Woman suffers blindness 3 days a week – condition baffles medical experts

Melbourne, September 28:Truly unbelievable, inexplicable and baffling is the case of the young Australian woman, Natalie Adler, whose eyes remain open for only four days a week, for rest of the three days she suffers blindness.

A case that sounds straight out of “Ripley’s believe it or not!” Or one which actually might feature in it some day, 21 year old Natalie finds herself becoming blind three days a week, every week, since she was 17 years old.

Suffering from a condition that has no possible medical explanation behind it, Natalie Alder seems to be the only person around the globe, who suffers from such an ailment; thereby giving doctors and researchers no references to fall back on.

According to Natalie, each week there comes a period when her eye lids clamp shut tightly and no matter what she does, she is unable to open them at all, leaving her blind for the three days this condition lasts. She can although manage to peep hazily, through the small slit in her left eye lid, while the vision from the right eye is completely blocked for the three days.

"My eyes are closed for three days and then open for three days," said Natalie. "Something happens overnight. I go to bed and I can open my eyes, and then when I wake up the next day I can't," she explained adding, "nobody knows why."

Natalie who lives in the Caulfield South of the city has been suffering from this condition for the last four years, having first experienced this when she was preparing for her English exam at the age of seventeen.

Since then, she has undergone several tests and treatments, including a series of Botox injections around her eyelids to help prevent the situation; but all to no avail. The tests too have come out with nothing concrete to give any kind of hint to experts regarding her strange visual impairment.

"She's a one-off and we don't have a diagnosis," said Prof Justin O'Day, head of neuro-ophthalmology department of Royal Eye and Ear Hospital.

Natalie blames her present condition on the sinusdefine and staph infection she once had in her late teens, which she never really recovered from completely, bringing with it the visual impairment that she now has. On normal days also, although her right eye is absolutely normal, her left eye lid droops all the time.

Prof O’Day suspects her condition to be similar to the one called blepharospasm. In this condition, random muscle spasms force the eyes to close. Nevertheless, the experts have seen nothing close to this degree of eyelid closure before, especially in someone as young as Natalie.

The young woman who misses being normal, leading life normally, meeting friends and enjoying important occasions, has some hope in the new line of treatment proposed to her by experts recently. How much would that be successful remains to be seen.