Eye Muscle Imbalances / Convergence Insufficiency

[James_Ldn]

I'd be interested if anyone has any experience of suffering with 'imbalances' between eye muscles and related conditions like convergence insufficiency? I've found some examples by searching the forum, so this does seem to be something which is KC related.

A major problem I've had over the past 18 months is great difficulties when reading. Obviously individuals with KC do get ghosting, shadowing, etc. to some degree. However, for me it often feels more than that. The best way to describe it is that I can see, but I can't focus properly. I find it difficult to concentrate on what I'm reading (especially for long paragraphs). And bizarrely, I find my vision is sometimes worse with both eyes open than with each eye individually! It's like my eyes just don't want to work together. This occurs even when I get contact lenses which give me 20/20 vision on an eyechart.

For all this time, I've always thought that these issues are purely down to the keratoconus, but after having googled the symptoms I found that poor focus can actually be a result of imbalances between the eye muscles. There are all kinds of related conditions like convergence insufficiency, exophoria, strabismus, etc.

I've spent long chunks of time having one eye a lot more dominant than the other eye, so it wouldn't really surprise me if I have developed some kind of imbalance.

Has anyone had any experience of this? I'm not entirely sure about who I could see about this...would a high-street optician be able to recognise this, or is it more likely to be a specialist that is required?

Thanks,
James.

[longhoc]

Hi James

My experience of this is that, following my graft (after which for the first time in a long while I was actually able to see something vaguely useful out of my left eye) it took an awfully long time for my brain to get used to the fact that it was worthwhile processing the new information coming at it from a now sort-of functioning eye.

It tried various techniques and consulted some optometrists who tried various strategies, but in the end I think it was a case of "time heals" -- eventually I was able to intuitively utilise boh eyes rather than defaulting to only one.

Sorry I can't point to a medicalised solution ! One thing I hate to hear myself if the phrase "give it time and it'll probably sort itself out" ...