Welcome to Beyond 20/20 Vision Therapy’s blog: Wandering Eyes Want to Know! Here you will find a variety of topics related to everything eyeballs and vision therapy. If you have any questions or topics you would like discussed, please feel free to email us at [email protected]. We hope you enjoy these blog posts and learn a little something along the way!
Let me start by introducing myself: I am Dr. Betsy Meinel and I’m originally from Medford, WI. I am happy to be back in my hometown practicing optometry and am excited to share my passion for vision therapy with the community and its children. My passion for vision therapy stems from my own personal history – I went through it myself.
Becoming an optometrist involves a lot of schooling and studying, but for me it also involved a lot of sleeping. Yes, sleeping. Until I was in optometry school, every time I studied I would fall asleep after an hour of reading and thought this was completely normal. Once I got to optometry school, however, I realized not everyone sleeps while they are studying! Some do because the content is not very entertaining, but most people can actually study for several hours without taking a nap. I was shocked to learn this at the ripe age of 21! How had I made it this far in life and school? And why was I so different than everyone else? The answer to this last question was my eyes. My eyes are special and for the first 21 years of my life, they worked extra hard while I was reading.
During an eye examination in optometry school, I was diagnosed with convergence insufficiency (CI), which means that I have trouble bringing my eyes together. This is a skill you need when looking at anything up close, including reading. We will learn more about this specific diagnosis in a future blog, but like most other CIs, I had all the classic symptoms: tired while reading, motion sickness (reading in the car – watch out!), words swimming on the page, rereading paragraphs because I didn’t understand it the first time (or the fourth), and the list goes on. It was literally work every time I had to look at something up close. For those of you who are lucky enough to have two eyes that like to work together, think of it like running a marathon every time someone puts a book in front of you. That’s how hard a CI’s eyes have to work!
I consider myself lucky to have had my vision issue caught and treated with vision therapy. There are many children and adults with similar issues that are unaware they have a problem that is affecting their ability to read and to learn. This is why I have made it my mission to help as many people as possible through vision therapy and I hope you will join me. We need to take these eye issues seriously and start treating them now so no child has to go through life feeling like they need an hour nap after reading a book.
If you would like to learn more about vision therapy or think you or your child may have a vision issue that is affecting your ability to read and/or learn, please contact our office to set up a consultation today. We look forward to working with you and your family!