I have Convergence Insufficiency, a binocular-vision problem

@nonew3 (1941)
United States
July 3, 2011 11:10am CST
I have Convergence Insufficiency (CI), which means that the eyes do not converge (move inward) enough, which gives me double vision, blurred vision, headaches, dizziness/vertigo, etc., whenever I read or write in print or do any other sustained visual work. It also impairs my depth perception. I am in vision therapy for this now. I just stared on June 1 and am scheduled to continue until the end of August. I have had to reduce a lot of things, limit a lot of things, and put a lot of things on hold while addressing this issue. I also have migraines and Migraine Associated Vertigo, and the CI has apparently been triggering them.
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1 response
@carmelanirel (20942)
• United States
3 Jul 11
Hi nonew, so you found out why you get migraines? Is there a solution for this convergence insufficiency?
@nonew3 (1941)
• United States
3 Jul 11
I am in vision therapy for it. I started on June 1, and have two more months of it to go. After that, my vision therapist will decide if more vision therapy will do any good. But according to her, most likely my vision therapy will end at that time. I go in every week for a new set of eye exercises, and I do the at-home exercises 5 days a week as prescribed. The purpose of the vision therapy is to re-train the connection between my eyes and my brain.
• United States
3 Jul 11
That sounds like great news... I am sure these exercises is just what you need and then you will be free from the pain..
@nonew3 (1941)
• United States
25 Jul 11
I was hit in the head by a baseball at a professional baseball game in junior high. I was not knocked out, but I had a bad headache for the rest of that evening. No one checked into what was going on at the time of the injury, but I started noticing a lot of issues. I went from being the captain of a softball team to not being able to hit the ball. I'd always swing the bat a split second after the ball had gone by. I started getting sudden profound vertigo spells, some of which would knock me to the ground and some which would cause vomiting. I started hearing and seeing things strangely, and these were much later diagnosed as convergence insufficiency and auditory processing issues (almost the full-fledged Auditory Processing Disorder, according to the test I had for it in 2008). I went from riding roller coasters without any problems at all, to not even being able to get on a swing set or in an elevator without getting very dizzy or nauseous. I started developing short-term memory problems and problems with word-finding and losing my train of thought when I speak. All of this has been in spite of looking perfectly normal about 99% of the time except, of course, for when the spells would hit. And, you would not believe the advice that so many people kept giving me, when they had no idea that the problem has most likely been the result of a mild traumatic brain injury! And, one church even went so far as to tell me that my health issues are the result of being demon possessed due to some supposed issue with unforgiveness. Well, if I were to follow their logic, I guess that some demons entered my brain at the time that the baseball smashed into my head. Maybe demons were inside the baseball, and those demons caused the baseball to hit me? Ha ha ha! No one traced any of these problems back to the time I was hit in the head by the baseball, but it appears to be physically impossible to get hit at such a high rate of speed by a baseball without sustaining some sort of head injury. It has only been through my own research and through the process of "putting two and two together" that it started making sense how I can have so many sensorineural and brain-related issues. I mean, Migraine Associated Vertigo, classical migraine, Convergence Insufficiency (a brain issue, not an issues with the eyes themselves), and auditory-processing problems, and the before-and-after that I noticed in junior high, seems too much to be a mere coincidence. I have had a many-years battle with the local Department of Services for the Blind and got absolutely nowhere with them because they have no idea how to deal with brain problems that cause vision impairments along with a host of other issues along with it. So, because they have had no idea what they are doing, they have done nothing of any real practical value for me. Meanwhile, I have had to go to Hadley School for the Blind to learn things like Braille and independent living skills for the blind and visually impaired. Needless to say, I had to take a long break from things like myLot, and I am slooooowly coming around. I still have a long ways to go with vision therapy, by the way. My vision therapist said it might be 4 more months. I finally am scheduled to speak with my very first Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) specialist tomorrow afternoon. She told me on the phone that our first step will most likely be to get me referred out. I apparently have more therapy even after vision therapy is finally done.
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