What should you know about visual snow and ADHD?

People describe dots, flickering, grain, after-images or sensitivity to light. ADHD is assessed through a broader lifelong pattern of attention, organisation, impulsivity or activity symptoms across settings, not through a visual symptom alone. Difficulty Concentrating, Feeling Anxious and Irritability can have many causes, including poor sleep, stress, medicines, eye problems or neurological conditions. A clinician should consider the full history rather than assuming one experience explains the other.

Write down when the visual effect began, whether it is constant, what both eyes experience, and whether headaches, medicines, sleep changes or substances affect it. Arrange an eye or medical review for new, changing or intrusive visual symptoms. If attention difficulties affect school, work or relationships, request a Mental Health Assessment; bring examples from more than one setting and information from someone who knows your usual pattern.

Seek urgent care for sudden visual loss, a new field defect, severe headache, weakness, numbness, confusion, trouble speaking or symptoms after a head injury. Prompt assessment is also sensible when visual symptoms begin after a new medicine or are rapidly worsening. Do not stop prescribed treatment without discussing it with a clinician.

Could my visual symptoms need an eye or neurological review? What other causes of concentration difficulty should we consider? What information would help assess possible ADHD?