What is Binocular Vision Dysfunction?
People suffering from Binocular Vision Dysfunction have a small amount of visual misalignment not found on a routine eye exam. Their body corrects the misalignment by overusing and straining the eye muscles, causing the symptoms of Binocular Vision Dysfunction.
Typical Symptoms
- Dizziness
- Light headedness
- Nausea
- Unsteadiness/drifting when walking
- Poor co-ordination/clumsiness
- Poor depth perception
- Motion sickness
- Headaches/face pain
- Eye pain/pain with eye movement
- Neck ache/upper back and shoulder pain
- Head tilt
- Anxiety
- Sensitivity to light/glare
- Double vision
- Feeling overwhelmed or anxious in crowds/large spaces
- Fatigue with reading
- Shadowed/overlapping/blurred vision
- Difficulty with reading/reading comprehension
- Skipping lines/losing your place when reading
- Closing/covering one eye to make it easier to see
The number and severity of symptoms are different for each person – some people are disabled whilst others are not bothered much.Many people with Traumatic Brain Injury develop a small amount of eye misalignment from their injury that cause these symptoms.
Treatment
Patients must undergo a NeuroVisual Evaluation, which is a detailed and thorough examination of vision, including assessment for small amounts of vision alignment that are causing the symptoms (and that are not routinely identified on standard eye examinations). Problems with near vision, far vision and alignment will be corrected using glasses with aligning lenses, resulting in a reduction (or sometimes elimination) of symptoms.
Not uncommonly, people have been diagnosed with other conditions (like migraines, reading and learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, anxiety/panic disorders, Irlens Syndrome, sinus problems, TMJ disorders, agoraphobia, Meniere’s Disease, MS, stroke, cervical misalignment) when the cause was Binocular Vision Dysfunction.