Ugh! First day of traditional vision therapy
 

My eyes hurt! My head hurts! Is it going to get better? Quickly? Or should I plan on not doing anything on those days?

Hang in there! The first month is rough-I would get migraines after my vision therapy.

Now in month 4, I get slight headaches, but no migraines. The fatigue and pain diminish as you strengthen your vision. I was told the pain meant progress!

What issues do you have with your eyes? if it's convergent insufficiency, you can just wear blue tinted glasses(and prisms if your visual system can handle that) and your eyes will self correct. After wearing my glasses for 6 weeks, I was tested again and while I still had convergent insufficiency, it was much better than it was.

It was tough the first few months. Take it easy...but it is so worth it!

Thanks for the encouragement!
 

See my signature for my problems! Convergence insufficiency is the big culprit at this point though, as other issues have resolved or at least improved after sensory integration therapy.

I don't think it's true that prisms correct your convergence insufficiency, but rather, they can help you cope until your vision self corrects. My convergence insufficiency has been going on two years, I'm guessing, and I have had no progress, so I don't think my vision is going to self correct. Too many head injuries! Hopefully this vision therapy will work!

I'm using binasal occlusions instead of prisms.

Of course, now I have insomnia, so I'm probably going to feel like hell all day tomorrow too! My baby and my sick coughing husband keep disturbing my sleep! Once I wake up, it takes me forever to get back to sleep. I know messing around on my phone isn't helping, so I'm signing off!

I'm about to start vision therapy with lights. Is that what you're doing? I have to go for 20 sessions... 3 x per week. I was hoping the therapy was something they could show me and I could do it at home on my own but of course there's equipment involved so you have to go in and do it there.

I hope it gets better for you!

CC

Re: role of prisms. My neuro opthamologist (and the scientific research papers I have read) say the value of prisms is two-fold

1) to correct your vision (like normal glasses do...ii.e.without fixing the problem) to take a huge cognitive load off of your brain (vision consumes so much) and

2) to stimulate neuro-plasticity in your brain...i.e, to promote healing, not just in that particular deficit.

So even though it doesn't get rid of the deficit, I think this approach helps a lot of people. Many of us will wear prisms for the rest of our lives, I have been told.

Hope it goes well!

In my research
 

I hadn't come across the info on neuro plasticity. Is this info in recent scholarly articles? I'd like to read about it!

Therapy with lights!
 

Is it sensory integration therapy? That is with lights in an office environment. If so, I had tremendous success with this, but mine was every day for an hour and a half for 12 days in the office and then 18 days at home for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening. My understanding is that they customize programs for different people, so that's why I thought maybe you might be doing the same thing. It didn't solve all my problems, but it got rid of my dizziness in just one month, which I never imagined was possible. The therapy I am doing now is not with lights. It is like little vision games you play to exercise your eyes, and I have to do it once a day at home and once a week with the therapist.