Recently, I have had many cases of young people who have been suffering from headaches on an almost daily basis. They have all been diagnosed with migraine or chronic sinus headache. Pain on eye movement and facial pain, especially after long term computer use is a common theme among these patients. These people have been suffering for years and have tried many medications with little or no relief.
In each and every one of these cases, the binocular vision status was never adequately evaluated. When we are on a computer for long periods we ask the visual system to work very hard. The focus has to be maintained so each eye has a clear image on each retina. Moreover, the two eyes must point to the same place in space so the images are on the same points on each retina. This is a lot of work for the eye muscles. If the eyes are even slightly out of alignment, the eye muscles are constantly overworked. This leads to the feelings of eye strain, headache, and even facial pain.
A careful binocular vision evaluation can find even the smallest misalignments. Our exam, the Neuro Visual Evaluation, following the methods of Dr. Debby Feinberg of Vision Specialists of Michigan, is a complete comprehensive ocular and binocular vision exam. It is extremely detailed, taking approximately 90 minutes. Through this evaluation, very small eye misalignments can be detected that are normally missed in the standard 15 minute eye exam.
When the eyes are aligned using special prismatic lenses in a pair of glasses, the eye muscles relax and the symptoms of pain are greatly reduced or eliminated. Each persons prescription is custom tailored for their visual system. Often, the prescription gets refined after about a month of wearing the prism glasses. Many patients can get off all of their pain medications when the course of treatment is complete.
If you are suffering from migraines, headaches, eye pain, facial pain, please go to our website www.nvcofny.com and take our questionnaire. If your score indicates that you may have a binocular vision problem, we will contact you within a few days. It just may be your eyes!
I experienced maybe one migraine every six months up until the point I started working full time in an office, in front of a computer. At that point, my migraines were coming on every week or so. It was getting out of control and when I went to my acupuncturist for treatment, he commented on how being in front of a computer screen for many hours can cause migraines.
ReplyDeleteDoris Gibbs @ Moody Eyes
Hi Doris,
DeleteYes computer screens are known to trigger headaches especially in patients with binocular vision dysfunction. If you want to know if you are suffering from a binocular vision problem that may be causing your symtoms, take our questionnaire at www.nvcofny.com.
Dr. Cheryl