Question
Hello,
I'm a 15 year old girl and I've had myopia since elementary school. The myopia was progressing rapidly until 7th grade and now I have about -8.5 in each eye. (But it's not progressing as of now)
The previous summer was very hard for me as it was about 40 degrees Celsius outside and I can't tolerate heat very well. And then I started to notice that my eyes are dry (I'm a heavy computer user but I've never had that problem before).
The following October I began to get headaches and low blood pressure, and then I began to see those little floaters in both of my eyes. My eye doctor said that it's because I'm myopic so my vitreous humor is stretched.
In November I was watching TV, and when white credits began to roll on a black background, I saw a little copy of the text right above it for a moment but I thought that it happened because my glasses were dirty.
The following December I got a bad flu infection (the doctor suspected swine flu) and i was treated with TamiFlu. Then I got that flu again a week after my recovery and again I was treated with TamiFlu.
After my recovery I began to see ghost images not only on the TV screen, but everywhere. For example, when I'm walking under some wires, I see one big blurry wire which actually consists of two small wires - the true image of the wire and the ghost image of the wire which is fainter and blurrier.
Also, my myopia is not fully corrected because my glasses are -7.0
The doctor said that not fully correcting my myopia would train the eye muscles or something.
Also, my mother and father both have myopia and my mother has astigmatism and she also told me she saw ghost images last summer.
Also, I have something like cross-eyedness only the other way around. I have had it since about 6 years of age. When I completely relax my eye muscles, my left eye rolls to the left while my right eye remains focused (also my left eye's vision is worse than the right one's) Sometimes when reading or working at the computer I unintentionally relax my eyes and let that left one roll to the side. By unfocusing my eyes like that I'm able to see two full images (not the ghost images, but two complete images).
Also the ghosting worsens and becomes more evident when my eyes are tired or when I feel sick or dizzy. For example, today I was at the movies and I ate too many chips and I began to feel queasy. Then the subtitles on the screen (which were already "ghosted" a bit) began to be even more ghosted, and the ghost images became more life-like instead of being just "drop-shadows"
So doctor, could you please tell me what's wrong with me? I'm scared and I don't wanna go blind at such a young age.
Thanks
Answer
Thanks for your Question
Eye floaters with high myopia is common. Vitreous body consists of collagen fibers which are embedded in gel like material. In High myopic patient and in old people, this gel will be liquefied and collagen fibers are clumped together causing floaters.
It is not clinically significant but if the number of floaters increases at once or you see flashes of light in your eye, you should visit your eye doctor as soon as possible. Patients with high myopia should have regular annual ocular examination.
Working on the computer for a long time can cause dry eyes, mainly because people forgot to blink when they concentrate. Correct your head posture and blink frequently when you are using computer.
Ghost images or double vision can be caused by two things, the first one is astigmatism and the second thing is strabismus or squint or crossed eyes. Astigmatism can be treated by eyeglasses.
Strabismus is a condition in which the two eyes do not look to the same object at the same time because they do not line up in the same direction. It is caused by problems in the muscles that control eye movements. There are many types and the one that you have is called heterphoria.
Heterophoria is a type of strabismus in which it is latent an asymptomatic and appears only in times of stress, tiredness, poor health or sickness and in patients with not corrected refractive errors.
I think that you should have full myopia correction which can decrease the incidence of heterophoria and if this condition increase to a level that it becomes very annoying to you, treatment of it will be by surgery to ocular muscles.
Heterophoria won't cause blindness, it will cause only double vision.
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