Peripheral Vision Test

My eye doctor suggested I have a test for my peripheral vision, and I had it done yesterday.

It seems like a simple, non-invasive test, but it was not that easy.

You cover one eye with a patch so the test is definitely measuring one eye at a time. You place your chin on the bar, to keep your head still and in place. The screen you look at is white, but in the center is a black circle, with an orange dot, slightly off center.

You are to stare at the black dot, and not let your eye scan to the side, above or below. They hand you a clicker, and when you see a flash, you click. The flashes are very small, and are only seen for a few seconds, so it's hard to know if it was a flash or not. The flashes move around your visual field in what appears to be a random pattern, all done by computer.

I began to think there was a delay, or disconnect between what I saw and how fast my brain worked to interpret things before I clicked. It got very confusing, which flash was I responding to, did I click too slow, or not at all.

Right eye, then left eye.

I found staring at the black circle to cause some confusion. The white area would darken, the black circle became more prominent and developed a green colored aura. Blinking rapidly made those changes go away, back to the normal, but it probably made me miss some of the flashes.

I felt I saw fewer flashes with the left than the right eye, but who knows.

I think they should give people a pretest, so you realize that the flashes are fairly pinpoint, and so one might better understand the test. Just my opinion.

At any rate, the office called, and I have to have the test repeated, why, I don't know. Maybe I failed because my MS brain doesn't work the way it should. It will be end of November now before I know anything for sure.