Do You Suffer From An Eye Strain Headache?
It may be your eyes:
Anyone who has experienced a headache knows that it can be extremely uncomfortable. Even if the headache is considered to be mild, it can prevent you from going to work or running errands and completely disrupt your day (if not your week depending on how long it lasts).
A common cause of headaches is actually eye strain.
How Can Eye Strain Cause Headaches?
When our eye muscles are working harder than they should, they get sore and tired. This leads to headaches that often require rest in order to feel relief. However since the issue is often caused by the eyes over straining, the headaches return once the individual attempts to perform daily tasks again (such as reading, looking at their phone, watching TV, or even driving).
While eye strain is often accompanied by headaches, you might also feel like you have very sore eyes, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, difficulty concentrating, or even neck and shoulder pain.
Can Bad Vision Cause Headaches? The Link to Binocular Vision Dysfunction
When someone experiences eye strain that is causing headaches, the big question is this: Why are their eyes straining to begin with?
Oftentimes the reason is due to a very subtle misalignment between the eyes. A great amount of strain is placed on the eye muscles while they attempt to realign the eyes and prevent double vision, leading to severe headaches and eye pain. This is known as Binocular Vision Dysfunction (BVD).
With BVD, the two eyes have difficulty working smoothly together as a team due to a slight misalignment. While this misalignment can be very subtle, it can make it incredibly difficult for our brain to create one clear image from the images seen by our two eyes.
In people without BVD, their brain is able to transform the images seen by each eye into a single image, which is known as binocular vision. When someone has BVD, there is a slight misalignment between their two eyes resulting in their eyes being out of sync with one another, causing the brain to have a very difficult time processing these two slightly out-of-alignment images to form one clear image.
The result? The brain forces the eye aligning muscles to fix the problem by realigning the eyes. Over time, this places an immense amount of strain on the eye muscles and leads to headaches, dizziness and difficulty reading, as well as a variety of other symptoms.
Common Symptoms for Adults with Binocular Vision Dysfunction
The following is a list of common symptoms in adults with BVD:
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Nausea
- Anxiety
- Sensitivity to light
- Difficulty with balance / unsteady walking
- Pain in the neck
- Frequent head tilt
- Motion sickness
- Difficulty reading and learning
Headache and Eye Strain: How Do You Fix BVD?
BVD is treated by correcting the eye misalignment using microprism lenses. These glasses bend light in a way that the images seen by your eyes are moved into the position they need to be in, resulting in realigned images. When the images seen by your two eyes are realigned, your brain can easily transform them into one, singular image. Your headache and nausea and other uncomfortable symptoms caused by BVD are significantly reduced or eliminated.
In fact, the average patient will notice a 50% reduction of symptoms by the end of their first visit. Over the next several visits, our team at Vision Specialists of Michigan will fine-tune your lenses so that your headache, nausea and other BVD symptoms can continue to improve and be eliminated.
Get Treatment for Your Eye Strain Headache
If you or a loved one are experiencing eye strain headaches or other symptoms mentioned above, contact our team at Vision Specialists of Michigan. If BVD is causing your visual symptoms, our microprism lenses just might be the solution you need.
Headache and Eye Strain: Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, poor eyesight can cause headaches. In fact eye problems and headaches are usually linked to one another. When our eyes are forced to strain, the muscles surrounding the eyes become overused, achy and/or painful. This can lead to uncomfortable symptoms including headaches caused by eye strain.
The symptoms of eye strain can include severe headaches. There are multiple types of headaches, including migraines, tension headaches, and cluster headaches. When the eyes cause a headache, it can range from mild to severe pain.
Eyes that are slightly misaligned (also known as BVD) results in the eye muscles having to work harder than they should in an effort to realign and prevent double vision. The result is painful headaches from eye strain (as well as a host of other symptoms including dizziness and nausea).
If the cause of your eye strain headaches or eye strain migraine is Binocular Vision Dysfunction, our microprism lenses can address and eliminate your symptoms. To find out if BVD might be the cause of your eye strain, Take the Test.
Watch these videos of BVD patient experiences:
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