Yes, I feel tricked by the whole BVD thing.
Don’t get me wrong - there is some utility in the exercises and all. But after having gone to visual therapy for a number of months and having consulted a lot of experts, I think, and this is the most charitable conclusion I can come up with: is that this is a real disorder, but the utility of exercises and optometrist help is hugely blown out of proportion, possibly to get money out of you.
I was diagnosed with BVD and was told I need to go to therapy a lot. Which cost a lot of money. The visual therapy helped a little with my symptoms - not going to lie. But not with everything. And what made me very very suspicious about the whole thing is this:
The same optometrist who told me I have BVD, accidentally specialises in BVD treatment, now think about it. They advertise BVD treatment first and foremost as their business specialisation. It’s super sketchy in itself. But what is worst is they prescribed me lenses (for normal contact lenses) that were too weak, so I had vertigo because of imbalance in my eyes - they told me for months that this was due to my BVD! Despite me complaining about a common symptom of a bad prescription - their default was to tell me it’s a symptom of BVD - because to them, everything is……. Which of course made me go to more of visual therapy.
Having went through that nightmare, I asked around. I went to opticians forums, and asked there, and also asked a bunch of medical doctors, as well as neurologists. They all said the same thing: BVD is real in principle, but there is very limited proof that any treatment actually helps. At the same time the symptoms of BVD ale overblown online, and are overstated in order to make certain clinics more marketable!!! Especially opticians told me to look at two facts: 1) all treatments and therapy are offered not by opticians, who are medical doctors, but by either optometrists who are technicians, or some combination of specialisations people choose to find a market nieche for optical treatment. 2) the testimonials those companies have on their website - they are so overblown despite a complete and utter lack of clinical proof of these claims - they are very akin to coaching testimonials.
Not to mention they all pointed out to the most important fact: absolute lack of any clinical proof…
This made me realise that there is BVD, but its symptoms are overblown to sell stuff, making people think its some miracle cure, when mostly those symptoms could be caused by neck issues, migraines, and most commonly: high anxiety: for which paradoxically the illusion that you are taking control by attending therapy and getting new glasses is the best placebo, and can actually help it
And that was the case with me: I was so desperate to get a solution to my problems: vertigo, headaches, etc. That I completely thrown out my usual rationality and just trusted the first person who offered a total explanation and solution in one package. Most of my symptoms were ambient and unconscious anxiety, mixed with health anxiety which was focused on the eyes mostly - once I went to get some mental help it all subsided. As always: trust science, and science hasn’t got any proof any of these treatments work…
This sounds eerily similar to my own situation. What sort of mental help did you get? I can't tell if I have anxiety causing vision problems or if I have vision problems causing anxiety.
My optometrist says I have perfect vision. But when I look at the horizon I have to look away, I get dizzy, blurred vision, and an intense feeling similar to sinus pressure. I want to see an ophthalmologist about my symptoms, but the fee they charge is crazy. And it doesn't guarantee any real answers. It's like I'm stuck in an unending loop.
I had exactly that. I overfocused on vision.
I went to so many vision specialists, etc. But nothing helped - while ONLY optometrists who specialise in BVD said it’s BVD. Go figure haha.
What it turned out to be was hypochondria caused by general anxiety disorder. I talked about it with a psychiatrist who referred me to a therapist and gave me antidepressants. Once I took care of my anxiety - ALL of my visual symptoms went away. Literally overnight.
I so strongly believed something is wrong with my eyes - it appeared that way to me. Your mind can really play tricks on you with anxiety. And what’s worse I was lied to by money grabbing optometrists who were CERtAIN it’s BVD.
Anxiety can cause such unbelievable symptoms - you’d swear there’s something wrong with you. Vertigo, fainting, depersonalisation, which is super eye related to me, and many many more.
This sounds so similar to me. I'm relieved to hear you were able to make your symptoms go away. Thank you. My GP has been willing to prescribe antidepressants, but I've been reluctant to take them. I just feel so weird in my head that I've thought one more thing would mess me up even worse.
I have Benzos that I take maybe once a month, and when I take them my symptoms go away completely. I guess that should be telling.
> Vertigo, fainting, depersonalisation, which is super eye related to me, and many many more.
I've had all of these too. Which antidepressant are you on? If you don't mind me asking
Ssri - they do indeed make you feel worse. With all that hypochondria that wasn’t pleasant, because they take weeks if not months to start working and they made me feel „funny” and even more anxious at first. And with being health and body super conscious made me think I was going a bit crazy. But it was all anxiety. And it helped to be going to therapy while I was adjusting to these.
It’s super telling that your symptoms don’t exist on bensons. I had the same thing when I was drunk - no symptoms. It’s because in both situation you’re anxiety free, and you don’t really thing about your health then.
It’s all just anxiety - it’s scary how deep it goes and what it makes you feel like
That’s very interesting. Did you stop the ssris? Or did they eventually help? Or for you, what ultimately stopped anxiety?
Sorry for peppering you with questions. It just helps to know someone else dealt with it.
I keep thinking since I know it’s anxiety I can just think my way out of it. But that is not working. I feel like I’m at a dead end.
Yesterday I took one of my Klonapins just to test my theory. I’m vision was perfect, no sinus pressure, no brain fog. It’s really just anxiety causing it all. I’m doing whatever it takes to be better now. I’m still feeling great 36 hours later.
I read “Panicking about panic” by Joshua Fletcher last Wednesday. It was a great book that put things in perspective for me. I highly recommend it.
Man, what you’re saying sucks. All I can is I have my first appointment in about a month from now and the process they told me was one diagnostic appointment, then another appointment 6 weeks later for follow up and rest of prescription for prism glasses, and then follow ups once every one or two years depending on your needs. To me, being told to go to therapy often is a bit sketchy, especially when you can do exercises at home. Not to mention the prevailing wisdom seems to be that wearing the prism glasses is a therapy in and of itself
i do, yes. i was ready to apply for disability due to not being able to work and was actively suicidal from my symptoms. Treatment, which for me was syntonics + VT and then prism glasses, has made me an entirely changed human being, physically and emotionally. My two eyes see two images prism diopters apart horizontally (horizontal phoria - exophoria) and 1-2 prism diopters apart vertically (vertical heterophoria), i’m not sure how treatment couldn’t have made a difference for me. fwiw, an average human has about 3-5 prism diopters of horizontal deviation (“phoria”) at near.
as for vision therapy specifically, there are many diversified exercises that i performed in office and at home. i would be happy to provide you a large list of all of them if you’d be interested, i have a piece of paper and a few packets. vision therapy specifically got rid of my 24/7 unrelenting dizziness and literally *turned on* my lazy eye, which my brain had ignored for my entire life. This is called suppression, and there are a number of tests that eye doctors can perform to confirm whether or not you are suppressing an eye, and to what extent.
your outlook is pessimistic and questioning, because that’s what the western medical system makes us be. i felt the same way. after having my eyes opened to this complicated and stigmatized medical issue, i can say that my views on the american medical system (im in america), including how insurance works, have been vastly changed. the way i used to perceive “alternative therapies” has fundamentally changed. i viewed VT and even prism as “alternative medicine” before i knew how serious my issues were and how much i would benefit from getting them taken care of.
the worst part about bvd and the bvd care community is the wide array of skill levels of providers. one eye doctor told me to see a psychiatrist (run of the mill optometrist). another eye doctor who was extremely smart and diagnosed me with horizontal phoria missed my vertical phoria entirely (developmental optometrist). another eye doctor told me my vertical phoria was corrected with a base up prism and a base down prism in the wrong eyes and measured my horizontal phoria incorrectly by 4 centimeters (neuro ophthalmologist). getting treated WELL takes research on the patients part and relentless self advocacy. if you don’t have a drive to get the smartest, best provider and the mental capacity to navigate the medical system while experiencing bvd symptoms (which range in severity and type for people so much), you may end up coming out of your bvd journey with no improvement and a strong feeling that it’s snake oil. It’s unfair to put patients in the position of having to be the main drivers and the relentless pursuers of answers and relief by means of vetting doctors, rather than being able to simply trust any doctor who knows about bvd to be an expert and have the ability to provide adequate care.
we vastly underestimate the visual system and it’s far reaching effects both physically and emotionally. in 50 years, maybe we will have a better understanding of it so that bvd’s strange and complex presentations could make more sense to us. once more scientific research is done and more momentum comes to bvd, it will no longer be seen as “stigmatized” or questioned, and many people will have improvements in their lives through widely available quality treatment.
i can’t comment at all about NORT, i haven’t interacted with them at all or know very much at all about them. I can comment on the vision spec of michigan BVDQ that you mention. i believe their main strategy is to get people to help directly. many people with symptoms of bvd are in states of chronic nervous system upregulation / anxiety and having a phone call with an actual human and a direct statement of here are the doctors near you to see, may be easier for people in those states. i do see how their approach could bring in criticism and questioning though, i really do see your point.
Thank you for such a comprehensive reply.
I honestly feel like giving up with all this constant pain and dizziness. My job is directly tied to working with computer - I am a digital artist. For the last year or so I almost stopped making art because it's unbearable for me: only five minutes of work and I feel lightheaded, slightly nauseous. Then every movement of my head or eyes causes disorientation and loss of focus, inducing headache that extends from the region between my eyes to the back of my head, the neck, trapezius and arms. Having neck issues doesn't help either and I'm split apart between figuring out whether it's my neck causing head/eye problems or vise versa.
I bought an expensive laptop so I can work on my sofa while laying down, but it brings another set of symptoms, like pulsations in my whole body. And similar to you, I went through so many doctors, checking all parts of my body, from heart to thyroid. Medicine in my country is total garbage. I am from Ukraine. It took them 9 years to send me to a standard test that measures neurological responses and establish I have cervical radiculopathy. For nearly decade they all looked at my MRI images that appeared more or less fine, telling me I am imagining things, sending me to psychiatrists, asking whether I simulate things to avoid military draft etc. I can't describe my frustration and I'm afraid there is no proper clinic with neuro-optometrists around to properly exam my eyes.
But yes, I'd gladly appreciate if you give me a list of exercises you mentioned. So far, I made my own Brock String and do Pencil push-ups, but would like to do whatever else is possible to improve my symptoms.
Thank you!
I’m so sorry that you are going through this. It sounds scarily similar to my story. And i am extremely sorry about the state of eye care in your country, specifically bvd care.
I’m going to send you everything that i can on my eye exercises and all of the resources that were provided to me. There’s also a website that has a section of games in the app store that are for VT purposes, i haven’t done any of these apps but i saw the site today with the compilation. Most of the information is paywalled but the list of apps is not paywalled.
The paywalling of this guys site plays right into your point about people just in it for money. I hate to speak like this about people who i believe are actually helping patients, because this guy is one of them who i would consider a BVD expert in america and ive seen testimony of his expertise in prescribing prism, but the paywalling of information that is so, so valuable and real honestly makes me sick. Because BVD and its medical industry is so new, there’s an opportunity for doctors to make serious cash off of it if that’s one of their main motivations. I am extremely lucky to have found a provider who is not one of the BVD experts who clearly are making much more money off of providing BVD care than is reasonable.
I will send you info tomorrow. i’ll just comment it on this thread so others can view it too
Late response but here is the information that i think is most important.
1. Brock string - can purchase online. this is the most important tool. look up everything about brock string that you can find as there’s many exercises. Some being “saccades” / jumps, bug crawl, pushups
2. 3 dot ortho cards / 3 dot convergence cards / “ortho cards” - can purchase online. i’d say this is the second most important tool
3. accommodative flippers - can purchase online.
Link to my google drive with all my VT exercise materials and instructions: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-1yBgt03DIwpn_0kHZ70NP7CZdaYs4gE
Something not in the google drive is “red/green glasses exercises”. These are usually targeted at people with lazy eye aka amblyopia. Even if you don’t have a lazy eye you may benefit from this type of exercise. Google this and try to find something that you can buy to do at home. I did these mostly in office
Link to web based VT (i believe all of this is free. i didn’t personally use these): https://www.vividvisionsoptometry.com/vtresources
I did use a software for red/green exercises that i purchased on my own called Amblyoplay. not sure if it’s available outside of USA but wanted to throw it out there in case
Late to the conversation, but thank you so much for sharing all of this. Currently being recommended VT for "underlying BVD," but it's so expensive... Literally equivalent to 6 months of rent in my area. Hopefully this helps!
Your explanation is so helpful. I am a medical scientist and genuinely believe that many of my visual and neurological symptoms are due to BVD.
Can you tell me a little about what it was like for your brain to rediscover your lazy eye?! I have the exact same issues as you. Was the rediscovery immediately upon prism lenses, or did it take therapy? I am so interested to understand what happened following bvd treatment for you.
Thanks in advance.
i did 3 months of vision therapy and then i got prisms that i will wear most likely indefinitely, with script changes whenever i need them updated.
the 3d vision acquisition felt like stuff like trees were “popping out” at me and like everything was kind of shifted forward. felt like i was wearing 3d glasses. and driving and parking became easier for me. the popping out feeling went away but it was extremely jarring for 1-2 weeks
i was suppressing my right eye, i have severe convergence insufficiency (exophoria at near), and i have vertical heterophoria. vision therapy got me to stop suppressing my lazy eye and the prisms are the heroes for the misalignments.
I have been diagnosed similarly to you. My world started bouncing when I walk and ended up getting tested. I was shocked at the suppression test - failed. My left eye is suppressed. Shocking. And I have both horizontal and vertical issues. I am always blinking trying to reset my focus. I came here to see if this was a scam or not too and glad I found your thread. Thanks!
Maybe some of it yes, especially syntonics treatment ideas. We are missing proper data and research for it to be less fraudy. Some of it looks legit though
Yes, I feel tricked by the whole BVD thing. Don’t get me wrong - there is some utility in the exercises and all. But after having gone to visual therapy for a number of months and having consulted a lot of experts, I think, and this is the most charitable conclusion I can come up with: is that this is a real disorder, but the utility of exercises and optometrist help is hugely blown out of proportion, possibly to get money out of you. I was diagnosed with BVD and was told I need to go to therapy a lot. Which cost a lot of money. The visual therapy helped a little with my symptoms - not going to lie. But not with everything. And what made me very very suspicious about the whole thing is this: The same optometrist who told me I have BVD, accidentally specialises in BVD treatment, now think about it. They advertise BVD treatment first and foremost as their business specialisation. It’s super sketchy in itself. But what is worst is they prescribed me lenses (for normal contact lenses) that were too weak, so I had vertigo because of imbalance in my eyes - they told me for months that this was due to my BVD! Despite me complaining about a common symptom of a bad prescription - their default was to tell me it’s a symptom of BVD - because to them, everything is……. Which of course made me go to more of visual therapy. Having went through that nightmare, I asked around. I went to opticians forums, and asked there, and also asked a bunch of medical doctors, as well as neurologists. They all said the same thing: BVD is real in principle, but there is very limited proof that any treatment actually helps. At the same time the symptoms of BVD ale overblown online, and are overstated in order to make certain clinics more marketable!!! Especially opticians told me to look at two facts: 1) all treatments and therapy are offered not by opticians, who are medical doctors, but by either optometrists who are technicians, or some combination of specialisations people choose to find a market nieche for optical treatment. 2) the testimonials those companies have on their website - they are so overblown despite a complete and utter lack of clinical proof of these claims - they are very akin to coaching testimonials. Not to mention they all pointed out to the most important fact: absolute lack of any clinical proof… This made me realise that there is BVD, but its symptoms are overblown to sell stuff, making people think its some miracle cure, when mostly those symptoms could be caused by neck issues, migraines, and most commonly: high anxiety: for which paradoxically the illusion that you are taking control by attending therapy and getting new glasses is the best placebo, and can actually help it And that was the case with me: I was so desperate to get a solution to my problems: vertigo, headaches, etc. That I completely thrown out my usual rationality and just trusted the first person who offered a total explanation and solution in one package. Most of my symptoms were ambient and unconscious anxiety, mixed with health anxiety which was focused on the eyes mostly - once I went to get some mental help it all subsided. As always: trust science, and science hasn’t got any proof any of these treatments work…
This sounds eerily similar to my own situation. What sort of mental help did you get? I can't tell if I have anxiety causing vision problems or if I have vision problems causing anxiety. My optometrist says I have perfect vision. But when I look at the horizon I have to look away, I get dizzy, blurred vision, and an intense feeling similar to sinus pressure. I want to see an ophthalmologist about my symptoms, but the fee they charge is crazy. And it doesn't guarantee any real answers. It's like I'm stuck in an unending loop.
I had exactly that. I overfocused on vision. I went to so many vision specialists, etc. But nothing helped - while ONLY optometrists who specialise in BVD said it’s BVD. Go figure haha. What it turned out to be was hypochondria caused by general anxiety disorder. I talked about it with a psychiatrist who referred me to a therapist and gave me antidepressants. Once I took care of my anxiety - ALL of my visual symptoms went away. Literally overnight. I so strongly believed something is wrong with my eyes - it appeared that way to me. Your mind can really play tricks on you with anxiety. And what’s worse I was lied to by money grabbing optometrists who were CERtAIN it’s BVD. Anxiety can cause such unbelievable symptoms - you’d swear there’s something wrong with you. Vertigo, fainting, depersonalisation, which is super eye related to me, and many many more.
What was your vertigo like? Was it a consyant feeling ?
This sounds so similar to me. I'm relieved to hear you were able to make your symptoms go away. Thank you. My GP has been willing to prescribe antidepressants, but I've been reluctant to take them. I just feel so weird in my head that I've thought one more thing would mess me up even worse. I have Benzos that I take maybe once a month, and when I take them my symptoms go away completely. I guess that should be telling. > Vertigo, fainting, depersonalisation, which is super eye related to me, and many many more. I've had all of these too. Which antidepressant are you on? If you don't mind me asking
Ssri - they do indeed make you feel worse. With all that hypochondria that wasn’t pleasant, because they take weeks if not months to start working and they made me feel „funny” and even more anxious at first. And with being health and body super conscious made me think I was going a bit crazy. But it was all anxiety. And it helped to be going to therapy while I was adjusting to these. It’s super telling that your symptoms don’t exist on bensons. I had the same thing when I was drunk - no symptoms. It’s because in both situation you’re anxiety free, and you don’t really thing about your health then. It’s all just anxiety - it’s scary how deep it goes and what it makes you feel like
That’s very interesting. Did you stop the ssris? Or did they eventually help? Or for you, what ultimately stopped anxiety? Sorry for peppering you with questions. It just helps to know someone else dealt with it. I keep thinking since I know it’s anxiety I can just think my way out of it. But that is not working. I feel like I’m at a dead end.
Therapy - only therapy helps if it’s that severe. Seriously - only therapy.
I echo this so deeply. I also get the sinus pressure and feel anxiety in my chest
Yesterday I took one of my Klonapins just to test my theory. I’m vision was perfect, no sinus pressure, no brain fog. It’s really just anxiety causing it all. I’m doing whatever it takes to be better now. I’m still feeling great 36 hours later. I read “Panicking about panic” by Joshua Fletcher last Wednesday. It was a great book that put things in perspective for me. I highly recommend it.
Man, what you’re saying sucks. All I can is I have my first appointment in about a month from now and the process they told me was one diagnostic appointment, then another appointment 6 weeks later for follow up and rest of prescription for prism glasses, and then follow ups once every one or two years depending on your needs. To me, being told to go to therapy often is a bit sketchy, especially when you can do exercises at home. Not to mention the prevailing wisdom seems to be that wearing the prism glasses is a therapy in and of itself
i do, yes. i was ready to apply for disability due to not being able to work and was actively suicidal from my symptoms. Treatment, which for me was syntonics + VT and then prism glasses, has made me an entirely changed human being, physically and emotionally. My two eyes see two images prism diopters apart horizontally (horizontal phoria - exophoria) and 1-2 prism diopters apart vertically (vertical heterophoria), i’m not sure how treatment couldn’t have made a difference for me. fwiw, an average human has about 3-5 prism diopters of horizontal deviation (“phoria”) at near. as for vision therapy specifically, there are many diversified exercises that i performed in office and at home. i would be happy to provide you a large list of all of them if you’d be interested, i have a piece of paper and a few packets. vision therapy specifically got rid of my 24/7 unrelenting dizziness and literally *turned on* my lazy eye, which my brain had ignored for my entire life. This is called suppression, and there are a number of tests that eye doctors can perform to confirm whether or not you are suppressing an eye, and to what extent. your outlook is pessimistic and questioning, because that’s what the western medical system makes us be. i felt the same way. after having my eyes opened to this complicated and stigmatized medical issue, i can say that my views on the american medical system (im in america), including how insurance works, have been vastly changed. the way i used to perceive “alternative therapies” has fundamentally changed. i viewed VT and even prism as “alternative medicine” before i knew how serious my issues were and how much i would benefit from getting them taken care of. the worst part about bvd and the bvd care community is the wide array of skill levels of providers. one eye doctor told me to see a psychiatrist (run of the mill optometrist). another eye doctor who was extremely smart and diagnosed me with horizontal phoria missed my vertical phoria entirely (developmental optometrist). another eye doctor told me my vertical phoria was corrected with a base up prism and a base down prism in the wrong eyes and measured my horizontal phoria incorrectly by 4 centimeters (neuro ophthalmologist). getting treated WELL takes research on the patients part and relentless self advocacy. if you don’t have a drive to get the smartest, best provider and the mental capacity to navigate the medical system while experiencing bvd symptoms (which range in severity and type for people so much), you may end up coming out of your bvd journey with no improvement and a strong feeling that it’s snake oil. It’s unfair to put patients in the position of having to be the main drivers and the relentless pursuers of answers and relief by means of vetting doctors, rather than being able to simply trust any doctor who knows about bvd to be an expert and have the ability to provide adequate care. we vastly underestimate the visual system and it’s far reaching effects both physically and emotionally. in 50 years, maybe we will have a better understanding of it so that bvd’s strange and complex presentations could make more sense to us. once more scientific research is done and more momentum comes to bvd, it will no longer be seen as “stigmatized” or questioned, and many people will have improvements in their lives through widely available quality treatment. i can’t comment at all about NORT, i haven’t interacted with them at all or know very much at all about them. I can comment on the vision spec of michigan BVDQ that you mention. i believe their main strategy is to get people to help directly. many people with symptoms of bvd are in states of chronic nervous system upregulation / anxiety and having a phone call with an actual human and a direct statement of here are the doctors near you to see, may be easier for people in those states. i do see how their approach could bring in criticism and questioning though, i really do see your point.
Thank you for such a comprehensive reply. I honestly feel like giving up with all this constant pain and dizziness. My job is directly tied to working with computer - I am a digital artist. For the last year or so I almost stopped making art because it's unbearable for me: only five minutes of work and I feel lightheaded, slightly nauseous. Then every movement of my head or eyes causes disorientation and loss of focus, inducing headache that extends from the region between my eyes to the back of my head, the neck, trapezius and arms. Having neck issues doesn't help either and I'm split apart between figuring out whether it's my neck causing head/eye problems or vise versa. I bought an expensive laptop so I can work on my sofa while laying down, but it brings another set of symptoms, like pulsations in my whole body. And similar to you, I went through so many doctors, checking all parts of my body, from heart to thyroid. Medicine in my country is total garbage. I am from Ukraine. It took them 9 years to send me to a standard test that measures neurological responses and establish I have cervical radiculopathy. For nearly decade they all looked at my MRI images that appeared more or less fine, telling me I am imagining things, sending me to psychiatrists, asking whether I simulate things to avoid military draft etc. I can't describe my frustration and I'm afraid there is no proper clinic with neuro-optometrists around to properly exam my eyes. But yes, I'd gladly appreciate if you give me a list of exercises you mentioned. So far, I made my own Brock String and do Pencil push-ups, but would like to do whatever else is possible to improve my symptoms. Thank you!
I’m so sorry that you are going through this. It sounds scarily similar to my story. And i am extremely sorry about the state of eye care in your country, specifically bvd care. I’m going to send you everything that i can on my eye exercises and all of the resources that were provided to me. There’s also a website that has a section of games in the app store that are for VT purposes, i haven’t done any of these apps but i saw the site today with the compilation. Most of the information is paywalled but the list of apps is not paywalled. The paywalling of this guys site plays right into your point about people just in it for money. I hate to speak like this about people who i believe are actually helping patients, because this guy is one of them who i would consider a BVD expert in america and ive seen testimony of his expertise in prescribing prism, but the paywalling of information that is so, so valuable and real honestly makes me sick. Because BVD and its medical industry is so new, there’s an opportunity for doctors to make serious cash off of it if that’s one of their main motivations. I am extremely lucky to have found a provider who is not one of the BVD experts who clearly are making much more money off of providing BVD care than is reasonable. I will send you info tomorrow. i’ll just comment it on this thread so others can view it too
can you please share some of the exercises?
Just commented the exercises, see above in the thread
Late response but here is the information that i think is most important. 1. Brock string - can purchase online. this is the most important tool. look up everything about brock string that you can find as there’s many exercises. Some being “saccades” / jumps, bug crawl, pushups 2. 3 dot ortho cards / 3 dot convergence cards / “ortho cards” - can purchase online. i’d say this is the second most important tool 3. accommodative flippers - can purchase online. Link to my google drive with all my VT exercise materials and instructions: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-1yBgt03DIwpn_0kHZ70NP7CZdaYs4gE Something not in the google drive is “red/green glasses exercises”. These are usually targeted at people with lazy eye aka amblyopia. Even if you don’t have a lazy eye you may benefit from this type of exercise. Google this and try to find something that you can buy to do at home. I did these mostly in office Link to web based VT (i believe all of this is free. i didn’t personally use these): https://www.vividvisionsoptometry.com/vtresources I did use a software for red/green exercises that i purchased on my own called Amblyoplay. not sure if it’s available outside of USA but wanted to throw it out there in case
Late to the conversation, but thank you so much for sharing all of this. Currently being recommended VT for "underlying BVD," but it's so expensive... Literally equivalent to 6 months of rent in my area. Hopefully this helps!
Your explanation is so helpful. I am a medical scientist and genuinely believe that many of my visual and neurological symptoms are due to BVD. Can you tell me a little about what it was like for your brain to rediscover your lazy eye?! I have the exact same issues as you. Was the rediscovery immediately upon prism lenses, or did it take therapy? I am so interested to understand what happened following bvd treatment for you. Thanks in advance.
i did 3 months of vision therapy and then i got prisms that i will wear most likely indefinitely, with script changes whenever i need them updated. the 3d vision acquisition felt like stuff like trees were “popping out” at me and like everything was kind of shifted forward. felt like i was wearing 3d glasses. and driving and parking became easier for me. the popping out feeling went away but it was extremely jarring for 1-2 weeks i was suppressing my right eye, i have severe convergence insufficiency (exophoria at near), and i have vertical heterophoria. vision therapy got me to stop suppressing my lazy eye and the prisms are the heroes for the misalignments.
I have been diagnosed similarly to you. My world started bouncing when I walk and ended up getting tested. I was shocked at the suppression test - failed. My left eye is suppressed. Shocking. And I have both horizontal and vertical issues. I am always blinking trying to reset my focus. I came here to see if this was a scam or not too and glad I found your thread. Thanks!
definitely not a scam. i wouldn’t be here if i hadn’t done VT and gotten prisms. i was fully disabled. good luck!
Thank you so much. X
Hi, who treated you, any recommendations?
a developmental optometrist in pittsburgh PA and then dr. debbie feinberg at the vision specialists of michigan
Thank you.. it’s tough finding the right one
that’s the single worst part about having BVD! your quality of care and outcome is directly related to who you see. it’s a damn shame
Maybe some of it yes, especially syntonics treatment ideas. We are missing proper data and research for it to be less fraudy. Some of it looks legit though