• Health

  • Neurolenses and kind of out of options

Background: I'm finishing a CS degree right now and did an internship as a software engineer. Grew up playing games in very unhealthy amounts, and at 27 now it's catching up to me. About 1.5 years ago I was almost unable to function because my eyes were so bad, I'd get off of work and would hot-compress my eyes and could hardly do anything on the computer.

Had something put in my eye to help clear the glands out and used some prescription eye drops and it got mostly better. It's never really gotten 100% better though. Now I use standard eye drops maybe once a day so it's not horrible, but the blue light blocking lenses online like Gunnars never really worked amazingly for me. Nightlight on Windows ended up doing the most good.

I went to the eye doctor again and they ran me through a bunch of machines, saying my near sight vision was quite bad and that Neurolenses, not really normal prescription lenses, would help. My problem is I've never really had blurry vision up close nor headaches. It's always just been eye strain and dry eye. I've read up online and some people say it ends up causing them more harm.

They're also super expensive, 700 USD with blue light blocking lenses and no insurance coverage. I don't plan on trying them but has anyone heard about them or tried them? I feel like I've tried almost everything besides just buying a laptop with a screen designed to be better for eyes.

I have similar situation. Pleas believe this and try this: cover your other eye or put tape on your other glass, and the eye dryness and strain is gone.

It might be hard to believe, but the whole problem is related to binocular or stereo vision. Flickering displays cause your eyes to work too hard thus causing the strain. It has nothing to do with dry eyes. Eye doctors who just don't understand this problem, claim that it is dry eye, though the dry eye is only a result of the constant overdrive our yes are having with flickering computer screens.

when the other eye is covered, the issue is gone.

I know this might not seem like a solution, since you are thinking that you cannot cover your eye at work. Maybe you can't, but at least at home you can which allows you to recover and if you have the chance to work remotely, cover your eye then.

And there are still laptops like the Lenovo x280 which do not cause any strain, though all other devices do

    Maxx

    But the problem is how is that a solution ? Covering one eye could work for a short time but it's not sustainable in the long term.

    Does it make you recover so that after you can watch the screen with both eyes ? Or will you need to use only one eye endlessly ?

        Liberator005 Does it make you recover so that after you can watch the screen with both eyes ? Or will you need to use only one eye endlessly ?

        @mike writes about his experience with patching here. For him, patching was a training tool.

          @Perustaja So, Neurolens makes the device that measured your phoria (costs the optometrist $30k USD) and proprietary prism lenses.

          The lenses you would get are base-in prisms to treat exophoria / convergence insufficiency. You could get regular prism glasses for cheaper that would be covered by vision insurance. The difference for Neurolens is they are a "contoured prism", meaning, the prism is different at near vs. far, like a progressive lens. Phorias are almost never the same at distance. vs near, hence the progressive prism could be helpful.

          I want to make a couple points:

          1. You optometrist could probably take your phoria measurement from the Neurolens and give you regular base-in (BI) prism for near. They might not want to do this because they want to recoup the cost of that expensive measurement device. Neurolens lens sales are a big profit for them.
          2. Neurolens offers a money-back guarantee; ask your doctor if they honor this. You might try them and return them if so.
          3. If you have convergence insufficiency (CI), vision therapy ("eye exercises") has been proven in the Convergence Insufficiency Treatment Trial (CITT) to be effective. It is going to be more expensive and time consuming than either plain BI prism or Neurolens, but it would aid your symptoms. CI is often accompanied with accommodative insufficiency, which will also be helped by VT. @martin writes about his VT experiences in his blog here.

          I tried the Neurolens but they didn't work for me. It seems the machine misdiagnosed my with exophoria. If you want to find a good eye specialist, find a COVD optometrist. A Maddox Rod is a good test for phorias.

            Maxx It might be hard to believe, but the whole problem is related to binocular or stereo vision. Flickering displays cause your eyes to work too hard thus causing the strain. It has nothing to do with dry eyes. Eye doctors who just don't understand this problem, claim that it is dry eye, though the dry eye is only a result of the constant overdrive our yes are having with flickering computer screens.

            I thought the problem was more related to photosensitive epilepsy. Regardless I've seen the theory of "dry eyes" repeated ad-naseaum and I see it as a symptom rather than the cause of our issues.

            • AGI likes this.

              ryans I have heard that some optometrists (specifically a clinic In NY state) who diagnose vertical heterophoria will combine it with the Neurolens prescription to address both issues. It seems ideal to me and I will try and refind this information and post it here.

                  degen Neurolens measures vertical deviations as well, but it does not make any actual prescription for it. The Doctor needs to see the vertical deviation and prescribe it. This is because sometimes the optimal Rx is to "split" the prism between the eyes.

                  Anecdotally I have heard Neurolens doesn't do a good job at measuring vertical phorias compared to a Maddox Rod but that's just an anecdote

                    Liberator005 Or will you need to use only one eye endlessly ?

                    That is my question too! I know about @mike, he sort of healed his condition for good, but what about the others?

                    ryans Phorias are almost never the same at distance.

                    If there is one diagnosis that I got the same from 4 different specialists (two orthoptists, one neuro-optometrist and one behavioral optometrist) is that my eyes are orthophoric at distance. So what you are saying is that it is pretty much pointless to try Neurolens if the problem is only at near? In any case, my first experience with prismatic lenses was such a pain that I do not plan on giving it another go.

                    ryans It seems the machine misdiagnosed my with exophoria.

                    Is this a case of bad luck, though? What is the rate of success of those prescriptions? I may be biased by my negative experience but to me it looks like in theory this and that can be measured, horizontal and vertical, and multiple other forms of correction can be added, but then in real life glasses give more issues than benefits. Also, before my prismatic lenses were made I was checked twice within a week. I do not know the name of the test, but the values of that test that determine the power of my lenses were very different the first and the second time. If the degree of heterophoria is linear with the values of those readings, then my esophoria was half as bad during the second visit. Based on what readings the lenses were made is a mystery to me. I only know that after three days of wearing the glasses I had pain all over my body.

                    Also, I was looking at my diagnoses. My first orthoptist wrote I had exophoria and a few weeks later esophoria. I am going to see her soon. I really want to check if the first report contained a typo or there is really the chance that the phoria can invert over such a short time.

                    Summarizing, I do not fully trust the accuracy of those measurements and doctors that proceed like a train at full speed without acknowledging that their findings are not reproducible.

                            In my experience, it seems indeed related to some binocular vision dysfunction. Because when I use most of recent screens, it's like it messes with my 3d vision. When I see things after in the real, it looks more 2d like if I was seeing with only one eye.

                            But the thing is I don't think we suffer from a particular pathology. It's just that those screens would trigger some reaction from our bodies, doesn't mean the problem comes from us. And possibly, everyone would have symptoms, only we pay more attention to them and maybe accept less the discomfort that comes with those recent screens.

                            If we don't use the screens, we have no problems. I personally had no problem with screens before, it only happened recently and I don't know if the reason is hardware or software or both yet.

                            The dizziness many people point as symptom would come from one brain hemisphere working less as one eye works less. It would also explain the cognitive issues some have relayed, like impaired memory, feeling sleepy and so on. It messes with the eyes, and then it also messes with the brain and particularly how both hemispheres work.

                            I don't know if you noticed from recent samsung and philips TVs, but also lgs. If you come close to the screen, the image is very blurry. Like it's obvious something has changed in the technology used the last years. It's very weird, even when the tv is off and you look at yourself in the screen, the image is distorted. Things certainly didn't look as bad before. It impacts tvs, laptop screens, monitors, and even cars dashboards.

                              AGI Is this a case of bad luck, though? What is the rate of success of those prescriptions?

                              Perhaps. I don't want to discourage anyone from trying Neurolens, even though they didn't help me. In fact, if your Doctor will refund you completely if they don't work, I strongly encourage you to try it. Worst case you return them and you're back to where you started.

                              AGI So what you are saying is that it is pretty much pointless to try Neurolens if the problem is only at near?

                              I don't think it is pointless, the machine will measure it. It's very hard to measure smaller than 0.25 prism diopters by hand. The Neurolens also learns from other patients and is much more consistent than manual measurements.

                              Liberator005 But the thing is I don't think we suffer from a particular pathology. It's just that those screens would trigger some reaction from our bodies, doesn't mean the problem comes from us.

                              If you have binocular vision issues, the brain will suppress one eye. This isn't something you consciously realize. @martin has a great theory here -- the flicker/dithering/whatever on these new screens disrupts the ability of your brain to do suppression. During vision therapy, flickering light is used as an anti-suppression therapy.

                              So these "new screens" are basically doing anti-suppression vision therapy on you, but because you haven't fixed your binocular issues, you get bad symptoms. The eye doctor wouldn't give you anti-suppression therapy right away, only after you've trained to resolve your issues in the first place.

                                      ryans

                                      Thanks for the details.

                                      The idea of flickering screens disabling eye suppression is actually extremely interesting, he may have nailed one of the core issues.

                                      Never thought about it or cared to search info on it but clearly it relates to how I feel. Especially when I look at some recent TVs close to the screen, I see double image which would fit perfectly the theory of prevented eye suppression.

                                      I still think there are other causes though.

                                      I have different symptoms with different screens. With some I will feel dizzy and sleepy, cognitively tired with no eye strain though. With others, my eyes will burn but I won’t have a cognitive effect.

                                        ryans they didn't help me.

                                        Neurolens did not solve your problem or you could not adjust to the lenses and developed further symptoms?

                                        ryans If you have binocular vision issues, the brain will suppress one eye…the flicker/dithering/whatever on these new screens disrupts the ability of your brain to do suppression.

                                        I have some degree of esophoria that I am trying to address but I can easily read "through" a bar sitting a few cm on top of a book or a phone. Please see a photo of this simple orthoptic tool. If I were not using both eyes at the same time and the eyes did not converge on the sheet or the phone, the letters under the bar would not be neatly visible looking from the top and I would not be able to read fluently. When I cover one eye with one hand, the difference is very clear. I can't see the letters under the bar at all because I am not exploiting binocular vision.

                                        Therefore, in general I am using two eyes simultaneously. It is not that I use a single eye when I read on paper or from a Kindle, and a bad device all of a sudden awakens the dormant eye.

                                        Also, recently I had my eyes tracked by VR equipment upon reading from a monitor and following moving targets. No jumping around was detected. My eyes moved properly and stayed in position when they had to. I believe the time scale was in the second range, though. Not sure what happens for shorter time frames.

                                        I really do not know.

                                            dev