Convergence Insufficiency

I was born with a crossed/lazy eye.

My parents tried to get this corrected. They took me to several specialists, a few of whom suggested surgery. My parents were against eye surgery because, well, it's eye surgery.

They went with more non-invasive correction, such as patching the good eye or putting drops in it to blur the vision in order to get the weaker eye to work harder. But surgery was out of the question.

As far as anyone really knew, this was a cosmetic issue.

I'm sure my parents were told that I may see double some, but that my brain would figure out how to suppress the second image over time and see one image.

For the most part, that is true. And, considering how much was really known about eye surgery when I was a kid, I fully support their decision to have done what they did.

My eyes did, indeed, learn to make one image most of the time. At times, I do see double, but usually there is just one image of what I am looking at.

It is not always spatially "correct," but it is still one image.

So, what I didn't know was that, all this time, I was fighting convergence insufficiency.

I started to learn a bit about this in visual therapy. Basically, yeah, my eyes HAVE learned to see one image most of the time.

But it takes work, man.

Sometimes CONSCIOUS, DELIBERATE work.

Like, if I am having a conversation, my eyes will dart all over the place trying to fight for dominance.

Or when I am reading! Ugh! I love reading, but I hate it, too.

It's PHYSICALLY EXHAUSTING and UNCOMFORTABLE!

I really never say anything about it because I didn't know this was even a thing.

I just thought I was a distractable person.

More fuel for the dizziness fire, I suppose.

dizziness and fibromyalgia...who knew?

It has been awhile since I've blogged, not because I am suddenly "well," but because things have been pretty much the same.

Sort of.

The dizziness waxes and wanes. I guess that's just the way it is going to be.

On the other hand, my fibromyalgia has been horribly horrendous lately.

I had a 3-week migraine-a-thon around Christmas where, literally, every single day I had a headache - and most of those days it was at migraine level.

That pain seeped into my neck, then into my shoulder, where it has been living quite uncomfortably.

I went to a few days of physical therapy. After some major snow storms, that kind of fell by the wayside.

I'm chalking all that up to "typical" fibromyalgia.

I've also developed a new agony - gum and jaw pain.

This, too, appears to be a fibromyalgia-related ailment. Not as common as migraines and muscle pain, but fibro patients do complain of this type of pain, so.

As I learn more about fibromyalgia, I have become aware of another common symptom:

Dizziness.

Isn't that interesting?

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia about 2 or 3 years after the vertigo first invaded my life. However, I remember having fibro symptoms several years before that. In fact, I have found old journal entries where I wrote about debilitating fatigue and body aches which were taking place way, way before the first vertigo attack.

So, which came first?

It is true that many who have chronic dizziness develop fibro or fibro-like symptoms from the body's constant fight to keep balanced and make sense of the mixed messages that it gets from the brain versus the world (very detailed explanation here).

However, I remember being sick before the dizziness. IF this dizziness is from the fibro, that is.

I hate that it is such a mystery.