How do I find a vision therapist?

[MichelleWI]

Our son has strabismus / amblyopia / esotropia and is seen by a pediatric ophthalmologist. Prescription glasses and patching the right eye for 2 hours daily was the original approach. That's when we learned our son also has latent nystagmus. Patching causes his eye to "bounce", which results in difficulty focusing.

 

The only time he experienced improvement was through chiropractic treatment. Our schedule disallowed consistent appointments for a time and the ground gained was lost. Even though he is seeing the chiropractor once again, there has been no improvement.

 

His next ophth appointment is July 29th. I would like to be educated on the subject of vision therapy before that day and arrive at the appointment with a list of potential vision therapists. I am hoping for a referral.

 

Our insurance will cover vision therapy given by an MD, DO, PA or NP. Interestingly, they will not cover an optometrist or ophthalmologist.

 

We live in West Central Wisconsin, so regional suggestions are welcome. I am also interested in home-based approaches and particularly so if we cannot find a vision therapist in our area.

 

Thank you!

[Twinmom]

That's a tough one...hopefully someone will know better than I! The only place I know of to search for a VT is through the developmental

optometrist's website at www.covd.org. Perhaps if you find a dev. optometrist in your area who offers VT, they can either advise you about how to get their services covered or can refer you to someone for whom your insurance will pay. Or, perhaps a VT in their office might even fit the bill. I know that our dev. opt. doesn't actually DO the therapy, just supervises it. The VT has another degree, though I can't tell you exactly what it is.

 

Good luck! Hopefully someone will have some additional advice.

[Julie in Monterey]

We had such amazing results from visual therapy. My daughter was scheduled for surgery when I decided to try the visual therapy route. The Opthomologist is a surgeon and by his/her trade most likely thinks visual therapy is quackery (like ours did). No offense to those fabulous Dr's out there. My understanding is that Optometrist looks at the eye in a different way. The Opthomologist was going to cut a muscle and it would have been cosmetically fixed (and surgery was likely to be needed on the other (good) eye later). The Optometrist with the exercises, glasses and patching help retrain at the brain level how the eye processes information.

 

For what it is worth, our insurance didn't cover it so I worked with our visual therapist to train me and I then worked with my daughter every day. We did this for a solid 6 months with a total of about 5 visits to the visual therapist. So, even if you don't live nearby to this service, it's worth it to pursue. I would call ahead, explain your situation, explain that you homeschool and that you would work with your child if taught a home program.

 

I'll call in the morning and post here to find out if there is some unknown association that can help you find a professional near you.

 

Also, at one point my daughter had 20/80 vision in one eye and she has maintained at 20/20 for 1.5 years now.

 

Julie in Monterey

[kiki]

We see Dr. Wonderling in LaCrosse, she is on the covd.org website. We also looked into VT in Bloomington, MN although I can't remember the name of the place. I can find the name if you would like. A friend had her son evaluated there and the eval is free.

 

We drive 2 hours each way for VT and feel it is worth it. We have seen gains in ds reading, he actually is noticing print now, like reading every sign he sees.:001_smile:

 

Our orginal intent after we had the evaluation was to do VT at home but ds's visual issues were more than I wanted to deal with.

 

Kirstin