Brief Answer:
Blurry and wavy vision.

Detailed Answer:

Hi,

Your description of trouble involving blurring and wavy pattern vision which can obscure part of your visual field is most consistent with symptoms of either headache aura (though you don't describe headaches in your statement) or a brain process which could be part of a TIA event but it is very rare that people relate such visual problems and nothing else... usually there is a transformation of speech and weakness in the face or a limb. The phenomenon is not likely happening in the apparatus of the eye and if you'd have an eye examination my guess is that everything would be registered as relatively normal. The phenomenon emanates from changes going on in stimulation and activation of different parts of the visual pathway as well as in the occipital lobe.

Therefore, you are correct in localizing the event but the mechanism as to what's going on could be a number of different things. The best thing to do is to see either a Neurologist or Neuro-Ophthalmologist who can do a good neurological examination on you to see if they can detect any abnormalities in a function that you've not been able to appreciate yourself in order to best classify the cause of your trouble.

Because the duration is so short and there are no residual effects my best guess is that you are suffering from what we would refer to as an acephalgic migraine with aura which is a type of migraine headache but without the headache. I have many patients of this type in my clinical practice and we tend to treat them as aggressively as anybody else since the risk is that they progress to a stroke if not properly evaluated and counseled.

Hope I have answered your query.

Regards,
Dr. Dariush Saghafi, Neurologist

---