Once upon a time, almost exactly 6 months ago, I stood up from picking up one of my son's toys, and I whacked my head on the overhang of my granite countertop. Being a totally hard-core middle-aged mom, I slapped an ice pack on my head, using pressure to stop the mild bleeding, and I went on my (slightly-less) merry way.
Two weeks later, I felt like the world was spinning constantly, and I felt nauseated and sick every minute of every day. This was especially sucky since I am an elementary teacher and kids tend to move really quickly, especially in my personal bubble.
I went to many a doctor and CT scan and vestibular therapist and nothing worked and then, lo, I realized it was my eyes that weren't functioning together (this was 4 months after bashing my skull in). So I went to an opthamologist and she declared me in perfect health and sent me on my way.
Finally, I went to Target Optical in Warrenville as a last-ditch resort, hoping that maybe my very strong contact prescription was just not strong enough anymore. My optometrist there was Dr. Ryan Edwards. As soon as he walked in, the planets aligned, the heavens opened and released a beam of light onto his head, and he was all, "No, you're a pretty typical concussion case. You should come to my other place where I do vision therapy to fix that." I'm not one to ignore heavenly beams of light and divine intervention, so I went to DCVT 3 days later for an evaluation.
Well, two months later, I feel about 90% better. Every time I go in for therapy, I come out feeling just a little bit better. I've done all sorts of crazy things, such as 3-D computer exercises, walking with a metronome, trying to touch a bell with my eyes closed, and playing a really phenomenal Shopkins game. All these sound ridiculous, but they got my eyes and brain working on things they had forgotten how to do when I smooshed my brain with a kitchen part.
Doctor Ryan also realized I was quite a bit over-prescribed with my contacts ( -7.00 when I should have been at -5.50), so he fixed that, and that also helped a lot. He got me hooked up with some glasses with a bit of a prism in there and that seemed to stop a significant amount of the dizziness.
Both Dr. Ryan and Dr. Lindsey are awesome people, and I don't mind using up an hour of each Saturday to go play Shopkins with them. They are extremely well-priced compared to some of the other places I went.
I was amazed when all of a sudden, yesterday, one of my students pointed out that I did not seem dizzy and I actually wasn't dizzy anymore. It was pretty close to miraculous...
So all in all, highly recommend. FWIW, I was not seeing ANY improvement over the 4 months I was not in vision therapy. As soon as I started, I began to feel better. It took a few weeks before I saw any results, but the wait was worth it. My insurance doesn't actually cover this unless I spend more than $1,000 because prescribing medicine (that doesn't actually work) for my dizziness was apparently a cheaper option. However, this has been worth every penny of my out-of-pocket adventure.
Vision therapy... it's not just for diplopic children! It's also for concussed ladies of a certain age and quite likely for anyone with eyes that refuse to cooperate with one another.
Thanks, Docs. :) read more
