the bright light looking deep into my eyes – dilated pupils and all. Checked my pressure too. Turns out, mine was high. Too high.
Doc explained straight up that, yeah, high blood pressure absolutely can cause those flashing lights. Apparently, it can mess with the little blood vessels or nerves way back in the eye itself. Sometimes it can be a sign things are getting strained or even damaged back there. Especially if it’s new and sudden, like mine was. That was the warning kick.
He put me on some meds to bring my pressure down, quick. Told me to chill on the salt (bye-bye extra bacon bits), move a bit more, and told me to get one of those arm cuff things to check my pressure at home. Now I’m tracking it like it’s my part-time job. Taking the pills religiously.
The flashes? They faded out after about 48 hours. Gone. Probably means the meds started kicking in and eased the pressure off my eye nerves. But here’s the thing: if I’d ignored that flashing light, just wrote it off as “weird,” kept pumping salt and stressin’, who knows what worse could’ve happened? Could have escalated, easy. That flashing light was the blinking red light on my dashboard.
So, yeah. Happened to me. Woke up with sparkles, freaked out, got checked, found the problem. Don’t blow off weird eye stuff. It might just be your body yelling, loud and clear. Go get it checked.