(also posted in expert forum)
What type of specialist should one see if eye tracking issues are
suspected? That is, when the anatomy is normal but the neural pathways aren't
quite right to coordinate the eyes perfectly at all times. We recently
read "Fixing my gaze" which mentions Optometrists who are fellows of the
COVD (FCOVD), who specialize in this sort of thing. Start with them, or
is some other type of specialist more appropriate?
My son has a lot of medical issues of which (mild) asthma is the only one with a definitive diagnosis. He has some peculiar large lightly pigmented patches on his back and sides, which no pathologist or dermatologist can
readily explain. He has the occasional migraine. He still, in his mid teens, gets ear infections.
On top of all of that, and pertinent to this forum, he has visual disturbances. "Everything looks flat" or "everything looks unreal". (Never double vision.) Three neurologists and an ophthalmologist thought it was migraine like. But it is very atypical. It lasts months, slowly waxing and waning, and does not respond to migraine drugs. Stress and fluorescent lights make it worse. Vision tests are normal - just a tiny amount of astigmatism in
one eye. Static depth perception tests (cards and such) are normal. He has had two head MRIs, an EEG, blood tests, urine tests, Lyme disease test, etc. etc. etc. All normal. We would go see Dr. House at this point, if he was only real. The strange stuff all started when he was 10, before that it was just asthma. Despite all this, and missing a fair amount of school, he gets good grades.
"Fixing my gaze" described some eye tracking tests so we tried them on him and he said they made him feel terrible. Looking back and forth between two beads on a string may be annoying, but it shouldn't make him
dizzy, and it did. So we suspect he may have, for whatever reason, a subtle problem in eye coordination, and that is why we want to verify this or rule it out. Who to see to do so?