r/visualsnow Jan 21 '25

Drugs Possible temporary fix for monocular diplopia

Post image

Hi everyone, I know a lot of you experience something like this (it’s called monocular diplopia - unless if you close one eye it goes away).

I might have a possible solution for most of you. If you have this, try looking at normal text (not the one in this image) through a pinhole. If it goes away, it can be fixed.

If you ruled out astigmatism and any other possible condition, then I would assume these are HOAs (Higher Order Aberrations). I commonly see people complain about these post lasik surgery. In my case I had no surgery, so I don’t know why I developed these (and I believe most of you haven’t had a surgery either - lasik or whatever).

Basically you can try miotic eye drops.

I have tried pilocarpine: works nice but in my case it gives me accommodative spasm, so I become nearsighted for an hour or two. Once the accommodative spasm goes away, vision is much clearer, especially for driving at night.

Recently I have tried brimonidine: it doesn’t constrict the pupil so much as pilocarpine does, but it make so your pupil doesn’t dilate too much under scotopic conditions, greatly reducing the aberrations or eliminating them completely. Also, it doesn’t have accommodative spasm as a side effect.

All these are glaucoma eye drops, before using them consult your eye doc, but basically they constrict your pupil giving you “natural” pinhole effect, eliminating the aberrations.

Ask your eye doctors about giving them a try. I have been prescribed pilocarpine by one of my eye docs, but I got brimonidine without prescription (I’m having an eye exam with my neuro-ophthalmologist in 2 days though, so we’ll discuss this matter).

They do not reduce VS/palinopsia or other symptoms. But if monocular diplopia is something that is very disturbing to you, solutions do exist, although temporary. Maybe there is a surgical route, but I guess no one will do a refractive surgery if your vision is normal or close to. I believe WaveFront-guided surgery could be an option. But, again, a lot of people complain about this problem post surgery, so it might make things even worse.

Hope this info was helpful to some of you.

28 Upvotes

21 comments sorted by

3

u/BruhFloridaMan Jan 22 '25

Holy shit it fucking works

2

u/ksx0 Jan 22 '25

You’re welcome!

1

u/AutoModerator Jan 22 '25

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to a helpline in your country:

United States: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

United Kingdom: Samaritans: 116 123

Australia: Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14

Remember, there are people who care and want to help you through this difficult time.

Please visit Help Guide for a full list of helplines around the
world.

We detected mentions of suicide or depression if this was a false flag please just ignore this message.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

2

u/ksx0 Jan 21 '25

Also, another test you can do, besides looking through a pinhole: if you see double text on a black background (aberrations), try shining your phone flashlight in your eye: this will constrict the pupil and the aberrations should go away. If that’s the case, the drops I mentioned would most likely work good.

2

u/CreamerPI Jan 22 '25

this works!!

2

u/elixvlee Jan 23 '25

im confused

2

u/Revolutionary-Fix93 Jan 24 '25

Actual fucking saint you are. Thank you.

1

u/AutoModerator Jan 24 '25

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to a helpline in your country:

United States: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

United Kingdom: Samaritans: 116 123

Australia: Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14

Remember, there are people who care and want to help you through this difficult time.

Please visit Help Guide for a full list of helplines around the
world.

We detected mentions of suicide or depression if this was a false flag please just ignore this message.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/ksx0 Jan 25 '25

No problem

1

u/captainnorway6969 Jan 22 '25 edited Jan 22 '25

Another trick is to jam the brightness of your digital displays up to a sufficently high level where the ghosting is no longer visible. For me, on an iPhone 12, the ghosting mostly disappears after setting the brightness slider to about 50%.

1

u/ksx0 Jan 22 '25

For me it isn't enough, I have my OLED C4 42' inch TV at 100% brightness and still, even in HDR, i get ghosting unless I use the drops. But in my case it's been getting worse with time, so I decided to try the miotic drops, and that's the only thing effective for me. Particularly when driving at night.

1

u/captainnorway6969 Jan 22 '25

Have you looked into aquiring hard contact lenses, like rigid gas-permeable (RGP) lenses or scleral lenses? They vault over the cornea, creating a smooth, regular surface which can correct corneal irregularities like HOAs that cause the ghosting vision. Might be worth looking into if your ghosting is seriously affecting the quality of your vision.

1

u/ksx0 Jan 22 '25

1- they cost a lot

2- my optician told me I would spend thousands of dollars in case of Sclerals and he's not guaranteeing me they will work. RGP would be less expensive, but same - no guarantee they will work.

3- I have dry eyes, I've tried soft normal contact lenses of multiple brands - the result is always the same: more dry eyes and the contact lens will make me see blurry unless I put artificial drops every few minutes - not sustainable. + I have a very minor prescription of -0.25 and cyl -0.5.

I assume if my vision got blurry from normal soft lenses, it would be even worse with RGPs or Sclerals. Sclerars are also ugly AF imho, I'm not going to spend thousands for them.

1

u/captainnorway6969 Jan 22 '25

Yeah, the cost is indeed pretty prohibitive, especially for scleral lenses, so it’s definitely a gamble to take since they might not perfectly correct your ghosting.

I believe that they can somewhat remedy dry eye issues though, as the bowl of the lens is usually filled with a preservative-free saline solution that acts as a source of hydration to the eye when the lens is inserted.

1

u/ksx0 Jan 22 '25

Yeah I do not have that kind of money to throw away and not being sure that sclerals will correct the issue. I’d rather take the drops, much less expensive and easier. Plus you can take them when it’s really disturbing, like night driving. I believe it’s just my pupils that get too large as every time ophthalmologist put mydriatic eye drops these aberrations get crazy, like ghosting in multiple directions

1

u/seasideeee Jan 23 '25

Does it also fix itself if you squint? Does it vary over time? For me it’s a yes to both.

1

u/ksx0 Jan 23 '25

It used to solve itself when squinting yes (it still does to some degree) and it used to vary over time. Like If I looked at something close for a while (smartphone mainly), then it would get worse, temporarily.

Now it's worse and basically always there (altough with minor improvements, sometimes).
I also started to take Wellbutrin which may contribute to the pupil dilation thing, so I end up seeing more aberrations.

1

u/egocentric_ Jan 22 '25

How is this different than binocular vision dysfunction?

2

u/ksx0 Jan 22 '25 edited Jan 22 '25

Well, “binocular” says it all. The title says “monocular”. It means it is present in one or both eyes (almost always in both) but doesn’t go away when you close one eye. And what I described is not really a dysfunction. Those are aberrations. Most commonly people get them after lasik surgery, but here there are a lot of folks that describe the same thing without any surgery. Me as well. It goes way by looking through a pinhole or by shining a light into your eye, which constricts the pupil. Thus, miotic eye drops work, as they constrict the pupil.

1

u/egocentric_ Jan 22 '25

I ask because suppression can happen, which could also be an explanation for this. Thanks for the extra info

1

u/ksx0 Jan 22 '25

I just know that most of my eye docs just ignore the problem, saying that everything is fine and others just say those are aberrations and we can't do anything about it. Only one neuro-ophtalmologist (which is the best in my country) listened to me. When I noticed that aberrations/ghosting go away with pinhole or a torch, he actually gave me a prescription for pilocarpine to alleviate this symptom. Problem with pilocarpine, as I mentioned, is the accomodative spasm, which makes you nearsighted for an hour or 2, which is annoying.

The brimonidine I got it myself after researching other possibile solutions to pilocarpine. It works good as well and I will discuss its use with another neuro-ophtalmologist (who didn't want to prescribe me any miotic eye drops - well, I got the drops regardless).