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?

                                        logixoul Exactly. Headache I get from lenses is much more tolerable and it starts after hours, not seconds.
                                        My double vision is fixed by astigmatism lenses, but I'm not sure if it's caused by astigmatism. Before I bought a new laptop and all this has started I had never had 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. 🙂

                                              logixoul

                                              Sorry to hear that, a break from the patch definitely sounds like a good idea. Have you spoken with an optometrist about the patch at all?

                                                  logixoul

                                                  That have happen a few times for me also. I haven’t think of it as a potential problem, just one thing that happens when your eyes is tired from training.

                                                    bkdo Have you spoken with an optometrist about the patch at all?

                                                    No, I never became certain that the patch helps me in the first place (I mean I couldn't make sure it's not placebo) so I only very briefly mentioned it to my optometrist. He didn't comment on it.

                                                      18 days later

                                                      mike Hi,

                                                      Yes, I actually continued to patch (barely stopped at all), because the 3 responses to my post sounded very encouraging.

                                                      The problem (the "difficulty converging" problem) has almost completely faded away.

                                                        7 days later

                                                        bkdo My advice would be to pick the pair that you think provides the most symptom relief

                                                        Symptom relief during the actual eye examination? Or symptom relief in the weeks after getting the prism lenses?

                                                            logixoul

                                                            In my case, I didn't really notice relief during the exam. I did notice that my flicker symptoms were reduced within 2-3 days of getting the lenses though. I think the best thing to do would be to try a pair of prism lenses and see how they affect your general eye strain as well as flicker symptoms, and then go from there 😃

                                                              Hi guys,

                                                              I'm glad I found this fourm! Your insights are very interesting. I had strabismus in one eye as a child, which was corrected by surgery. Perhaps working on a computer after age 30 somehow restored my defect, which is hidden now. I have occasionally been told that I don't focus my vision on the speaker. But it happened maybe 1-2 times. Maybe I will go to an optometrist with this idea.

                                                              Try to warm your eyelids with a warm towel for 5-6 minutes every night before going to bed and then massage your lower and upper eyelids for 2-3 minutes. How to do it, you will find on the internet. This is not a 100% solution to the problem, but it helped me a lot after a few days.

                                                              dev