So I received my eyepatch 2 days ago and have been using it for all screens since (on my "bad" eye). Seems to give me a massive improvement. ("seems" because it may be placebo, and because it's too early to tell for sure).

I went to a BVD specialist, they diagnosed me with astigmatism but no BVD.

Interestingly, I have the exact same symptom as @bkdo ("text getting slightly vertically doubled when my eyes are very fatigued") that he corrected via prism lenses, but I don't have BVD so no prism lenses for me.

Here's my new theory for my screen strain and eye patching:

  • The astigmatism (which is much stronger in my left eye) leads to left-eye fatigue because the eye is constantly trying unsuccessfully to focus properly. The wikipedia page for astigmatism says: "symptoms can include eyestrain, headaches, and trouble driving at night")
  • The eye patch lets that left eye not try to focus at all, which fixes the above.
  • Still not sure why the problem happens only with screens

Planning to go to my personal ophthalmologist for a prescription for astigmatism glasses in about a week (the BVD specialist wouldn't give me one).

    logixoul

    This is interesting, I haven’t had any double vision what i have notice. For me covering one eye have changed my binocular vision over time so now I can use all screens with both eyes open. And because it have worked with one eye, I have put my problem in the BVD category.

    So in my point of view, if it makes a massive improvement with covering one eye, it sounds like BVD.

        In the beginning of November I changed my mobile device to a iPhone 13 Pro. It’s definitely a bit worse than my previous iPhone 11 Pro. So after two weeks, i started with covering one eye. The interesting thing here is that it was more problematic then I remember. Some nights it didn’t work with one eye, and some it did. The nights it worked I had it covered the whole time for some hours, and the nights when i covered, uncovered and covered again it just got bad.

        So the conclusion here is, if it don’t work with covering one eye direct, try other variant and find what works for you. One test is not enough.

        In the beginning of December i was brave enough to change tv to a brand new LG G1 “OLED EVO”. Just like the iPhone 13 Pro it was worse than my older Sony LED-tv from 2011.

        With some weeks of one eye training things is going in the right direction and now my new devices feels quite nice. But not as good as my old devices. So i will keep on training for some more weeks or months.

        logixoul

        Congrats on having luck with the eyepatch, I think that's very encouraging. It's interesting that you weren't diagnosed with BVD, I'm curious if you'd have the same relief by patching the other eye or not.

            bkdo Will wait for some time before I try patching the other eye (I've got some things going on currently). Will let you know when/if I do.

              bkdo

              Careful buying into this Vision Therapy too much. I saw a the top on in my region, and he diagnosed me with the same thing you were diagnosed with, and played into all my hopes that we were onto something that could be cured, took my $5,000 for a 12 week Vision Therapy course .... and it did nothing. NO help at all. They even conned me into buying several "home exercise devices" at $200-$300 a pop. The best thing I got for them was the $2 eyepatch I now use.

              There is very limited scientific data on the effectiveness of "Vision Therapy", and there are a LOT of quacks out there looking to milk desperate people for a buck. If it helps you, that's great, but I implore everyone to be VERY skeptical of claims that seem to be a magical answer and have a big price tag attached.

                  ensete

                  Thanks for the heads-up. I was definitely a little skeptical at the $200/session cost, I’m hoping I can do most of the training at home or something once they give me the exercise programs.

                  Sorry to hear that the therapy didn’t help you, that sounds very frustrating. Did you notice any changes to your vision at all from the therapy? Even temporarily?

                    As I've been waiting for my vertical prisms I tried patching again, but this time I patch almost all the time when using bad screens (at least 6h per day).
                    So far I don't see any massive improvement in most of my symptoms, but there is something very interesting. Blurry vision which I always got from bad devices doesn't exist anymore. Even after 8+ hours in front of my new asus laptop(left eye patched all this time) my vision is stable. It's been three days, but I'm going to continue patching till the end of January to see if it may change anything.

                      Dominic

                      FWIW, I noticed a similar improvement with the patch and new lenses. My optometrist said that this was due to my eye muscles tiring themselves out by being forced to accommodate for the BVD, and that’s why it mostly went away with patch/lenses. My vision would look like this:

                      I’m a little surprised that you haven’t noticed much symptom relief beyond that though. Have you tried seeing if it helps more on one eye VS the other?

                          hi guys this started for me when playing games but now has spread to watching tv and using my laptop. My vision in my left eye is very slightly weaker than my right, so should I just try putting a patch on the left eye and looking at screens for four hours? Or start with smaller exposure?

                          bkdo My vision would look exactly as you demonstrated. This is why I asked my optometrist for vertical prismatic correction.
                          Well I think patching gives me some relief, but it's more at the moment of patching. When I take my patch off and simultanously stop using a device I get a headache and burning feeling. Yesterday was worse, but this morning I woke up without any significant headache, so it definitely helps. Maybe I expect too much from first days of patching, I may need more time or it's too late for patching as I "activated" my "lazy eye" by doing 7 months of vision therapy.
                          For the moment I patch only my left eye as it was more problematic eye in terms of misalignment.
                          So you patch and wear prisms? Doesn't it give you opposite results?

                          • bkdo replied to this.

                              Dominic

                              Yep, that sounds very similar to what I experienced with the patch. Mild-moderate reduction in symptoms while the patch was on and I was using a problematic device, and then I'd feel a little worse when I removed the patch and stopped using the device.

                              I stopped using the patch when I got these new lenses, here's a rough scale of how much each thing reduced flicker symptoms (1 is lowest, 10 is highest)

                              • No patch and no lenses: 0/10
                              • Patch on left eye 2/10
                              • Patch on right eye 4/10
                              • New prism lenses 6/10

                              You may want to consider patching your alternate eye for a day or two, just to see if it causes any noticeable improvement in relief.

                              Also, would you please let us know how your new lenses work for you when they arrive?

                                  6 days later

                                  bkdo

                                  Yesterday I received two pairs of prism glasses (one exclusively for vertical misalignment and one for both vertical and horizontal). Today I tried "vertical" prisms and my body reaction was pretty much the same as it was when I was trying my first and second prism lenses - I got a severe headache, pain around my eyes, dizziness and all I could do was going to bed to recover with the help of sleep. Most of the symptoms appeared after computer use, not at the acual time of use. Tomorrow I will be trying the second pair, but I have no expectations.

                                  Patching my other eye than I usually patch gives a bit more of relief, but it's still nowhere near to feel comfortable.
                                  That's my rating:
                                  Patch on right eye 1/10
                                  Patch on left eye 2/10
                                  Astigmatism lenses (-0.25 both eyes) 5/10

                                  This week I made an interesting purchase, I bought the Maddox rod which is very helpful at assessing your exo/eso phoria. I made sure I have a very small horizontal heterophoria and a bit more of exophoria. My prism glasses power is only 2, and my Maddox rod test proved they are not enough to fully compensate for my exophoria. I wonder how I would react with stronger prisms like 4 or 6.
                                  Small astigmatic lenses definitely help, but according to Maddox rod test they have no impact on my heterophoria.

                                  bkdo Did you feel a relief at first moments with your recent prisms or did you need more time to adjust?

                                        Dominic

                                        It took me 3-4 weeks for the pain of adjusting to new lenses to stop. I noticed the 60-70% relief from flicker symptoms pretty quickly, within a few days IIRC. It definitely took a long time to actually adjust to the lenses though, and I'm not even sure I'm 100% there yet. My advice would be to pick the pair that you think provides the most symptom relief, and then wear those exclusively for a few weeks. In my experience, prism lenses do demand quite a bit of time to adjust, but I hope you'll see improvement as you wear them 😃

                                            bkdo Yeah, this is what I am going to do. Do you wear your prisms constantly or just for computer/smartphone use?

                                            • bkdo replied to this.

                                                Dominic

                                                In my case, I have BVD that requires me to wear them as much as possible, screen or no screen. I’m actually at the point now where I get a headache if I don’t wear them, lol.

                                                Not sure if your situation is different though, did you optometrist give you any instructions on wearing them?

                                                    Dominic That's my rating:
                                                    Patch on right eye 1/10
                                                    Patch on left eye 2/10
                                                    Astigmatism lenses (-0.25 both eyes) 5/10

                                                    Sounds encouraging! (the astigmatism lenses result, I mean).

                                                    Your lenses have -0.25 correction; could you please also tell me what your eye's astigmatism value is? (based on machine printout and/or based on optometrist evaluation)?

                                                        bkdo My optometrist told me to wear prisms only for near vision tasks, but I feel like I should do it all the time. I have a heterophoria both at near and far. As I had my LASIK done 8 years ago I don't want to be prisms (or any glasses) dependent, but what else we can do if vision therapy doesn't lead to satisfying results.

                                                        logixoul Based on autorefraction I have -0.5 on right and -0.25 on left eye. I tried three pairs of cylindrical lenses: -0.25 & -0.5, -0.25 & -0.25 and 0 & -0.25. The first ones gave me a headache, the last didn't make much difference.

                                                              Dominic

                                                              From my understanding, I thought that if you have BVD that affects you 24/7, wearing the prism lenses all the time is more helpful in terms of symptom relief and you'll get used to them much more quickly. That's just what my doctor told me, maybe I have a different situation. I'd recommend checking with your optometrist to make sure though.

                                                              I know how you feel - I really didn't want to be dependent on glasses either, but partial relief from flicker symptoms is 100% worth the trade-off IMO. I can't ever go back at this point, lol.

                                                                Dominic

                                                                Thanks!

                                                                If I understand correctly (from several of your posts), astigmatism lenses (-0.25 both eyes) make it much more comfortable for you to look at screens (even when taking into account the headache you get from those lenses). Is that right?

                                                                Also, did you find any way to (partially or fully) remove the double vision?

                                                                    dev