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Posted By: mjw Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/03/02 09:06 PM
There is a one word (medical?) term for the visual distortion that makes everything appear as if you're looking through the wrong end of a telescope - i.e. you can be sitting across a desk from someone, but they'll look like they're about 2 inches high and a hundred feet away from you. I found this term in a novel once and looked it up, but now I've forgotten it again, and I can't even recall the book it was in.

Can anyone help?

Thanx in advance

Mark Waddington
Posted By: wwh Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/03/02 09:15 PM
Dear mjw: I've never heard of such a term, and I have a modest background in both medicine
and psychiatry. It would have to be an illusion, since there could be no genuine optical abnormality
to account for it. I cannot think of any way to search for it, but I am indeed interested.

Posted By: mjw Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/03/02 09:21 PM
> It would have to be an illusion, since there could be no genuine optical abnormality
> to account for it.

It's definitely an illusion. It's one of the many migraine aura symptoms, if that helps track it down.

Mark Waddington
Posted By: wwh Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/03/02 09:23 PM
Dear mjw: I searched for "psychiatry visual illusions" and got a site, but my browser can't
open the links. Maybe yours can. http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/hs/mwlinks.htm#Illusions

Posted By: mjw Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/03/02 09:41 PM
All the links that I tried on that page gave an "unable to locate the server" response. It seems most of the servers on which the links resided have gone away.

Mark Waddington
Posted By: wwh Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/03/02 09:49 PM
With "migraine" as a clue, I found another site, but it is so big, I suggest you search it
while I also do so:http://www.priory.com/halluc.htm#psycholog

And here is a fairly good glossary of psychiatric terms.Worth browsing.
http://www.abess.com/glossary.html

Posted By: consuelo Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/03/02 10:11 PM
Welcome, mjw. You could also check these sites:

http://s-2000.com/bam/bam_symptoms.html
http://www.migraines.org/search/

Hija Mark, this isn't a type of so-called tunnel vision is it?

Posted By: wwh Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/04/02 07:47 PM
In chronic glaucoma the site of
obstruction is in the trabecular mesh work and ... loss of vision becomes so great that the
patient is reduced to tunnel vision. ...
http://www.liv.ac.uk/GeriatricMedicine/gogm15.htm

Posted By: Capfka Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/05/02 08:00 PM
No, I think our Australiohunnish friend is on to it. I used to get both migraines and the tunnel vision that went with them. The vision problem is not a pyschiatric issue, it's purely physical. Too many people complain of the same symptom for it to be a figment of anyone's overwrought imagination.

Many moons ago my tame quack believed that it had a lot to do with pressure on the optic centre in the brain which either constricted the signal from the eyes in some way or caused the brain to fail to process the incoming data correctly.

Whatever, it's a fair cow when it happens to you!

- Pfranz
a fair cow

Would that be a Charollais, pfranz?

Posted By: TEd Remington Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/06/02 09:39 AM
myopic?

Posted By: Wordwind Re: Fair Cow - 12/06/02 09:47 AM
"Main Entry: Cha·ro·lais
Pronunciation: "shar-&-'lA
Function: noun
Etymology: Charolais, district in eastern France
Date: 1893
: any of a breed of large white cattle developed in France and used primarily for beef and crossbreeding"

--MW

What's a 'fair cow'?

Posted By: Faldage Re: Fair Cow - 12/06/02 10:18 AM
What's a 'fair cow'?

That'd be "fair" as in "light complected", Dub'.

And "cow" as in "don't have a".

Posted By: Capfka Re: Fair Cow - 12/06/02 02:34 PM
Interesting interpretation there. Obviously, guessing from context is quite ithacal. But wrong, in this case. Something which is "a fair cow" is something which more than just slightly annoying. Fairly commonly used up in our part of the world, but.

- Pfranz
Posted By: mjw Found that word - 12/07/02 05:46 AM
The word I was looking for is "micropsia". I'm currently reading a book on migraine, and it's documented as one of the visual hallucinations related to migraine.

Mark Waddington
Posted By: Wordwind Re: Found that word - 12/07/02 11:48 AM
Thanks, Mark. That's a new term for me.

Wonder what the adjective is? Micropsial?

It also sounds like a small yield from the field.

Posted By: mjw Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/09/02 04:51 AM
> I used to get both migraines and the tunnel vision that went with them.

I've never come across "tunnel vision" as a symptom of migraine. It is not unusual to get parts of your field of vision obscured, but I've never seen reference to this being just around the periphery of vision as you get in tunnel vision.

> The vision problem is not a pyschiatric issue, it's purely physical. Too many people complain of the same
> symptom for it to be a figment of anyone's overwrought imagination.

That's not in line with the current thinking on migraines. For some undetermined reason, my blood pressure has recently jumped up at about the same time as my migraine symptoms started to recur. However, the neurologist I was referred to was adamant that there wasn't a direct causal link. You should also beware of partitioning ailments into "psychicatric" vs "physical". It is possible for psychological problems to present with apparently physical symptoms.

> Many moons ago my tame quack believed that it had a lot to do with pressure on the optic centre in the
> brain which either constricted the signal from the eyes in some way or caused the brain to fail to process > the incoming data correctly.

Your "tame quack" needs to read more of the literature on migraines. Pressure on the optic centre of the brain doesn't present with these symptoms. My neurologist is sending me for an MRI, but it's to eliminate any underlying causes which may be confusing the diagnosis.
Posted By: Capfka Re: Looking for a word that I've lost - 12/09/02 08:43 PM
Yeah. Well, you're probably reflecting the current current thinking. My doc, some twenty years ago was probably reflecting the current current thinking on the subject at that time. It'll be different next year. Roll the dice. Migraine is still migraine, and although there are some analgesics that take the worst of it away, they still don't seem to know exactly what causes them or how to prevent them.

It's not a problem for me any more, so I haven't been keeping up with the current current thinking on the subject over time.

- Pfranz
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