Getting to the heart of visual loss: when cardiac medication may be dangerous to the optic nerves

A 62-year-old lady with hypertension and diabetes developed bilateral, sequential ischemic optic neuropathy, progressive in the right eye. Because of a reported association between amiodarone and optic neuropathy with disc edema, the patient discontinued taking this medication; however, her visual loss continued. The differential diagnoses of bilateral ischemic optic neuropathy--including infiltrative optic neuropathy and temporal arteritis--were exhaustively investigated in this patient.