Vision problems/schizophrenia

My son started seeing spots of colors and occasionally flashes of light after a recent decrease in Haldol. He’s on Clozapine so his doctor is trying to reduce his other AP’s.

I had never read anything like this, but I found this article interesting.

My son, who has schizophrenia, had starbismus (cross-eye) that he was treated for as a child. Even with treatment, it persisted to manifest in times he was straining his eyes. I no longer know if he has this going on because he will only look at me for the briefest of moments. (He also had other small anomalies in the head area - tied tongue, missing teeth and teeth growing in the wrong direction.)

@Hummingbird @Steadfast - Very interesting. My son had some kind of cross eye issue as a child. (I could look in my notes to see what it was called. He wore a patch for several months.) He also had a sudden onset of severe impact to his vision well after onset of SZ…I believe it was either due to repeated severe catatonia or possibly to having received too much ECT (the ECT was necessary and effective but due to uncoordinated care over which we had no control, after months of receiving ECT, it became apparent that it causing other problems and had to be stopped). He was seen by a vision specialist. This latter problem eventually resolved while on Clozapine. I think his brain just needed to heal and the Clozapine helped with that. His additional symptoms at that time when he had trouble seeing (could barely sign his name and could not read his phone) were indicative of a condition called Formal Thought Disorder. You can read about that here: Thought Disorder | Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Guide

Also, my dad was born partially blind and had some kind of major depression or other mental health issue, including possible mania, as an adult and in later life.

This is all so interesting. We adopted our son at 8 months. He had “false strabismus” and had been born with tongue tie.

He has found a half-sister on 23 and me, so I’ll have to ask her if any of this rings a bell.

@hope4us, my son really struggles with reading. I will read the link about Formal Thought Disorder.

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My son has also had a few occasions when he sees spots (occurrences before and after illness). He saw an optometrist at one point and ruled out other issues. We are fairly certain this is caused by dehydration.

I’ve long been aware of the eye tracking issues. Years ago I had a traffic stop where a junior cop had me track a pen with my eyes and I “failed”. I hadn’t been drinking and at that time didn’t drink. It was a little tense for a while, but the senior partner told him I wasn’t drunk and to forget about it and nothing came of it.

I’m glad the senior partner realized tracking was not a definitive indicator of drinking!

My son qualified for Occupational Therapy in seventh grade, and a lot of what the therapist described were perceptual issues.

My son was born with a squint in his eyes , he looked cross eyed and it corrected itself when he turned 6 months old .