Click here to read about last week’s appointment.
How did my Exercises in the Last Two Weeks Go?
I have been doing similar exercises every day for the last few weeks, but this last time Dr. Dan added in rivalry exercises. It seems SO simple, but I think that it made a big difference!
I just wear my red/blue glasses and look at a blank piece of paper. I let my left eye take over and it looks blue, then I let my right eye take over and it looks red. The goals
I have been working for 10-15 minutes everyday with the vectograph. I start with just the polarized glasses for a few minutes, then I add the +4 and +2.5 lenses (the white flippers) and last I add my prism glasses. With all four of these types of lenses on, while I looked off into the distance through a window, I saw the vectograph move towards me and the little sticky note moved back. It happened several times in a row!!! I couldn’t ever get it to go back though, apparently that is much more difficult.
That night I slept horribly. I kept waking up and it looked like the room was spinning around me. The next morning when I woke up, I felt like I couldn’t even walk straight. I was so dizzy and nauseous. I could feel that my right eye was trying to see with the left and it was making the world feel very unstable.
It gradually wore off over the next week and now only comes back during and for about an hour after I do my vision therapy exercises. I haven’t been having much other success with the vectograph, but I’m just excited to see that I am making progress.
I heard a different COVD say that even if you aren’t able to do the exercise, you are still stretching and exercising your brain. It will come, so I just need to keep giving my brain the new information.
So it was a rough week with all the feeling dizzy and horrible, but also amazing because I saw 3D! Even if it was just for an instant.
How did My Appointment Go?
I think that my eyes are starting to look more aligned! This is the first progress picture that actually looks like progress! Hallelujah!
Last week I was given directions to patch my bad eye for 20-30 minutes right before my appointment. This presented a slight problem since I drive that long just to get there, and with four kids there was no way we were getting there 30 minutes early. So I just recklessly patched while I drove. We live out in the country so I took all the backroads and just was extra careful. Patching my bad eye doesn’t really change my vision too much since I usually suppress it anyway, but it does help some with peripheral. Either way, we made it completely fine.
I don’t really think that patching made a huge difference. We went right to VR and I couldn’t really feel a change. VR is tough though because you don’t get a ton of feedback about which eye is working. I can’t see in 3D so I can’t get that feedback from the VR yet.
Next week I will patch again, but this time we are going to start with the vectograph and see if it makes a difference there.
Instead of using the handheld vectograph, Dr. Dan had me working with an overhead projector version. He projects it onto the wall and then I sit with my head in the middle of it and try to see the circles be 3D and get bigger and smaller. I tried sitting really close, further away, standing and then while balancing on a balance board. We used +12 lenses, then +4, then +7, then combined it all with the prisms.
It was awesome, I could feel my eyes working so hard trying to work together. There were fleeting moments where I could sense it being closer or further away, but I couldn’t make it stick. Actually, the vectograph stays the same and the sticky note is what moves and changes size, weird, right?
There was no huge victory or success moment, but I’m starting to realize that there might never be a moment like that. Vision Therapy is something that takes dedication and consistency and the results show little by little. The results seem so small that it is hard to even recognize them.
Sometimes it’s good for me to remember back to last August when I started all this. I could barely even function when my left eye was patched. The world was blurry and I ran into everything and couldn’t read.
Now I can see so much better out of my right eye and I can completely control it. I even have fleeting moments where my eyes work together. There has been progress made, it’s just been slow.
Slow and steady is the way to go.
Homework
- OKN Stripes- I am still doing these, but now only for 1 minute in each direction with each eye.
- VR- Spend 5-10 minutes viewing virtual reality movies. Work on opening my peripheral and taking in the entire scene instead of just one focal point.
- GEM Vectograph- Using polarized glasses, prism glasses, and and plus lenses, work with the vectograph. Try it with lights on/off, inside/outside, and while standing or balancing.
- Rivalry – While wearing the red/blue glasses, look at a piece of plain white paper. Let it go blue, then red, then try to mix the colors and get a combination.
- Amblyoplay -Keep working on the app daily. engage peripheral vision and practice rivalry throughout the activities
- 3D anaglyph movies- watch the butterfly anaglyph movie on youtube at .25 speed with the red lens over my strong eye. Try to relax and open periphery and see the 3D.
- Take two days off this week!
Click here to read about my next appointment.