Found out I have a problem with my vision beyond near-sightedness

Had my yearly eye exam yesterday so I could order more contact lenses (disposable).

I just go to Shopko, but the particular doctor I see has always been a nice guy, interested in my life, chatty, etc.

He's also good at what he does. My first time there he asked if I was having a lot of headaches. "Not a lot, why?" My previous doctor had my prescription MUCH stronger than I needed. This new guy lowered it appropriately and now I have better than 20/20 vision when corrected.

Well yesterday we were chatting and he asked again if I got a lot of headaches. My job is on the stressful side and I do seem to get migraines from time to time. When I told him I spend a lot of the day reading text on a computer, he did a test I've never had done before.

Long story made shorter, I have a condition called Convergence Insufficiency. Normally when you look at something up close, your eyes pull together ever so slightly. Mine don't, or at least not enough.
I basically suffer from a lot of eye strain when I'm reading anything.

I did more online research last night and several other symptoms sound very familiar: vertigo/motion sickness (I can't even watch someone play a first person shooter or I get ill), problems with double vision when reading, problems keeping your place when reading big blocks of text.

It also happens to be fairly common, and you can have perfect 20/20 vision without any correction and still have this condition.

I don't have the cash to see a specialist to train the muscles in my eyes to work better, and I'm not on the 'extreme' side of this condition, so I'll be trying out prizm coated eye glasses. the coating does something to help, it must be bending what I see so my eyes don't have to converge...I dunno...but they're only like $40 and I would wear em at work, along with my normal contacts to correct my near-sighted vision.

I just wanted to share, cuz looking over the statistics, there's probably 2-4 other members here with the same condition who may not know it.
 
Great link, Malkore! Thanks! As a followup, I have listed the symptoms. Note: a lot of the symptoms are similar to ADHD, which a lot of kids are diagnosed with (too many in my opinion) and prescribed with Ritalin (way too many in my opinion). Disclosure: I have been diagnosed with adult ADD but take no meds for it. It is a benefit to me.

Hey Evo, how many of your kids are on Ritalin? 50%

* eyestrain (especially with or after reading)
* headaches
* inability to concentrate
* short attention span
* frequent loss of place
* squinting, rubbing, closing or covering an eye
* blurred vision
* sleepiness (especially while reading)
* trouble remembering what was read
* words move, jump, swim or appear to float on the page
* problems with motion sickness and/or vertigo
* double vision
 
These are the ones I can relate to:
* eyestrain (especially with or after reading)
* headaches
* inability to concentrate - only when reading. I can read text book type stuff, but novels...my mind starts to wander...and I used to read a LOT of novels.
* frequent loss of place - when reading novels...no double spaces between paragraphs....
* blurred vision - only at night, which I thought was just my eyes being tired from my contacts...
* words move, jump, swim or appear to float on the page - again only at night if I was reading a book, and again figuring it was my contacts....
* problems with motion sickness and/or vertigo - I can't even play first person shooter video games. sometimes even World of Warcraft gets to me...


I have to wonder, as I've gotten older, if this is totally out of my control, or if habits like playing video games has induced it. Either way I'm going to try the glasses out and see if it helps at work.
 
I can relate to
-lost hours on the job
-unnecessary irritation
-lack of focus
-ignoring my children at times
-fantacizing over ideas
-having volitile typing tantrums
and lastly
dry eye syndrom!! except for when I read the touchy stuff-- they can get moist too.

hahahahhaha

BUT- I am sorry to hear you are having eye troubles bro!
 
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