Triangle Woman Raises Awareness After Suffering Eye Stroke

(CBS 17, Liz Ortiz) — Imagine relaxing at home, then suddenly losing vision in one eye.

That’s what happened to one Triangle woman. Now, she wants to raise awareness about a rare type of stroke.

According to Elisabetta Vitali, the incident happened just over a year ago.

“I was watching TV with my husband and all of a sudden, I lost my eyesight from my right eye,” Vitali said. “It was really abrupt. It was just like someone put a white wall in front of me.”

Vitali says she waited about 10 minutes to see if her vision would come back. When it didn’t, she and her husband rushed over to Duke University Hospital in Durham. That’s where Vitali learned she suffered an eye stroke.

“At that point, I could see nothing,” she said. “They would come with a light in my eye, nothing.”

According to Duke Health, the hallmark signs of eye stroke are sudden and painless vision loss or changes in vision – like blurriness, floaters, a darkened area in your field of vision, decreased visual contrast, and light sensitivity – in one eye.  Eye stroke is considered rare, under 1% of all strokes, but can cause permanent vision loss and devastating quality of life challenges.

“There are a couple of different ways that that can happen, sometimes a clot can go to a major artery in the eye, or sometimes there’s a drop in blood pressure,” said Dr. Nathan Tagg, associate professor of Ophthalmology and Neurology. “Just like in the brain stroke world, time is brain. In the eye stroke world, time is vision.”

Tagg and the team at Duke Eye Center quickly treated Vitali in hopes of saving her vision.

“At Duke, we have a pathway where a patient comes into the ER, they get a very expedited workup and if they’re a candidate, they get not only clot busting medication but they also get hyperbaric oxygen treatment where they initiate hyperbaric oxygen right away and this allows oxygen at higher concentrations to make it to the eye and help preserve some of those tissues that might be lacking oxygen,” Tagg said.

After treatment in the hyperbaric chamber, Vitali noticed the vision in her right eye started to come back. It wasn’t perfect, but improving.

“It was pure magic,” Vitali said. “It became lighter and lighter and transparent, so it was amazing.”

“Hers was a case that was fairly miraculous in the sense that she immediately experienced an improvement of vision when she went into the chamber,” Tagg said.

Vitali considers herself lucky with just minor vision changes today. She hopes her story can help others understand the signs.

“I’m feeling fantastic, and you know, they weren’t sure whether the sight recovery was going to be stable or temporary and knocking on wood, so far it’s been stable,” she said.

An eye stroke is a medical emergency that requires urgent attention. If you or a loved one is experiencing a sudden, painless vision change or vision loss in one eye, seek immediate care.

Click here to learn more about eye stroke.