The Front Porch Swing

[bruceha2000]

My vision is kinda weird, I don't have a very high prescription at all, doc said I barely need glasses and I would likely never use them. But boy do I need them. One of my eyes overcompensates for the other, so I used to tire real quickly. If I put my glasses on I need to "manually" focus my eye (focus with one, then focus with the other) to make my good eye give up some of the work

I've had many vision tests over the years and always got the same "you don't really need glasses". Didn't get them until about 5 years ago. As a kid they thought the droopy eye was a lazy eye. Maybe it is afterall.. it is my "bad" eye.

I went for my driver's test 5 years ago and realized I had no depth perception whatsoever.. how different things could've been had I gotten glasses sooner. I was the joke in PE since I couldn't catch a ball and have terrible aim, always picked last for teams

Well... duh!

It's sort of freaky, when I focus my eyes after putting my glasses on everything seems to shift into place. It feels as if I wake up and everything comes to live. I describe as 2D movies vs 3D movies. My world becomes 3D.

Insufficient convergence. You probably have prisms in your glasses to compensate. The difference between you and me is my brain doesn't look at the same place in both retinas for an image so it can't fuse. Thus no 3D. You can!

Vision therapy can help with IC but most optometrists are not trained in it. You can make your own "at home" exercise device - the Brock String invented by my wife's grandfather Frederick Brock in the 50s and still in use by vision therapists today. You can buy one but why spend the money given the simplicity??

One string about 6 feet long
3 different color beads, about 3/4" diameter, with holes through the center

Put the beads on the string and connect one end to the wall slightly lower than eye height
Spread the beads so the string is ~ 4 equal lengths
Pull the other end of the string so it is tight and hold it to your nose

- Look at the first bead. If you are seeing "normally" you will see 2 strings going to the first bead then the string will split and you will see two strings going to two points on the wall with the two other beads on each string.
- Shift to the second bead. You should see two strings each with the first color bead, then the strings converge at the second bead, then split again to the "two" 3rd beads and the wall. It will look like an X
- Shift to the 3rd bead and you should see two strings each with the first two beads, then converging at the 3rd bead and then splitting to two strings attached on the wall.
- Move back and forth among the beads

Another exercise you can do with this is to put the first bead at arms length. Focus on it. Then reach out and pull the bead a little closer and focus on it. Repeat until the bead is at your nose.

This video is quite good, I found others that were not:

At the end she describes what to do if you see only one string - blink. Which reminded me that Michelle my vision therapy tech would often say "blink, blink, blink".

There are a lot of other vision therapy tools, some pretty basic and some technology driven, such as computers with 3D glasses and programs where you move the images seen by each eye.

For everyone - try the Brock string just for fun. If you or any family member doesn't see two strings crossing in an X at each bead then splitting - find a vision therapist! The younger you catch this the easier it is to train your brain to ALWAYS use both eyes (once corrected for near or far sightedness if necessary).

 

[Tomtommom]

Cool! I will try it.

 

[tntchix]

Insufficient convergence. You probably have prisms in your glasses to compensate. The difference between you and me is my brain doesn't look at the same place in both retinas for an image so it can't fuse. Thus no 3D. You can!

Vision therapy can help with IC but most optometrists are not trained in it. You can make your own "at home" exercise device - the Brock String invented by my wife's grandfather Frederick Brock in the 50s and still in use by vision therapists today. You can buy one but why spend the money given the simplicity??

One string about 6 feet long
3 different color beads, about 3/4" diameter, with holes through the center

Put the beads on the string and connect one end to the wall slightly lower than eye height
Spread the beads so the string is ~ 4 equal lengths
Pull the other end of the string so it is tight and hold it to your nose

- Look at the first bead. If you are seeing "normally" you will see 2 strings going to the first bead then the string will split and you will see two strings going to two points on the wall with the two other beads on each string.
- Shift to the second bead. You should see two strings each with the first color bead, then the strings converge at the second bead, then split again to the "two" 3rd beads and the wall. It will look like an X
- Shift to the 3rd bead and you should see two strings each with the first two beads, then converging at the 3rd bead and then splitting to two strings attached on the wall.
- Move back and forth among the beads

Another exercise you can do with this is to put the first bead at arms length. Focus on it. Then reach out and pull the bead a little closer and focus on it. Repeat until the bead is at your nose.

This video is quite good, I found others that were not:

At the end she describes what to do if you see only one string - blink. Which reminded me that Michelle my vision therapy tech would often say "blink, blink, blink".

There are a lot of other vision therapy tools, some pretty basic and some technology driven, such as computers with 3D glasses and programs where you move the images seen by each eye.

For everyone - try the Brock string just for fun. If you or any family member doesn't see two strings crossing in an X at each bead then splitting - find a vision therapist! The younger you catch this the easier it is to train your brain to ALWAYS use both eyes (once corrected for near or far sightedness if necessary).

This is interesting. I'm going to check it out.

I have eyes that are polar opposites of one another. I had Radial Keratotomy (RK before lasers) done in my 20's on my worse eye and brought them both to 20/20 for 15 yrs. Now, I have issues with both again, but the glasses I have do not solve the problem even though they aren't old.

My ds one eye that the signal from his brain gets distorted but he still has 20/20. He still can see way farther than me. He says with glasses the only real difference is colors mute themselves but stay sharp. We did patching, drops, therapy etc but nothing really changed.

 

[lazy gardener]

Then there's always cooking and carpentry with Felix

OK, Felix. When you do your grand tour of US, I invite you to Maine. You can experience Maine, the way life should be, see the sights, and in return, I'll invite you to cook up a meal using only the freshest of native ingredients... including lobster, fiddle heads, and any other veggies/berries/fruit in season.

Insufficient convergence. You probably have prisms in your glasses to compensate. The difference between you and me is my brain doesn't look at the same place in both retinas for an image so it can't fuse. Thus no 3D. You can!

Vision therapy can help with IC but most optometrists are not trained in it. You can make your own "at home" exercise device - the Brock String invented by my wife's grandfather Frederick Brock in the 50s and still in use by vision therapists today. You can buy one but why spend the money given the simplicity??

One string about 6 feet long
3 different color beads, about 3/4" diameter, with holes through the center

Put the beads on the string and connect one end to the wall slightly lower than eye height
Spread the beads so the string is ~ 4 equal lengths
Pull the other end of the string so it is tight and hold it to your nose

- Look at the first bead. If you are seeing "normally" you will see 2 strings going to the first bead then the string will split and you will see two strings going to two points on the wall with the two other beads on each string.
- Shift to the second bead. You should see two strings each with the first color bead, then the strings converge at the second bead, then split again to the "two" 3rd beads and the wall. It will look like an X
- Shift to the 3rd bead and you should see two strings each with the first two beads, then converging at the 3rd bead and then splitting to two strings attached on the wall.
- Move back and forth among the beads

Another exercise you can do with this is to put the first bead at arms length. Focus on it. Then reach out and pull the bead a little closer and focus on it. Repeat until the bead is at your nose.

This video is quite good, I found others that were not:

At the end she describes what to do if you see only one string - blink. Which reminded me that Michelle my vision therapy tech would often say "blink, blink, blink".

There are a lot of other vision therapy tools, some pretty basic and some technology driven, such as computers with 3D glasses and programs where you move the images seen by each eye.

For everyone - try the Brock string just for fun. If you or any family member doesn't see two strings crossing in an X at each bead then splitting - find a vision therapist! The younger you catch this the easier it is to train your brain to ALWAYS use both eyes (once corrected for near or far sightedness if necessary).

Thanks for this info Bruce.

 

[vehve]

LG, sounds good. I'm thinking either grilled or cooked lobster, with a garlic-chili mayo. That would be tasty.

 

[bruceha2000]

This is interesting. I'm going to check it out.

I have eyes that are polar opposites of one another. I had Radial Keratotomy (RK before lasers) done in my 20's on my worse eye and brought them both to 20/20 for 15 yrs. Now, I have issues with both again, but the glasses I have do not solve the problem even though they aren't old.

My ds one eye that the signal from his brain gets distorted but he still has 20/20. He still can see way farther than me. He says with glasses the only real difference is colors mute themselves but stay sharp. We did patching, drops, therapy etc but nothing really changed.

What sort of therapy? An ophthalmologist will patch and maybe do a little red/green reading work but they are not trained in Vision Therapy (and I gather most think it is snake oil). Don't know if a VT could help him or not. Ophthalmologists work on physical structures, VTs work on brain connections TO the physical structures. Look for an FCOVD in your area: http://www.covd.org/

I had only GROSS color and motion vision in whichever eye I was not focusing with for 50+ years because my brain figured out that if it generally ignored the image from one eye, it didn't see double and could make sense of what it got. It took nearly 2 years of weekly VT at the office (200 miles one way) and daily home exercises to convince it that there was usable information to be had from the other eye even if it wasn't able to fuse the two images into a single 3D image.

It was a neat and weird thing when I was sitting about 3 feet from a coworker one day focusing with my left eye on his right eye (as usual when I talk to people) and for the first time I saw someone that not only had a head and right shoulder but also a left shoulder (not focused but clear enough). Sit or stand that distance from someone and cover one eye, you MIGHT be able to understand how I saw before starting VT. I am not sure because while I understand the general mechanics of how you see, I CAN'T see how you do and it is all theoretical. Your brain might just "fill in" what it knows it SHOULD see from the covered eye. If I ask what you see with your left eye and what you see with your right eye, it makes no sense to you because your brain receives only one image formed by merging two. It doesn't have a "left eye box" and a "right eye box" with an image in each that it then merges. Mine sees two images, in a sort of panorama view with half of it somewhat out of focus. I can tell you exactly what I see with each eye if I think about the images.

 

[Blooie]

Been awhile since I posted an update on Kendra, and I just put this pic up on another site so thought I'd share it here too. She loves refrigerator magnets and we found this set on sale. She's already learning to sing the alphabet song with it. She doesn't get all the letters,and she doesn't know what it all means yet, but the important thing is that she's making the toy do what she wants it to do and she's responding to it verbally. That's huge!

Oh, and then there's the little detail of her standing to play with it. She stands the whole time! When we first got it we put it low on the fridge and she sat to play with it. But after her physical therapist saw the interaction she told us to put it up high and keep it there.

Today we took her to Walmart with us. She loves Cornflakes - she'll get the box out of the lower cabinet and then sign, "please eat" so she gets some dry Cornflakes in her snack bowl. Before I could stop her today she had one box in her lap and a couple on the floor! Those boxes were just at wheelchair height and she took full advantage! She can also get up and down on the couch - just started doing that this week. While we were at Walmart we bought some child-proof cabinet locks....for a long time I didn't think we'd ever need them for her because she pretty well stayed where we put her down, aside from pulling up on the couch and cruising. Now she's suddenly a toddler!

 

[Alice28]

Blooie that is so amazing! She's just had an explosion of progress lately! Not long ago you posted a picture of her standing by herself for te first time and now she is standing and playing and climbing on the couch! That is just amazing! It shows what a wonderful support system she has! You go Kendra!

 

[Tomtommom]

Go Kendra!

We've been doing the Wilbarger protocol with Thomas for a little over a week now (brushing and joint compressions) and the results are remarkable. He's been a lot more communicative and he's got better control of his movements.

 

[Alice28]

Go Kendra and Thomas!

So wonderful to hear.