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A 38-year-old woman complains of episodically not being able to see. These episodes occur several times a month and last up to 20 minutes. Between episodes, her vision is normal. Further questioning reveals that the visual loss is only for words; she cannot read during the episode, but she can clearly see the rest of her surroundings, and she is not blind. She states, “The words just don't make sense, although the letters are clear.”
When the episode is over, her reading ability is normal. After these episodes, she usually experiences a severe headache lasting several hours, associated with nausea and vomiting and with sensitivity to light and sound. She is otherwise healthy.
I asked her to write a sentence during one of the episodes. She wrote the sentence easily but could not read what she had just written. After the episode was over, she was then able to read the sentence. She brought me the sentence she had written; it was clearly legible to me.
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