Reading as a trigger

[lfran]

Hello all.

 

Just curious. Right now, I think that the only time we are seeing any tics are during reading. We went to a specialist (neuro-opthalmologist) who said that binocular vision issues are NOT causing an increase in tics, but I still think it is. (My son does not have binocular vision due to an unrelated opthalmological condition. So he may be switching between eyes to read, or doing some other accomodation that takes up a lot of neurological focus).

 

Does anyone have any clues for us? He loves to read. I have tried different light levels. I am looking into Vision Therapy.

 

Also, so many people have posted about artificial colors, etc, being a trigger but I never see a relationship. Not that he eats tons of the stuff, but he has the occasional lollypop, birthday cake, etc. Are there others out there for whom artificial colors are not a problem? I feel awkward and watchful everytime he has a sweet, but I just don't see a relationship.

 

Thanks.

[peglem]

Something you may want to look at, being as seizures and tics seem to have many similar triggers, is the contrast between the text and the background. (light contrast seems to trigger my daughter). If you can reduce contrast by using a tinted page overlay, that may help. It could also be that switching eyes is affecting his visual processing-kinda confusing the brain about which sensory input needs processing. Does it help if you cover one eye?

[ilovedogs]

Lfran,

You are not the only one who doesn't 'see' the relationship between the artificial stuff and the tics. I also have this problem. If ds has a Sprite or has an Otter Pop after tennis I do not see an increase in his tics. I have seen them wax and wane all day at times when I've been really careful about his food and I've seen the same waxing and waning when I've allowed some treats that are normally no-nos! Anyway, I still believe that all that stuff is cr*p so I still try to limit them but I've found that I don't want to militant about it. I don't want to take away all his joy and with football season coming up I know he'll be offered all kinds of stuff: gatorade, cupcakes, oreos, etc. that I wouldn't normally feed him.

I just figure it's better to be healthier despite whether I see it helping the tics or not.

As for the eye thing: Have you tried removing screens from his days to see if that helps? I did try this and didn't see a difference in his eye tics but I know some people have tremendous improvement if they get their kids away from tvs and computer screens.

 

Bonnie

[lfran]

Thanks! I will look into these suggestions.

 

It does help if we cover one eye.

 

-- Liane

[Donna S]

Talk to your eye doctor, there are vision therapy's, ie training the eye. We used this on my youngest son, at age 8. It was an online therapy, where he looked through different glasses and scored points in "therapy" games. This is similar I think to what professional baseball players use to get their eyes trained, for reading the balls as they come to home plate.

 

Great results for my son, the first two doctors said glasses, we kept looking and found another with this program.