My wife, age 61, suddenly came down with double vision a month ago to the point where one person 8 feet in front of here becomes two though reading close up is fine. First we went to her primary MD, her optometrist, and then two ophthalmologists, and her neurologist. She has had eye exams, MRI of brain, MRI of orbits front of face/neck, MRA of brain, and several blood tests. Good news is a bunch of serious stuff was ruled out and she has been diagnosed with sixth nerve palsy of the right eye with unknown cause. In most/high percentage of such cases it resolves itself after 6-12 weeks we have been told. We go back to her ophthalmologist, who specializes in double vision for children and adults, in three weeks for a follow up if needed. In the mean time my wife has an eye patch and on one set of glasses has a thin plastic strip with prisms in it to correct her double vision for now. If it does not heal itself by six months options include prism glasses or surgery to correct.

I am curious is anyone here has experienced this or knows someone close to them that has and if they had used prism glasses (rather than plastic strip of prisms) and if so how they worked for them? The solution she has right now with the plastic strip of prisms works pretty well but there is some distortion and "rainbow effect" that supposedly the prism lens resolves and also how is depth perception with the prism glasses. Right now her depth perception is off a bit. Being retired I am driving her to work and anywhere else she needs to go until this is resolved, which I do gladly. If prism glasses would fix her vision correctly including depth perception I would consider buying them now even if they are only needed for the short term, which hopefully will be the case. I don't expect they would be inexpensive but insurance might help pay for them but even if it does not that would not be a problem.

Thanks for sharing of any experiences.

I was born with strabismus which is an eye muscle imbalance problem. I wore prism glasses as a child as well as had my dominant eye patched. The prism glasses do help with double vision. As I understand it, 6th nerve palsy causes problems with the eye muscles resulting in double vision, a totally different cause than mine. Good luck.

BTW Hilary wore prism glasses after her fall sometime back.

grumpy:
my eye doc has contrived a set of prism glasses that work pretty well except when my eyes get really tired later in the day.

At worst I may see "full moon" as a double stack 'figure 8' shape "full moons" especially thru a telescope or binoculors. Most noted during actual 'look at THIS' astronomical efforts.

Once they made the Rx backwards & the +prism on one side was reversed with the - prism on the other. Wasn't a pleasant event for several days until we got that replaced properly.

For my version of double vision, usually giving a good mix of near/far/middle distance focus along with periodic eye rest for 20-60 seconds with a little (very little) finger pressure on the closed eyelid gives good results. Along with resting enough. If too long at any one vision demanding task the symptoms return/worsen. Usually not much of an issue though.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
I was born with strabismus which is an eye muscle imbalance problem. I wore prism glasses as a child as well as had my dominant eye patched. The prism glasses do help with double vision. As I understand it, 6th nerve palsy causes problems with the eye muscles resulting in double vision, a totally different cause than mine. Good luck.

BTW Hilary wore prism glasses after her fall sometime back.

Yeah her eye doctor does mostly children. Glad to hear the prism glasses worked for you and I assume that is a problem that was long ago resolved. Thanks for the reply.

quote:

Originally posted by signewt:
grumpy:
my eye doc has contrived a set of prism glasses that work pretty well except when my eyes get really tired later in the day.

At worst I may see "full moon" as a double stack 'figure 8' shape "full moons" especially thru a telescope or binoculors. Most noted during actual 'look at THIS' astronomical efforts.

Once they made the Rx backwards & the +prism on one side was reversed with the - prism on the other. Wasn't a pleasant event for several days until we got that replaced properly.

For my version of double vision, usually giving a good mix of near/far/middle distance focus along with periodic eye rest for 20-60 seconds with a little (very little) finger pressure on the closed eyelid gives good results. Along with resting enough. If too long at any one vision demanding task the symptoms return/worsen. Usually not much of an issue though.

Glad to hear your prism glasses generally work out for you and you have a good system of dealing with it! I can't imagine what you thought when you first tried the glasses with the prism installed improperly. I guess now you can laugh about it. Thanks for sharing your experiences.