What is convergence insufficiency?
Convergence insufficiency is the name given if it is difficult for you to keep your eyes working together when things come very close to them.
Normally, our eye muscles pull the eyes inward when looking at things closer to our nose and should do so smoothly. This should happen without effort and should allow comfortable binocular (use of eyes as a pair) vision while doing work up-close, such as reading. Weakness of these specific eye muscles can cause problems at near and while reading, such as headaches, eye strain and some double vision (seeing two of things). This is known as ‘convergence insufficiency’.
There are many different causes. Some of which could include:
• Change of job to involving more near work
• A lot of studying (intense close work)
• Worrying/stressful situations
• Recent illness
• Taking some medicines
Symptoms can vary from person to person. However, symptoms could include, but aren’t limited to, the following:
• Frontal headaches (headaches at the front of the head/between the eyes)
• Eye strain
• Difficulty changing focus and making things clear to see from near to far away or the other way around.
The most common option for this problem would be orthoptic exercises. These can be practiced at home and will exercise your weakest area of eye muscle control, according to the results found by the orthoptist in clinic. You might be given instruction leaflets on ‘dot card’, ‘smooth convergence’ and ‘stereograms’ depending on what is best for you. The orthoptist will tell you how long to do the exercises.
It is important that you attend your appointments once exercises are started so we can see how you are getting on. This also allows us to change the exercises if it’s needed. If you can’t attend an appointment, please contact the team on the number below: 01253 953457
Contact details
Should you need any extra help or have more questions, need any information or advice, please contact the orthoptic team on the phone number below.
We are open Monday to Friday 8:30 till 16:30. If you cannot get through to an orthoptist then you can leave a message on the 24- hour answer phone, please leave your full name, date of birth and hospital number if you can.
Orthoptic department Blackpool Victoria Hospital Outpatients Department Whinney Heys Road Blackpool FY3 8NR
