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?
One-Eye-Success for 10+ users on LEDStrain
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?
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
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?
- Edited
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 
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.
- Edited
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.
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?
6 days later
Posting this simply as an interesting data point:
Been patching for, um, about 2 weeks, and now I have a problem:
When I'm not looking at a computer screen, my eyes take longer (or it is more difficult) to converge to a single point. For example, 0.8sec versus the 0.2sec that is normal for healthy people.
It's not in any way a serious problem at this moment, but I'm wary of it getting worse, so I'm stopping patching for now.
I know another poster in this thread had a similar experience. 
