Charles Bonnet Syndrome

Charles Bonnet Syndrome is a condition that's triggered by vision deterioration that causes visual hallucinations. It isn't well known and can be hard to diagnose, so we are going to look deeper into this eye disease today. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com. SUMMARY KEYWORDS eye, vision, macular degeneration, experiences, physical therapy, syndrome, talk, cataracts, charles, condition, exercises, retina, visual, heard, benet, visual hallucinations, glaucoma, suffering, hallucinations, physical Hello, everyone, it’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to [email protected]. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Sam and I want to welcome you to another EyeClarity Podcast. Today I am taking a question from a listener who's got a condition called the Charles Bonnet syndrome. The Charles Bonnet was a Swiss philosopher. And he first described this syndrome in 1760, in a publication, where he was talking about his grandfather, who was suffering visual hallucinations. And he was going blind, secondary to a cataract diagnosis. But it wasn't until 1967, when George demore, CA, who was a Swiss scientist, he actually labeled the condition as the Charles Bonnet syndrome. So this is a condition that's triggered by vision deterioration that cause visual hallucinations. Now, these are only visual, so you're not hearing things, you're not sensing things in your body. And this particular syndrome is directly related to deteriorating eyesight and vision. It's not caused by a mental problem dementia, you know, from taking drugs, LSD, things like that. This is triggered by a vision deterioration. So what people experiences, they see things like grids, and shapes and lines, sometimes the colors are vivid. And there's just complex patterns that come through the visual system. And they can last a few minutes or several hours. Sometimes they're moving, sometimes they're static. So in terms of vision loss, it's very interesting, because with these visual hallucinations, many times they are related to eye diseases that people are experiencing. And with the Charles Bonnet syndrome, these are caused because of problems like macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, dry eye, myopia. So there's a lot of reasons why we start getting these visual hallucinations. And what's interesting about this condition is that it's related to eye diseases. You know, whenever we have a change in the retina, for example, let's say you've got diabetes. And one of the conditions that can occur in the retina is called diabetic retinopathy. So the retina either begins to hemorrhage, or edema is accumulating behind the retina. And when people are then trying to use their eyes, because of these physical deteriorations, they start to see these very weird things that come into their vision. And it can be very disconcerting, and disorienting. Sometimes it will happen when you close your eyes, and then you open them, or if you go from a light space to a dark space, or vice versa. Or it may even come from moving your eyes say when you're reading. Now, when you go to your eye doctor, a lot of times you start experiencing, you know these certain Well, I could say hallucinations, but you know, you can explain this to your doctor. And unless he's heard of the Charles Bonnet syndrome, he actually might think you have a mental problem. And it really is not a mental problem at all. It's related to the physical changes that are occurring in the, you know, in the visual system.