46M: Ortho Hypertension / TMVL / GCA thoughts of blackened vision area OS after standing up from leaning over

Over the last two months I’ve had the exact scenario occur about 4-5 times.

I recently had a metatarsal phalangeal fusion (big toe joint fusion) that doesn’t allow me to squat down normally yet, so when I need to work on something on the ground, I lean over all the way.

What has been happening is after leaning over for a few minutes and then standing up, I will see stars (seemingly in both eyes) for about 5 seconds and the in my left eye, I will get a blackened area of around 1/3 of the field of vision, in the lower right, that has jagged outline edges (ie not round or a straight curtain). The stars are gone at this point. Then over the next few minutes that black area turns gray and then to white and then returns to normal vision, over the course of about 5 minutes.

Each occurrence is the same timing, steps, and either exact or very close to the same area of the left eye that gets impacted.

It never happens in any other physical situation (not exercising, not getting up from laying down, not standing from a chair), only when I’m completely bent over and then went upright.

Hypertension is being nicely controlled my Amlodipine and metoprolol and never running low usually 130/78). 5mg statin every other day controls cholesterol nicely.

Eye doc did full fungus scan yesterday and no issues found

He is concerned about GCA or carotid / retinal ischemia and wants ultrasound and CT angio and bloodwork for GCA (ESR and CRP) and is recommending going to ER to expedite testing.

I appreciate the care and concern but am personally suspecting prostatic hypertension, but this is admittedly odd since it’s just the left eye OS with the blackened area. Not that Ortho H can’t be just one eye.

Struggling to find much online that fits my scenario given the OS rather than bilateral and also not a curtain blackening or total loss.