Do You Believe in Destiiny?

The yiddish word for destiny is “ Besherit”. I am not sure if I am spelling that correctly, but I have been thinking a lot about destiny lately. My destiny or fate changed about a year and a half ago while reading one of my optometry journals on a plane trip. This particular article caught my eye since it mentioned University of Michigan. My daughter is a student at Michigan, so I decided to read the article. It was about a doctor’s speciality practice and how she was helping people with an often misdiagnosed binocular vision disorder, vertical heterophoria. Patients from all over the country and even out of the country, travel to Michigan to be treated by this doctor. Her name is Dr. Debby Feinberg of Vision Specialists of Michigan.

I found her work so interesting and different, I decided to reach out to Dr. Debby. We spoke on the phone a number of times and each time I became more and more intrigued with her work. Binocular vision was not even on my radar before I read this journal article. I was trained very medically and started my career in glaucoma research. I was a good general optometrist with a young growing practice but I was never satisfied with my mode of practice. A speciality practice in binocular vision was not even a thought in my head.

I decided to go visit Vision Specialists of Michigan on a trip to see my daughter. From that visit onwards, I knew that this was my fate. I walked into Dr. Debby’s office and said to myself, “ I want to do this!”. So my journey began. A few months later I went out to train with Dr. Debby Feinberg. It was an intense week of training, observing, and examining patients. Dr. Debby’s technique of treatment with prisms is very exact and I had almost no experience with prisms at all. Prisms scared me! I had a lot to learn, it was overwhelming at times.

I found this work so exciting, because these patients are sick, suffering, and searching for answers. They have been told by many doctors that nothing is wrong with them. They have headaches, are dizzy and sensitive to the light, plus many other symptoms. They have had many tests and treatments, with little or no relief. They are told it is in their heads. It is not. No one looked in the right place.

My goal is to spread the word about vertical heterophoria. If you or someone you know suffers from dizziness, headaches, neck ache, anxiety, motion sickness, have them look up vertical heterophoria. This condition can not be detected on a routine eye exam. You must be tested by a doctor specially trained to diagnosis this condition and treat it. The treatment is a visual orthotic device, prism glasses. These glasses look like regular glasses but to a patient with vertical heterophoria these glasses are their medicine. These patients feel a substantial improvement in their symptoms during the first visit. They often can not believe how much better they feel!

I am proud to say that I am one of the first doctors in the country to be trained by Dr. Debby Feinberg. I look forward to opening my new practice, The Neuro Visual Center of New York, later this summer. This is the next chapter of my professional life. This is my destiny, besherit.