mazury

Hey, I did do vision therapy for about 3-4 months. I did it myself at home for about an hour a day. I unfortunately didn't see any noticeable improvements, so I stopped, since the time investment was getting to be a bit much. My prism lenses have also stopped providing enough relief, so I'm stuck with my old prescription.

I did see a Dr. Debby trained specialist and am getting new prescription glasses within 1-2 weeks. Literally putting all my hopes on them at this point.

    bkdo Hey, I did do vision therapy for about 3-4 months. I did it myself at home for about an hour a day.

    Did you do this with an optometrist or just self-guided? I think with our condition, the VT needs to be under a specialist to be successful.

    bkdo My prism lenses have also stopped providing enough relief,

    This could be "eating" the prism. Over time, sometimes the eyes/brain need stronger and stronger prism.

      ryans I agree with eating the prisms, but only when the condition is CI, for DI it's actually helpful, that's what I read in "clinical management of binocular vision". And I think @martin had success with prisms, but he also had DI. It's important to get the diagnosis right at first.

      ryans

      I used my Kaiser optometrist/opthalmologist's exercises and did them at home, they took about an hour a day and I didn't really see any relief, unfortunately.

      Yeah, from what I was told, relief with brand new prism lenses usually last about a month, then you'll need recalibration. Then, your prescription can change year-to-year. It's frustrating 😞

      9 days later

      arturpanteleev Sorry for late answer, been working long days (behind my screens).

      When I started training I didn’t understand that this training was going to work. Less headache, but my eyes was still strained, after some weeks I could see results that the training worked.

        mike thank you! I tried to do patching a few times, but every time quit halfway through. Gonna do another trying

        3 months later

        Eye patching changed my life. I was so happy, that I can use devices that I cannot from a long time again. But unfortunately something went wrong. I was patching one of my eyes from about a year and recently I think I overloaded my eyes/eye (or maybe my body), got a lot of stress, and lose the ability to use devices to which I got my eyes used by patching. Now I can say, that I’m starting over, somehow I reset my eyes to the stage that I cannot use almost anything at all. The worst part of the problem is that, now the patching wont work at all. I irritate my eyes very quickly, No matter if I’m patching or not. Have any of you had such a problem? Did anyone have to start from scratch? If so, do you have any advice? I'm a little heartbroken because I was able to use all these devices fairly normally and enjoy life in my own way, and now I've lost that opportunity, not knowing why 🙁

          bisk89 Give it time and keep it up. There have been days where patching was less effective but it always came back.

          Unfortunately for me there seems to be no improvement of the underlying condition which means I wlil likely be patching for the rest of my life.

          bisk89 Had you got to the point that you "healed" your eyes and could use any screen without patching or did you continuously patch for one year? In the latter case, how many hours per day?

            AGI I Was at the point where I can, for example, play on my PS5 for one hour without patching at all, after one hour patch one eye for half of an hour, and then play another ~hour without patching, etc. It was like cure for me, cause before I cannot use almost any devices at all. Unfortunately, despite trying and patching, I wasn't able to last longer without patching than 1/1,5 hour in front of a screen. Although, sometimes when i'm drinking alcohol, I was able to last much longer without patching, even 2-3 hours

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              bisk89 I see. I too noticed some "relaxation" drinking beer or wine.
              Have you seen any eye specialist? Any diagnosis?

              2 months later

              I started patching a month ago after mike replied to my topic about eyestrain with modern devices. Firstly I couldn’t believe in this and thought that’s bullshit. I tried a few days, but nothing changed. Eyestrain, dry eyes, tinitus and headache as regular. But after a few weeks I felt a huge relief. Now I can use ALL devices with patching my right eye and continue using this method to full recovery.

              I want to say @mike thank you. I can’t even describe what I feel. You really saved my life after a 2 years of nightmare.

                CrestfallDreaming I think so, but I don’t know certainly. I did some tests to check which eye is dominant, but different tests give different results. I just try with both eyes and choose patching right, because it’s most comfortable for me.

                23 days later

                Hi all,
                I'd love a bit of advice as this seems to be the most active thread about patching. Over the course of 2.5 years, I, like many of you, have tried almost everything: Neurolens prism glasses, e-ink and reflective LCD monitor, bluelight blockers, punctal plugs, autologous eye drops, and recently saw a vision therapist (who, yet again, told me dry eye was my root cause, not BVD). The only thing that allows me to work on the computer pain-free is patching. It only seems to work when I patch the right eye. My right eye has weaker vision, but I believe it is my dominant eye after doing tests. It's also the one that gets the most pain.

                So patching works--great! The problem is, when I take my patch off to do meetings (I work 40 hours per week on the computer and tend to have about 3 hours of virtual meetings per day), the pain is stronger and quicker to sink in than when I'm not in the habit of patching. This worries me that patching is making my binocular vision even worse, yet it's the only thing that allows me to function at work. Any thoughts or advice?

                  PhilG Yeah, that is what has put me off so far. My vision therapists have recommended to not disrupt binocular vision, as I have been making huge progress with the exercises. However, I am still desperate these days and at a certain point I may give patching a serious go. I did try a bit but perhaps too intensely on the single day and for not enough consecutive days. I did have that feeling of eyes collapsing/crossing while patching, which worried me. I also found out that one eye is dominant at near and the other is dominant at distance, which has made things more confusing.
                  I still do not get the science behind patching in case one does use both eyes relatively properly, but it is also true that no specialist I have seen has a clear idea of what is going on and has been able to propose a clear-cut solution.

                  Can you confirm you benefit from patching but patching has not healed your condition, so you are unable to use any device without discomfort without patching? How long have you been patching for?
                  Also, could you elaborate on why e-ink did not work? What device have you tried? Thanks.

                    PhilG I am in the same situation as you. I have found that by patching one eye I can use problematic devices but so far I have not solved the problem if I use two eyes.

                    For meetings with the cliets i don't patch. If I know I have many meetings I take a medication that allows me to use the PC with two eyes for several hours (fluxarten 10mg). I try to take as little as possible because in one month I gained 3 kg.

                      AGI Thanks for sharing your situation. It's interesting you've been able to find a vision therapist that could actually determine your dominant eye switches. I saw a surgeon a couple months ago who (finally) confirmed that I have a convergence issue in my right eye and that vision therapy would be my best option to fix it, but when I finally saw the vision therapist, she said my binocular vision was working just fine and that vision therapy would not help me (ugh--so back to online forums and experimenting for me).

                      To answer your questions: yes, I absolutely benefit from patching, but I am unable to look at most devices with two eyes without significant pain. Now days I can handle some screens in full yellow light mode for an hour or so though. The longest I've patched is about three weeks, but I'm going to try it now more diligently (finishing up week 1 now). I am using a patch that goes over my glasses, so both eyes remain open. Anytime I'm not wearing the patch, I try to squeeze my right eye in as hard as I can to stop it from straying. This helps avoid the ocular migraines I usually get from viewing a screen with both eyes, but then my eye gets exhausted. When it's patched, I let it relax a bit, but still try to keep it "activated" as best I can. I think when I let it fully relax, that's when my binocular vision gets all wacked out when I unpatch.

                      Regarding e-ink and reflective LCD screens: they do not solve my issue, but they are a lifesaver nonetheless. I started with a Boox Mira. If it weren't for that, I would have had to leave my job, the pain was unbearable. Definitely still pain while using the boox though, and as communications is my job, the black and white screen was incredibly impractical. I then bought the Sun Vision Display reflective LCD monitor. When I first got it, I was very disappointed, because it gave me too much pain to use, and I found it less comfortable than e-ink. But then I got a pair of Neurolens, which, again, did not solve the root issue, but also helped a lot. With Neurolens, I was able to tolerate (I use the term tolerate loosely) the sun vision display and now use that as my primary monitor. My work computer is an ASUS Tuff Gaming, and its backlit screen utterly destroys me. I realized recently, when I started using my personal macbook pro for work, that the ASUS, even being displayed on the Sun Vision and with patching was still hurting my eye. So it must also be something in the graphics card that wrecks me. Hoping now that patching might work better now that I avoid the ASUS as much as possible.

                      If I'm having a good day, I can handle my macbook pro backlit on full night mode for an hour, maybe two, without much residual pain. But if my right eye is too fatigued for me to keep it "squeezed" with the anterior muscles, then it still irritates me pretty quickly.

                      Long-winded reply: but in a nutshell, I would definitely recommend a reflective LCD screen or e-ink monitor and I would definitely recommend Neurolens. Both have reduced pain in a significant way for me. But do not get your hopes up that they will solve the issue.

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