laur5446 Maybe the MDs feel like they are better and more knowledgeable.
Sounds like the university / industry rivalry when it comes to research (in certain countries, yours is not affected, that is why we all come there if we can :-). Or how about orthopedics versus osteopathy? I always use the latter if I have some small injury or back pain or knee pain. But in many countries osteopathy is not yet an university degree.
I found out after leaving, in the place where I lived in the States there are multiple optometrists doing vision therapy / treating pathologies like heterophoria. I was not unaware at the time. Why would not the ophthalmologist send me to one, given that my eyes were okay according to her?
laur5446 Also, what is it that has helped you? Were you ever diagnosed with anything?
I have a light astigmatism on the left eye (-0.25). I never wore glasses except for a month when 15 years ago, following a minor laser injury, one eye kind of got weak. After a few weeks, the glasses started bothering me, I had a new check, my wound had healed and I was told glasses were not needed.
I suspect I may have some degree of heterophoria. When I was a couple of years old, I was visited a few times because of suspected strabismus, my parents told me, but finally doctors said there was no problem.
15 years ago I had the most extensive visit of my life by an optometrist (or maybe he was an optician, super-knowledgable and with fancy testing equipment for the time). I told him that I felt useful to use the left hand to rest my head on when working at the computer. It turned out I had a poor eye teaming. After doing exercises with one and two pens, I improved a lot. I have been doing those exercises since then, on and off to be honest, because, for instance, from 2016 to 2018 I had no problem what so ever, and I was staying on electronic devices probably 100 hours a week between work and smartphone. 2013 to 2016 were mean instead, cause I could not cope with the hardware at work, but still orders of magnitude better than 2018-2019. I change job, country and everything every 2-3 years. I can tell you that I am not afraid of almost anything except "will I be able to use the computer/display they provide me with?". The will to change and see new places/do new things always won, but the anxiety has always been big. So far, I managed to get away all the times except in this last experience. It has been unbearable for an year. Where I am, everything is brand-new, computers, building, lighting and so on. It is a disaster. I am sick of fluorescent lamps and LEDs. I get eyestrain, neck pain and I can't focus, just by sitting under those lamps. Then add an iMac with all that dithering, and imagine how it gets. That is why I cut off smartphones for the past few months.