Often websites show simulators of what the world may look like with various eye conditions. Our current featured photo provides a look at what some with strabismus see. (Click the photo for a larger view.) Yet even the best simulators can’t portray what it is really like for those for those with strabismus. Our vision takes many variations.
Some have double vision. But the brain has a wonderful capacity to compensate when things go awry. Some compensate by shutting off images from the weaker eye. Others shift the load from one eye to the other.
The photo on this page is the best simulator I can provide for what the world looks like to me. My world has ranged all the way from the very clear areas to the very cloudy. I no longer can get the very clear, but partly cloudy weather is not too bad! But when my eyes are tired it’s harder to keep things clear. If I try to read very long, I can’t keep the connection at all. As I fight to see, my mind goes into oblivion like the area of the photo blinded by the sun. What I’m actually seeing at that time requires another simulator. I’ll share that later.
Photo credit: Liebespiel
I searched the web for photos that would simulate the type of double vision that my exotropia gives me, but could only find 3 photos that simulate double vision for esotropia. You may be asking yourself, what’s the difference. well there is a difference but it’s hard to define. For one thing, the exotropic double vision is wider apart, at least for me, and, well, something about the exact aspect angle of the 2 images is different than esotropic double vision, in my opinion. In other words, a double vision for an esotropic means that the image to the left is what their right eye sees, the image to the right is what their left eye sees. For me, it’s the opposite, the image to the left is what my left eye sees, etc. but the 2 images are also wider apart.