Visual Difficulties & Fibromyalgia

I just came across this bit in Laugh at Your Mus­cles by Mark J. Pel­le­gri­no, MD. Now I don’t feel quite as alone with regards to my visu­al con­fu­sion issues this week (they haven’t just been while driving.)

My fibromyal­gia caus­es me to have visu­al dif­fi­cul­ties in stores. If I need to find a can of olives in the gro­cery store and I try to scan all of the col­or­ful cans stacked on a shelf about 10 feet high and the length of a foot­ball field, I become dizzy and over­whelmed with a sense of visu­al over­load. I’m unable to focus and scan to try to spot that can of olives. So, instead of my eyes giv­ing me orga­nized infor­ma­tion like “cans of green beans, cans of corn, cans of car­rots, cans of peas, cans of olives,” they want to give me jum­bled bits of infor­ma­tion like this, “bright yel­low label, cans of corn, don’t they come in frozen box­es, too? Lit­tle girl smil­ing, green and orange design on the can, the one can isn’t cen­tered, what’s behind this box? Don’t for­get you have to get ice cream too, my back is get­ting sore, did I know that guy? WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR AGAIN?”