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About Binocular Vision Dysfunction (BVD)

Our vision is very sensitive to changes in the environment, lighting conditions, and even bodily changes that can lead to eye allergies, dry eye, and other symptoms.

While in most cases, simply changing your diet or visiting an eye doctor can treat these symptoms, some patients suffer from a more complicated condition — a misalignment with their eyes. Human beings see their world through binocular vision, rather than monovision, where our eyes team up to process the world.

The information collected from your eyes is sent to the brain for processing. Unfortunately, a failure in this process can lead to binocular vision dysfunction.

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What is binocular vision disorder? (BVD)


Optometrists refer to binocular vision dysfunction or disorder as BVD as a visual condition, where the line of sight from one eye is out of alignment with the line of sight of the other eye. This misalignment of the eyes can be vertical, horizontal, or at an angle in nature. Some optometrists label this issue under vertical or horizontal heterophoria. Heterophoria is a technical term that refers to a deviation of the eyes’ natural resting position. Meaning, when your eyes are relaxed, they should face forward. If they face different directions, then you have a visual heterophoria.

What are symptoms from binocular vision dysfunction?


Your eyes constantly receive input from light, translate the light into signals, and send the information to the brain. A slight misalignment interferes with sending these signals to the brain. This forces the eyes to work harder at correcting the error, which adds eye strain. Often, blurry vision, double vision, and a sense of imbalance can develop. Further, these symptoms will worsen over time as the heavy eye strain builds, where some patients develop painful headaches or migraines, dizzy spells, and an inability to focus even over short periods of time.

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What causes a loss of binocular vision?


While only a handful of eye doctors have studied under neuro-visual optometry, the latest studies associate many of the most common visual disorders under binocular vision dysfunction. Where the loss of binocular vision began when was a child or post-traumatic brain injury, symptoms can become noticeable almost at any age. Generally, binocular vision dysfunction is a subtle build-up of eye strain, and when symptoms behind to appear solely depend on the severity of the misalignment. Often, misalignments are so minimal and unnoticeable by the naked eye, many patients go undiagnosed for years. Even though treatment is available, few eye doctors Will address this issue as long as the patient reports their vision as normal.

How can I know if my child has binocular vision dysfunction?


Although many children develop their coordination and focusing skills in their younger years, School-age children can still show signs that they have difficulty with their vision. parents may notice reading and learning problems, yet binocular vision dysfunction can be as simple as an inability to pour liquids directly into a cup, catching a moving fastball, how fast do they go up and down the stairs, are have poor depth perception.

What is it like to have binocular vision dysfunction?


For a simple test, close one eye. Then, hold two pencils and try to have the edges or tips touch each other. Most people attempts this trick with both eyes open, the task is not so hard. However, when you only use one eye, this simple task becomes a lot more challenging. Whenever a person has been binocular vision dysfunction, they will have poor judgment of depth perception making these types of tasks difficult to perform.

If you want to know more about what is binocular vision dysfunction, call our practice today or schedule appointment online with Dr. Kathryn Collins.

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phone Kissel Eye Care 717-625-4989
phone Neurovision Rehab Center 717-568-0058