Recently emergent double vision/tired eyes

[amaterasu]

Hey guys. Wow, new forum. I've been gone a while, and only had a few posts under my old name so I'm sure no one would remember me.

Anyway, I've had HPPD for almost 4 years (anniversary coming up in March, woohoo!) and like a lot of people here I've gotten used to what I have and while it was and is no end of horrible, at least it was manageable.

However, lately (in the last couple of weeks), I've developed something new. My eyes get incredibly tired from reading, after a very short period of time. They get tired, dry, itchy and ache a lot. It becomes hard to focus on whatever I'm reading. And what persists beyond this is double vision when I look at something in the distance, or even sometimes up close. The oddest thing about this is how fast it comes on. My eyes are mostly OK when I wake up but then within minutes of looking at a screen or a book, they are aching, stuff in the distance is doubled, it's hard to focus, hard even to keep my eyes open sometimes. As a result it's become difficult to do my job; pleasure reading is hardly pleasurable; I had a very difficult time when I had to take a long test a couple of days ago.

Now, the thing is I'm not sure if this is HPPD-related. It's all physical stuff, nothing in my brain, unlike the motion trails and the visual snow and the anxiety and blah blah. If I squint, the double vision clears, suggesting it definitely is caused by my eyes not working properly. The pain is clearly in my eyes and likely muscular.

So, there's no symptom that I can clearly pin to being HPPD. It could, and I'm guessing (hoping) is, likely purely an eye condition. I'm not sure. But I wanted to ask to see if anyone else on this board has suffered/is suffering from this as well.

Obviously with HPPD practically everything eye-related is a huge worry (at least for me), and if this eye strain is something that's gonna stick around for some time... well let's just say that wouldn't be good. It's severely affecting my quality of life; HPPD did that enough on its own and I thought I had that under control, at least to the degree one can.

I've been to an eye doctor but since I'm living in a foreign country it's hard to communicate, and often I don't feel very reassured by the thoroughness of the doctors here, eye-related or not.

So... well let me hear it. The best answer would be that no one here has it and it's therefore likely completely unrelated to HPPD (and by extension, likely to fix itself).

[1998]

I get most of that as well (especially double vision and alphabet soup when reading) and it all started after hppd. I get pain that goes through my eyes into my head when I try to read for too long. Its frustrating when I'm just trying to learn and it feels like my brains against it. I just keep forcing myself and I slowly get to read longer. Whenever I blink my eyes all the double vision and trails go away. I've read this happening to a lot of ppl, but some have ways of dealing w/ it. I already have a.d.h.d. so I can't blame it all on hppd. But I know it was much easier to learn prior to this disorder.

[joe]

Kind of sucks your in a foreign country where you can't talk to the doctors well. Since it's something that has just come on, it may not be so much HPPD related and even if it is, it's something new so you probably want to get it checked out again. My vision is worse when I wake up in the morning and then it clears up and at night too. If I want, I can make things double and all that but I usually have to make my eyes see that way so it sounds like yours are kind of doing it without trying. Probably want to get it checked out again I'd say at least but you know yourself better than anyone.