Can anxiety affect vision?
Anxiety and poor vision are interrelated conditions that affect each other. For example, anxiety can trigger high adrenaline levels impacting your ability to see. However, if anxiety treatment doesn’t resolve vision issues, you may have Binocular Vision Dysfunction. BVD is caused by slight eye misalignment, which impacts vision, potentially causing high anxiety levels.
Binocular Vision Dysfunction & Anxiety
For your vision to be effective your eyes must work in coordination with each other. In order to do this they need to be perfectly aligned. Binocular Vision Dysfunction occurs when there is a subtle misalignment of your eyes. This misalignment forces your eye muscles to overexert themselves to realign the eyes and prevent double vision. However, the misalignment rapidly returns, which is again addressed by realignment. These misalignment/realignment cycles may lead you to have trouble navigating due to eye strain, blurry vision, light sensitivity, dizziness, and balance issues, causing you to feel anxious and overwhelmed. Many of our patients with these symptoms have previously been diagnosed with the following anxiety disorders:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Patients diagnosed with chronic anxiety feel anxious without an obvious cause. This mental health disorder is believed to be associated with a chemical imbalance in the brain. When you are unable to find anxiety relief from traditional treatments the issue may actually be Binocular Vision Dysfunction. By treating your vision misalignment, you will have stable balance and be able to finally see your environment clearly, resulting in significant anxiety relief.
Panic Attacks
Panic attacks are a severe form of anxiety where the sufferer has an unexpected episode of intense fear. This results in feeling an accelerated heart rate, shortness of breath, dizziness, sweating, loss of control, or a sudden sense of immense dread. If the vision misalignment goes untreated, dizziness, unsteadiness, and blurred vision or possibly double vision can be experienced, causing patients with Binocular Vision Dysfunction to feel overwhelmed and panicked.
One of the most common causes of panic attacks in our patients is driving on the freeway. Aligning lenses break the misalignment/realignment cycle and, by treating the vision impairment, can reduce or eliminate the panic attack symptoms.
It Might Be Your Eyes
Agoraphobia
Fear, anxiety, and panic caused by being in places or situations that make you feel trapped (like crowded places, public transportation, shopping malls or places of worship), or places from which escape is difficult is considered to be agoraphobia. When the world around you is hard to navigate due to your vision misalignment, being in places that you are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with may cause intense fear and anxiety. By correcting the vision impairment with our specialized aligning lenses we can eliminate or reduce agoraphobia symptoms and provide you with anxiety relief.
Suicidal Thoughts
Suicidal thoughts occur when the anxiety and panic is so severe that a person feels like they just can’t live like this anymore. People with Binocular Vision Dysfunction may not be aware that their anxiety symptoms are resulting from a vision misalignment. By breaking the misalignment/realignment cycle with our aligning lenses, we can treat the vision impairment, giving our patients substantial anxiety relief and reduce or eliminate their suicidal thoughts.
Our compassionate doctors at Vision Specialists of Michigan are dedicated to making our treatments easy for our patients. The extent of your vision misalignment is determined with a thorough and comprehensive NeuroVisual Examination. Once completed, the results of your exam will determine the prescription of your specialized aligning lenses. As opposed to your standard eyeglass prescription, our lenses treat your Binocular Vision Dysfunction as well as any additional vision impairments. When your eyes are aligned they are able to work together to see clearly, allowing you to effectively navigate through your environment and reducing or eliminating your anxiety symptoms.
Suffering from severe anxiety can be crippling and can prevent you from doing what you love. Being anxious and not being able to see clearly can create fear, anxiety, and panic. Let an eye doctor at Vision Specialists of Michigan help you with your Binocular Vision Dysfunction. Complete the screening questionnaire or contact us today to determine if we can help you experience anxiety relief.
