• parkinson-s disease

Charles Bonnet syndrome is a condition associated with blindness1 and estimated to affect up to half of all blind people, although most have the condition in a very mild form. I have it in a very severe form and there is no known cure, although I have tried several different medications. My main symptoms are visual hallucinations, including dense, dazzling fog, increased sensitivity to natural or artificial light and hallucinations of varying forms of print that also may be dazzling. I can partially reduce the external light sensitivity by wearing dark glasses and/or a visor, but this has no effect on the other hallucinations, which occur with eyes open or closed. Sufferers from Charles Bonnet syndrome are aware that the hallucinations are not real, unlike the hallucinations of mental disorder2.

Forty years ago (1977), I was found on routine examination to have glaucoma and was started on treatment, though at that time I had no visual symptoms. …