Exophoria and treatment

[rob01]

  Main  Symptoms I have 1)very sore tired eyes 2)Motion and close up concentrated work makes me have a drunk feeling like  my head is in the clouds.Driving a car especially makes me feel woozy.  Dr examined me and did the pencil test and said one eye is moving outward and that both of my eyes are not focusing together on a object.  When a pencil is put in front of me arms length I see two.  Also when I cover one eye and look at an object then open it and close the other the object moves.  So the Dr gave me prisms in my glasses which I have wore for 7 months with little benefit.   So Dr the question I have for you is 1) Is this exophoria causing my symptoms? 2) Is he treating me right if it is , if not what is the right treatment?
  

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

exophoria is a latent deviation (the eyes are straight when both open and only turn out when one eye covered.

Exotropia or intermittent exotrophia in children is sometimes treated with over-minus lens to try and stimulate fusion and turn exotropia into exophoria.

However it does not work for adults because the focus muscle is so much weaker and gets weaker as we age.

JCH MD

[galal]

can i advice patient to use mince lens for exophoria even he is normal

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

I can't tell from your description. You need to see an eye muscle specialist that is a MD physician-ophthalmologist. The way your were treated suggests you saw a non-MD non-physician limited scope eye care provider (optometrist).

You can go to www.aao.org and use the Find An Eye MD feature to locate a strabismus-pediatric ophthalmologist near you (most eye muscles doctors do mostly kids but also adult eye muscle problems).

The longer you wear prism glasses the more dependant you get on them.

JCH III MD