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Side Effects of Vision Therapy for Strabismus and Lazy Eye
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Feb 22, 2023
Vision therapy is amazing. You can go from an eye turn, double vision, suppression and only 2D vision to 3D vision and straight eyes....but it isn't a straight path. There are definite hills and struggles in the journey and side effects of retraining your brain. For extra resources go to https://learn.strabismussolutions.com For more information on what to eat to decrease side effects, head over to https://strabismussolutions.com/what-can-you-eat-to-improve-strabismus-and-amblyopia-food-lists-nutrients-and-recipes/
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, my name is Melissa Daniels and I have Strabismus
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Strabismus is when your eyes don't point in the same direction. Now, I know my eyes look pretty straight to you right now
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Maybe not if you're an eye doctor, you would see that there are still some slight deviations
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but this has been a ton of work getting to this place. I started out with my eyes looking in very different directions
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I wasn't able to use my eyes together at all. I was only using my left eye 100% of the time
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and my right eye was just kind of slowly moving out and the vision was getting more and more poor
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with amblyopia also known as lazy eye and it was becoming a major problem. So I did vision therapy
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and you can learn all about my whole story. I have tons of videos, tons of information on my website
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learn.sturbismissolutions.com where you can learn a lot more about your vision and learn whether
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you're using one eye or both eyes and all of that. The point of this video is that I went through
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vision therapy and through that process I retrained my brain and kind of reset my brain so that I can
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learn to use my eyes together. Instead of seeing with one eye and suppressing the other both of my
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eyes are now engaged. I don't have perfect vision by any means but I'm able to use my peripheral
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and I have way better depth perception, way better stereo. So it's awesome
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It's great to come now four years later and say how great it is. But there was a lot of time in the middle
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that was quite a struggle. And that's what this video is about is what kind of things you can expect in the middle
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those side effects, those symptoms, like what is it like in the middle of the process
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Because it's not easy, okay? This is not going to be just a
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okay, I'm going to do a couple exercises and then I'm going to be better. It takes a lot of work and
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there are definite side effects when you are rewiring your brain and getting your brain to do
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something that it's never done before. So I'm going to go through six of the side effects that I
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personally experienced the most often. It's all encompassing, but these are the main ones that I
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hear my, that I myself experienced and I hear other people complaining about as they went through
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vision therapy and this is true for children and adults I've had two kids go through vision therapy
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and while they weren't able to identify some of the stuff they were going through as a side effect
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of vision therapy luckily I'd been through it and so I kind of knew what to watch for and so
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they totally went through some of these exact same symptoms okay so first symptom I think a lot of
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people experience in vision therapy is nausea. Now, this can come, sometimes it would remind me
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of morning sickness from when I was pregnant, right? You just kinda just don't feel good
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you're a little nauseous, and you just, things are just running a little bit slower
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I feel this disoriented feeling, and yeah, just like that, not hungry, and kinda blah
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This can happen as your brain is trying to learn these new skills and it just is exhausting, right
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So nausea is definitely a side effect end. And as I give these side effects, I want to give some strategies that I've used
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to overcome them because there so much that you can do A lot of different things that I learned that have made these side effects almost negligible even as I doing new exercises So when I
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starting to feel really nauseous, sometimes I just lay down and take a nap
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Other times that's not possible and I will palm. Palming is when you rest your
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hands over your eyes like this and it's nice if you can rest your elbows on a
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table. You block out all the light completely and you just relax every
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muscle in your face every muscle in your body take some deep breaths that can help tremendously
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with the nausea you have to remember it's not you know sometimes you get nausea because of
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something you ate it's not because of that it's because of your vision so if you can give your
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vision a little bit of a break it can give you a little break on the nausea as well and that can
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go with any of these symptoms honestly the next symptom is dizziness and disorientation and this
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happens a lot as you might get introduced to a new exercise and it kind of um might get your
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weak eye working and as that weak eye starts working and those eyes are trying to figure out
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how to work together you might be getting a shifting view of the world right instead of
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only viewing it out of your one eye now it might be going back and forth or you might be just getting
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this eye coming in a little bit more it's going to make things go out of balance visually and
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And that's gonna take time for your body to adjust to. This is like a physical change happening in your brain
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and in your eyes. So that can make your body not quite sure where you are at
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and it makes you feel dizzy, right? Things are moving differently, it looks different
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as things are coming towards you and away from you. And so you're gonna feel a little dizzy
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One of the best ways to deal with this is to use peripheral vision
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And I know you probably think you have great peripheral vision and you can see your hands out to the side when you do this
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but it's so much more than that. It's not just seeing out to the sides, it's seeing the space between things
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it's taking in more at one time. If you watch this channel, you know I'm obsessed with peripheral
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I have a whole course dedicated to it that is really great
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You can see that at learn.strabismissolutions.com. The idea is that as you open up your view
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and you're able to take in more, it gives your brain more information
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about how it all fits together. So even though you're getting these two differing views
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your brain probably is using both your eyes in some way in your peripheral
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And so going to that, where your brain does know how to use both eyes
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and expanding your peripheral is gonna help as you're learning this. It'll help you move through the experience a lot more quickly
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as your brain's figuring it out. Not gonna say that it's gonna make it go away completely
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but it helps you, like I said, move through it. Okay, another one, brain fog
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Oh, this is the worst one. I hate this one. I just, I feel so dumb
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Okay, am I allowed to use that word? Like I'll be having a, especially on like the day I do vision therapy in the office
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and it's like a really intense and I've done a lot of exercises. I'm just, my brain is exhausted
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My eyes are exhausted. And I will try to have a conversation with somebody. Go try to talk to my husband
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and I lose my train of thought constantly. I can't figure out what was I trying to say
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I can't find the word I'm looking for. It's very frustrating. I feel just, I remember telling my husband like
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am I ever going to be smart again? Couldn't. And I'll even still struggle with this sometimes
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but the brain fog is so real. Sometimes like even staying focused I feel like I had ADHD Like I couldn keep my brain focused on one thing at a time because my brain just wasn functioning at the highest potential And it makes sense right
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You're trying to get your brain to do something. It's like, brain, we're gonna now learn
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how to do a back handspring. We're gonna do it 20 times. If you were to do that with your body
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and go try to do 10, 20 back handsprings, I'm guessing most adults can't do that
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you're gonna be exhausted. Your muscles are gonna be sore and you aren't going to be able to reach up
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and grab something off the shelf like you normally would because your muscles are tired from doing this new thing
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Your brain's gonna be the same way, right? Like you're working it in this really new way
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and it's gonna make your brain sore. Maybe you're not gonna feel the pain, but you're gonna feel the fog
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and then that's gonna affect other areas of your life, okay? So tips for brain fog
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the best thing I can tell you is what I call relax into the fog when you notice it happening
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just call it out whether you do this verbally or in your mind I say this is a side effect from
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vision therapy I'm having a hard time because my brain is tired and sore and I'm learning something
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new I'm going to slow down if I need to I write a note down I ask somebody to repeat it it requires
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a lot of patience with yourself and recognizing it and being curious like oh this is so interesting
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that my brain isn't able to speak i'm not able to make myself say the right words and sentences that
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i normally can say and that's isn't that fascinating right if you come at it from that angle of being
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curious about it and fascinated by your brain it's actually helps you move to the other side of it a
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lot faster you're you're able to recognize it and then kind of move through it so that's my best
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advice just accept it okay another one that is not a fun side effect is double vision if you've
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always only used one eye and always shut off the other eye then as you do vision therapy and you're
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turning on this eye and getting them both to work at the same time it's not going to just be this
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light switch and be like, oh yeah, now we're both working and it's perfect. Now in vision therapy
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they're going to do things in the right order. They're going to start with peripheral and move in. They're going to do things to try to prevent you from getting double vision
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But for most people in vision therapy, there's going to be a place in the middle when you've
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woken up your other eye and you're learning how to use them both at the same time that you will
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probably experience some double vision. It might not be all the time, but it's definitely possible
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It's definitely part of the process. And you can think of it as, okay, this is a means to an end
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I needed to wake up this other eye before I could get them to work together. Hopefully your vision therapist is doing things in the right order so that it doesn't become a
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major issue. Starting with peripheral is so important. This is a big reason why
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so many doctors and people will say, don't do do-it-yourself vision therapy. Do not try to do
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it on your own because people will start with, you know, red and green glasses and do really
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central activities. That is going to, it's totally going to work and turn on your other eye
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but it's not going to help you with a double vision. It's actually going to give you double
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vision and it can be a major problem. That's why it's so important. You have to build the
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foundation It the part that not as fun but it so important So of course double vision How do you combat double vision Peripheral vision and giving it time recognizing it part of the process I like to
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explore when I do get double vision instead of trying to get rid of it and blink and stare and
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squint. I just try to notice like okay which image is on which side? Are they higher or lower? Is it
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just side to side double vision? Are they overlapping? Just try to really explore it and as I do that it
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kind of gives me a little bit more control. You can also, can I make the double vision worse and
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then make it better and just kind of play in that double vision. And as you kind of explore that
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space, you're going to learn to control it so much better. Another is anger. I notice this a lot with
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my kids and myself. I'm more, I like get really impatient, but my kids like have these crazy
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outbursts that are really out of character, especially after a hard vision therapy day
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um why is this happening i think it's all of the other symptoms combined you're more
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your brain's tired you're maybe nauseous a little dizzy disoriented you've done this really hard
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workout all of those things together can just kind of wear you down and you're gonna maybe not
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be as patient maybe a little bit more angry so what's the solution to this for me i know that
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on vision therapy day, I don't plan a lot for that night
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Like that's the night we're going to have cereal for dinner and I'm going to go to bed early
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And if someone asks me to babysit their kids, I say, no, I can't. It's a vision therapy day
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No, I can't handle that extra. For my kids, I am a little bit more lenient on them
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on vision therapy day or on a day when I know that they're experiencing some of those side effects
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That might mean more hugs. I offer to read them a book for my third grader
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Instead of her doing her reading on her own that day, I sometimes offer to just read to her
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and let her follow along and snuggle. So I just am a little bit more, I don't know
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I try to be really understanding. Sometimes I just get mad. But, you know, earlier bedtime
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just tell them to relax. The palming helps. Explaining to them and talking to them
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about what's going on. Talking to yourself about what's going on. All those things can help
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Now, all those are some side effects of vision therapy, right? One thing that you can do that makes a huge difference
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in every single one of these categories is taking care of your body
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So that's gonna be getting plenty of sleep, eating the right foods
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And I have a whole video all about what to eat. I have a download that you can get
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at learn.stribismusolutions.com. But those things tremendously change and impact the side effects that you're gonna feel from vision therapy
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You will have so much more stamina for your vision. You will have so much dizziness and nausea
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Like all of those things I feel like go down by like 75% when I'm eating healthy
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and getting plenty of sleep. So don't underestimate the power of the basics
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and know that it's not gonna last forever. Recognize that this is part of the process
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I'm going to move through this experience and come out at the other end with some amazing results
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But yeah, it can be a little messy in the middle. So, good luck
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If you have other symptoms that you've experienced, put them in the comments, I wanna hear about it
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And I will talk to you in the next video
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