Poppers made me lose my vision

The killer headache and bleary eyes were expected after a heavy night. But 30 minutes later, when my vision was still bad, I knew something was wrong. I had a fixed red spot in the centre of my vision, about the width of a penny held at arm’s length. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you think about how sight works, you realise it’s a problem. If I looked away from something I could make it out. But when I looked directly at it, it disappeared in the red fuzz.

Leaving the house, I couldn’t read the number on the front of a bus until it was 30 metres away and, beyond a few feet, I couldn’t make out the expressions on people’s faces. You know when you look at the Sun, and the outline is burned into your vision for a few minutes? It was like that. Though it wouldn’t go away.

I headed down to Moorfields Eye Hospital, which has a specialist A&E department that’s open 24/7. The junior doctor examined by eyes, tested my vision and asked me a series of questions:

“Have you had any head injuries?”

“No.”

“Have you taken any illegal drugs?”

“No.”

He tapped his chin thoughtfully and told me he was going to ask his consultant something. When he came back in he looked much more convinced.

“Have you taken any poppers?” he asked.

I nodded slowly, surprised at his insight. The night before, I’d got drunk with a mate and had a few sniffs of “poppers.” They’re a liquid sold as “room aroma” in small bottles, but when sniffed they give a short-lived head-rush and high. They’re legal, and the only side-effect I’d heard about was the intense headache I’d woken up with.

The doctor sent me down for a scan of my retina. When it came back he showed me a tiny bump right in the centre.

“I think you have something called Poppers Maculopathy," he explained. “The back of our eyes have cells that allow us to see. But when we want to see something in more detail, we have to look at it with our central vision, using an area of the retina called the macula.

“In recent years there’ve been reports of people damaging their central vision after heavy use of poppers. That’s called maculopathy. We don’t know exactly how, but it seems that the chemicals in poppers damage the macula.”

Far from being a heavy user, I’d tried poppers maybe three times in my life, and I hadn’t done so for over five years. He told me that the vision might improve with time, and that I should take a supplement called Lutein, which is thought to have a role in the protection of the macula.

I walked out feeling numb, terrified at the prospect of a single stupid choice having damaged my vision forever. I squinted to try and make out the signs for Old Street station, and made my way home to do some research. Easier said than done when I couldn’t read my computer screen properly.

Poppers Maculopathy first started to crop up among the gay community in the late 2000s. In 2006, a piece of legislation meant poppers switched from being made of isobutyl nitrite (a suspected carcinogen) to isopropyl nitrite. The move was well intentioned, but according to research in a medical journal, The Lancet, the new chemical appears to damage the cells of the macula.

The governmentrecently tried to ban poppers under the Psychoactive Substance Act, but they won a last-minute reprieve and they’restill available for sale. Poppers have a whole host of other dangers associated with them, from lowering blood pressure and discolouring skin, all the way through to death. But, like many legal highs, their dangers are unrecognised because they are freely available to buy.

A few weeks on and my vision has improved, but it’s not perfect. I found others in online forums whose vision was still severely damaged, six months after it had first appeared. It seems that chronic use causes the most significant damage, but Poppers Maculopathy can occur after a single use. I certainly won’t be touching them again, and risking any further damage to my eyes.

The author is a freelance journalist but has chosen to remain anonymous

Alex Jenkins is a freelance illustrator based in London. Follow him on Instagram here