Ophthalmologists often hear complaints from patients that they have double vision. At the same time, a person cannot visualize a clear picture with both eyes. As a result, one object is perceived as two identical. Such a violation causes discomfort and indicates that not everything is in order with the organs of vision. In addition, there may be problems in the work of the nervous system.
Double vision is called diplopia. It leads to the fact that a person is hardly oriented in space, cannot correctly calculate the distance to surrounding objects. Other pathological symptoms are dizziness, nausea, eye fatigue. In general, the quality of life of people with double vision is significantly reduced.
Why is it double in the eyes?
Normally, the image from the object is projected onto identical parts of the retina. In the brain, the pictures are processed and merged into one. If the image is projected onto non-identical areas of the retina, then the person will see double.
The cause of the violation is most often organic damage to the oculomotor muscles, or problems with their innervation. The eyeball will be positioned incorrectly, resulting in double vision.
Sometimes the cause of the violation is hidden in the incorrect refraction of rays by the optical structures of the eye. A similar situation is observed in diseases of the cornea and lens.
Double vision can be binocular (a person doubles in 2 eyes when looking at objects), as well as monocular, when doubles in only one eye.
In some patients, this visual impairment is present on an ongoing basis, and some people suffer from double vision only periodically. In the latter case, alcohol abuse, injuries, and taking medications can lead to pathological changes. Unlike permanent, temporary splitting in the eyes goes away on its own.
Depending on what kind of reason provoked a split in the eyes, the following types of diplopia can be distinguished:
Neuroparalytic diplopia. In this case, double vision develops due to damage to the nerves responsible for eye movement.
Strabogenic diplopia develops in people suffering from strabismus.
Restrictive diplopia develops with an injury to the orbit with a displacement of the eyeball, as well as with infringement of the oculomotor muscles.
Oculogenic diplopia develops after surgery on the organs of vision.
Diseases and disorders that can cause double vision:
Pathologies in which the muscles responsible for the movement of the organs of vision suffer. These can be diseases such as: myasthenia gravis, ocular myositis, Graefe’s disease, Graves’ disease, etc.
Diseases that lead to disruption of the nerve fibers responsible for the movement of the muscles of the eyeball: multiple sclerosis, diabetes, poliomyelitis, etc.
Growing neoplasm in the organ of vision. Moreover, it can have both malignant and benign nature of origin.
Bruises of the eye, abscess of the orbit, trauma to the walls of the orbit.
Damage to brain structures: stroke, encephalitis, meningitis, traumatic brain injury. Sometimes people have double vision during migraine attacks, as well as with sharp jumps in blood pressure.
Received injury to the optic nerve.
Carotid aneurysm.
A growing tumor that puts pressure on the optic nerve.
Diseases that adversely affect the functioning of the nervous system or the oculomotor muscles. These include: rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, meningitis, botulinum toxin poisoning, etc.
Seeing double in people with strabismus.
Can lead to double images in the eyes of thyroid disease.
Sometimes a person has double vision in one eye if he has an anatomically incorrect structure. Received injuries with the subsequent formation of scars on the cornea can also lead to a split picture in the eyes.
People suffering from dry eye syndrome often complain of double vision.
Video: why double vision occurs, the neuropathologist Sergei Fernandez de Rives will tell:
The operation is most often prescribed for those patients who have changed the work of several muscles responsible for eye movement. During the surgical intervention, the length of the muscles is adjusted, if necessary, then the tendons are sewn. Such manipulations allow you to keep the eye in the correct position.
If it is possible to get rid of the problem by conservative methods, then it is used in the first place. For the period of treatment, a person may be offered to wear corrective glasses that have been developed according to individual parameters. Prismatic lenses allow the eye to focus normally. As a result, a person sees a normal, not a bifurcated image. However, the patient should be warned that wearing such lenses can cause visual impairment.
In order to increase visual acuity and get rid of partial diplopia, a person may be asked to perform gymnastic exercises aimed at training the eye muscles.
Video: gymnastics for the eyes with astigmatism:
Автор статьи: Дегтярева Марина Витальевна, врач-офтальмолог, окулист