Visual Snow in Two Patients after Hospitalization for Bacterial Illness

Visual snow is a phenomenon with an unclear etiology that was first described over twenty years ago in patients with migraine. The main symptoms patients experience includes a constant positive visual disturbance of flickering dots, resembling snow. We present two patients that developed visual snow after being hospitalized for bacterial illnesses. Patient 1 is a 28-year-old Caucasian female who was 29 weeks pregnant at presentation for a complaint of visual snow in both eyes that she developed shortly after a previous miscarriage due to bacterial sepsis. Patient 2 is a 27-year-old male who reported seeing constant static spots in both eyes for the past year that developed after being hospitalized for two weeks due to bacterial pneumonia and sepsis. There is a clear temporal relationship between bacterial illnesses and the development of visual disturbances in the presented two patients. Further research needs to be conducted pertaining to the neurological and neuro-psychiatric association of visual snow and its association with bacterial sepsis.

Keywords: Visual Snow; Sepsis; photopsia; Migraine>/p>