TED Symptoms: Triggers

It has been a few years since I have experienced extreme thyroid eye disease (TED) symptoms. I have lived in a phase I would call my new normal.

Things definitely are not like how they were before but they are much better than they were when I was overwhelmed every day by this disease. Although, one thing I never anticipated was how similar symptoms would impact my eyes and my emotions.

Double vision

I have not had consistent double vision for a couple of years now. It comes out on rare occasions, mainly when I am drinking. Lately, there were 2 separate insistences close together that made me question if I was actually having double vision again.

I lit a candle and noticed the reflection in the window was doubled. Was it the window or was it me? I looked at the reflection from all different angles and no matter the way I looked, there were always two flames in the window. I felt as though I was going crazy. I realized later the window was warped. That is why I always see 2 flames in the window.

The other instance of seeing double happened a day or 2 later when I awoke to see the morning sun reflecting on my bedroom wall. This is nothing new, except it was. My really tired/half-asleep eyes were seeing 2 lights above each other when there was only supposed to be one.

Once again, I questioned what could be going on. Was this me or was something messing up with the light peeping in through the shades? I knew this occurrence was likely because of my eyes and the angle I was looking at it. It was the perfect storm of my eyes not fully awake and my paranoia from the candle flame lingering in my subconscious.

Eyelid swelling

Then there was the instance of eye swelling. My right eye has not given me problems in years. I always said my left eye was the bad eye because it was slower to recover.

The other day, I awoke to my right upper eyelid being completely swollen and red. I could feel it. There was something stuck between my eyelid and eyeball. I was uncomfortable the moment I realized something was wrong, moments after I woke up. When I looked in the mirror and saw how puffy it was, I started to cry.

Flashbacks of my TED years returned in an instant in a way I did not anticipate. I was overwhelmed and emotional with seeing and feeling my eye this way. It had been weeks since the double vision and yet, my reaction to the puffy eyelid was much worse.

When I was having a lot of eye swelling a couple of years ago, I became numb to it to cope. Whereas now I was feeling everything and it was absolutely awful. My eye returned to normal a few hours after I woke up but the emotions it sparked remained on the surface for the rest of the day.

Emotional triggers due to thyroid eye disease

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