Allison was taking 2,400 milligrams of ibuprofen a day by two in the afternoon, and the headaches were still there.
She had been to the ER. She had seen neurologists. The MRIs and CAT scans came back clean. The medications she did try had side effects worse than the pain. Some afternoons at work she would lie down on the floor because she couldn’t sit up. The right side of her head and face stayed tight and pressured. By evening the neck pain was its own thing. The nausea was sometimes its own thing too.
Allison knew BVD already. She was a certified brain injury specialist who sent TBI clients to NeuroVisual specialists. What she didn’t know was that she had it. She started hearing her own story in the patients she met outside the TBI community. The pieces fit.
When the doctor put the trial lenses on her, the symptoms went away in the chair. Allison had never seen anything that crisp in her adult life. She told the doctor what was working and what wasn’t, and the prescription got dialed in before she walked out.
The glasses came in. She trusted them.
Three months later she had finished more work than she had in the previous three years. She came home from work without a headache. Her mood was up. The anxiety she had carried was nearly gone. She had energy left over for her family.
Allison runs patient outreach for the BVD network now. She talks to people who took the questionnaire online. She tells them how the eyes pilot the whole body. She has had the conversation from both sides.
00:00 My name is Allison and I am a certified brain injury specialist and certified anxiety treatment professional. So I was bringing my clients
00:10 to see NeuroVisual specialists. They had a very, you know, severe condition. It wasn’t until I started actually talking to other patients outside of the TBI community
00:23 that were telling me about their symptoms. They’re telling me these things and I was hearing my own story. So that’s where it kind of started my journey.
00:33 I had an opportunity to take a position as the patient outreach specialist for the BVD network. I talk to patients
00:42 who have completed the questionnaire online. I reach out to them and help them understand how their symptoms are related to their eyes.
00:50 I have headaches every single day. Every day. At one point I was taking about 2,400 milligrams of ibuprofen a day by 2:00 PM.
00:59 The right side of my head and face were just tight and pressure, and then I would have a headache by the end
01:05 of the day and neck pain. Neck pain was a huge one. I’d been in the ER, I’d been to neurologists.
01:12 I’d had MRIs, I’d had CAT scans. I’d been on many, many medications. The side effects of which were worse than the headache.
01:22 Sometimes I would get nauseous, I would vomit. There were times that I worked and I would literally have to lay down on the floor
01:29 because I couldn’t sit up anymore. My head was like spinning and hurting so bad. What I remember the most is when the doctor put the trial
01:38 lenses on for me to literally see how this was going to affect me. I just remember never having ever in my adult life been able
01:49 to see so crisp and so clear. I couldn’t imagine that I’d ever have vision that was sharp and clear.
01:56 It had always had this like pressure around the sides of my head. To be in a situation where a doctor says, here,
02:03 let’s try your medicine and see how you feel, and to have symptoms like disappear in the moment, it was just extraordinary.
02:17 and there and say, this works better than the last thing we did. So I knew when my glasses came in
02:24 that they were gonna be okay because I was able to give the doctor that feedback. Right at that moment. Since I’ve had my lenses,
02:30 I’ve actually gotten more done in the last three months than I’ve done in three years because I can do it anytime I want to.
02:37 I can come home from work and I’m not tired. I don’t have a headache. My mood has improved. My anxiety has been almost non-existent.
02:44 I’ve way more energy and mental energy to be able to do things and be present for my family. I know how the eyes communicate with the brain
02:52 and I’ve known that for a very long time. It was so fascinating for me to have this experience of relearning how all
03:02 of these systems work and how the eyes are the pilots of your whole body and they steer everything that you do.
03:10 To have that kind of like awakening and eyeopening experience was, it was just enlightening. It was fascinating for me.
