New to VT

I am glad to find this group! Like many of you, I heard about Sue Barry's book on NPR. I was very intrigued and eventually bought and read her book. I knew if I started Vision Therapy, it would take some time and dedication. I found an optometrist and began VT in May of this year. Sue, thank you so much for sharing your experience. I always knew I had problems with depth perception, but really had no idea that other people were seeing the world in 3D and what that meant.

For my story, I was an esotrope from infancy. In addition to this, I was very near sighted. I was put in glasses to correct the near sightedness when I was 3 years old. Sometime between the ages of 3 and 5, my grandmother took me to a vision therapist, but I'm not sure exactly of the length of time that I went to these appointments. We did not get a point where I could use both eyes together, and at age 5, my dad went in to the army and we moved to Europe. The army doctors recommended patching the lazy eye, but no vision therapy. I did not like wearing the patch, so my parents did not enforce it. What I've learned from my current vision therapist, is that patching would have only made vision better in the lazy eye, but I would not have gained stereo vision from patching alone.

I did not have my first muscle repair surgery until age 13. This was suggested by one of the army Opthomologists. The same doctor, also suggested I get contact lenses after the surgery to improve my vision. It was wonderful to get out of my glasses and not look "cross-eyed" as I started high school! Eventually, my lazy began to turn in again. When I was 24, another Opthomologist suggested a second surgery to correct the esotropia. After some time, the eye began to turn out.

In 1999, I became interested in getting Lasik surgery. It was difficult to wear a contact in the left eye after having the two surgeries. My eye would get extremely dry and uncomfortable. I had a difficult time qualifying for Lasik surgery, but it was finally agreed to do the lazy eye first, and if all went well they would do the surgery on the "good" eye. In the process of trying to qualify for Lasik, my optometrist sent me to a Vision Therapist. This doctor told me since I had never had stereo vision, it would probably "bother" me. Until I read Sue Barry's book, I had no idea what I was missing by not having binocular vision. I just accepted this physician's comment, because my main focus at the time was Lasik. I did have Lasik to both eyes, and found it very amazing to wake up everyday being able to see and not have to reach for my glasses!

So, now I am 55 years old and I've had 9 sessions of VT. Progress is slow, and so far involves improvement in just using the lazy eye, instead of suppressing it.