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Help Cure Visual Snow

Do you want to make a real difference in the lives of people who are suffering from a rare neurological disorder?

We NEED your help.

The Eye on Vision Foundation 501(c)3 is one of the only charity's in the world raising money for much needed research into visual snow syndrome.

What does this mean? Why is it important?

If we cannot raise this money, research efforts will suffer, and those of us suffering day in and day out will have no hope for a treatment or a cure.

If there was ever a way for you to make a positive impact on a person's life, this is it. Your donation will not get lost in paperwork and accounting, it goes straight to the research.


Visual Snow - What is it?

Visual snow syndrome is an untreatable neurological disease that devastatingly affects a persons vision, hearing, thinking, and physical body. Many of the symptoms a patient experiences are constant and do not come and go. Symptoms vary from patient to patient, but all patients with visual snow syndrome see static (similar to bad TV reception) everywhere they look.


My Story

My visual snow story started around the age of 6. I was young, so I'm not exactly sure if I was 5 or 6, but I clearly remember going to my mom in first grade and asking her what the flying dots I was seeing in the dark were. She thought I was talking about floaters, told me it was normal, and that was the end of that. Two years later my teacher contacted my mom telling her that I was having trouble seeing in school. My mom took me to the eye doctor and we learned that I was legally blind. Fortunately I was able to be corrected with glasses, but the doctor seemed baffled how this could have gone missed. Looking back now I wonder if the start of my visual snow two years prior had something to do with it.

In 2005 my visual snow progressed to the full blown syndrome. I was experiencing worsening visual acuity, floaters, after images, loss of contrast sensitivity, ghosting, glare, halos, starbursts, tingling and numbness in my body. I was hospitalized and had every test run that was available and no doctor anywhere could figure out what was wrong with me. I was sent home time and time again from tests with doctors confused and questioning what was wrong with me. After many months of research on my own I came to realize that I had a little known condition called visual snow. Sadly, there was no research being done for the condition, so I started a non-profit and went on a quest to find a cure. In 2011, I was contacted by a visual snow patient whose neurologist was interested in researching visual snow. The research began in 2012. In 2014, my visual snow syndrome progressed again with worsening symptoms and new symptoms of tinnitus, head and ear pressure, trails, night blindness, along with another regression of my visual acuity (the eye chart test) and the development of more floaters. Then I underwent another worsening in 2016.

There is not enough known about visual snow, so we do not know how much is reversible and treatable and how much is permanent damage. The changes that some patients have experienced to the eye itself are permanent (visual acuity loss and floaters). The changes to the brain are hopefully reversible. Time is crucial to this research.

Myself, and many others like me, are counting on you to donate to the cause or share this story so that we can live our lives like we want to. Simple pleasures like going to the beach, reading a book, going for a Sunday drive or watching the sunset are too visually taxing for many sufferers.


Our Children

Because so little is known about visual snow there is no official documentation on whether this is a genetic condition or not. Nothing official, but sadly we have conducted our own surveys, and yes, the responses are too overwhelming to ignore. There is a genetic link to visual snow. Many of us living with the condition, who are parents already, are terrified that we have passed this along to our children. Then there are those who haven't had children yet who are too scared to in fear of passing along the condition. More and more parents, and even the children themselves, are joining the support group for visual snow on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. We see young kids coming scared, looking for answers, and treatment, that can't be offered to them.

Primary Symptoms of Visual Snow

Changes in vision include:

seeing television-like static across the entire visual field 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - even with your eyes closed (visual snow)

seeing millions of silver specks flashing and moving everywhere in the sky and bright surfaces (entopic phenomenon)

looking at your hand, and then looking away and still seeing your hand for several seconds even though you are no longer looking at it (after images)

seeing the vitreous inside your eye breaking down with gray, black and clear cobwebs, clouds, spots and strands (floaters)

colors fade away (low contrast sensitivity)

looking at a sentence and seeing the same words you are reading floating on top of the text you are looking at (ghosting)

seeing a moving object's motion after it passes your eyes (trails)

Other visual symptoms include: night blindness, light sensitivity, flashes of light, glare, halos, starbursts, dry eyes, blind spots, vision blacks out with one eye closed, yellow-tinted vision, double vision and loss of accommodation.

Changes in hearing include: constant ear pressure (this would be the feeling of needing to pop your ears on an airplane) and ringing of the ears (tinnitus)

Changes in thinking and the brain: migraines,a feeling of watching oneself act, while having no control over a situation (depersonalization), a sensation that the world seems unreal (derealization)

Changes in the body: numbness, tingling, twitching, vertigo and dizziness


Hope

Four years ago, eyeonvision.org, collaborated with two neurologists (Dr. Schankin and Dr. Goadsby) who became committed to finding a treatment to visual snow. They set up the first visual snow study ever. The results of the study were released in May 2014 and the doctors believe they have found the area of the brain where visual snow is coming from. Visual Snow Study

In 2015-2016 Eye on Vision Foundation funded a German study into Visual Snow led by Dr. Schankin. The results of this study should be released at the end of 2016. 

Prof Goadsby is now putting together a new phase of research to take place at King's College London, England. It is our hope that this imaging study will begin in late 2016 if funding can be secured by EOVF through generous donors like yourselves. 


Our Goal

We are reaching out to supportive people like you to help us raise $570,000 through GoFundMe in time to support the next phase of research into visual snow. All funds donated will go towards the research efforts to find a treatment for the many who are suffering with this condition every moment of their lives.

Since July 2014 we have raised over $80,000 through GoFundMe and we continue to work day in and day out to raise funds through grassroots efforts. Every dollar that we receive makes a difference. Every single dollar counts!

Please note that $50,000 of the GoFundMe dollars raised that you see in our totals were used to pay for the study in Germany.  The remaining balance has been sent to Pof. Goadsby's research efforts at King's College in London. 

We cannot afford to give up because this money is crucial for visual snow research. Please become part of this movement to find a treatment or better yet a cure.


Please Act Today

What would you do if you or a loved one were diagnosed with an untreatable condition?

Then you learned that the only research in the world being done for it was in desperate need of funds...

I hope that you would do everything in your power to raise those funds, to fight for yourself or your loved one.

There is no government support for this, no grants have been offered yet - it is just you and me.

Every dollars counts more than you know, but even if all you can do is forward this link to as many people you know, or share this campaign on Facebook, you will be making a huge difference.

Help Cure Visual Snow (GoFundMe) was created as part of our own non-profit 501c3 Eye on Vision Foundation (Tax ID: 20-5394501) There are no paid employees or personal medical expenses taken from the foundation. All donations made here are tax-deductible.

Other donation options: http://eyeonvision.org/donate

Help us please.


Thank you,
Jen Ambrose
Founder and President of The Eye On Vision Foundation
"LIKE" us on Facebook EyeOnVision
EyeOnVision.org
http://www.gofundme.com/visual-snow


Organizer

Jen Ambrose
Organizer
Orlando, FL
EYE ON VISION FOUNDATION CORP
 
Registered nonprofit
Donations are typically 100% tax deductible in the US.

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