Testimonial, Julio

“Back in March, 2016 I slipped on some ice and fell, I didn’t hit my head, I didn’t lose consciousness. After a couple of weeks I started to notice symptoms; being fuzzy cognitively and blurry vision, lights and noise sensitivity, headaches, dizziness, balance issues, feeling tired, and nausea. After a month of weekly visits, I was diagnosed post-concussion and mild traumatic brain injury. I was referred to the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, who then referred me for physical therapy for neck pain, optometry for prism glasses, and vestibular therapy for vertigo. Due to a disagreement with workman’s compensation, all referrals were stopped for a few months. During this time, my symptoms had not improved one bit. In August, I was desperate for some relief, at that time, my wife made phone calls, did research and reached out. We were sitting on the fence about prism glasses, our son had completed vision therapy years ago and we knew it helped. The Vision Therapy Academy is not a part of our health system and the TBI doctor was really pushing their optometrist and prism glasses. I set up an exam with their optometrist and a vision exam and visual efficiency exam with VTA. After the results from both and first hand Q & A’s, I decided therapy was the route for me. I understood that therapy wasn’t going to be easy, my exam results were worse than I anticipated. At that point in time, it was hard for me to explain what my eyes were doing and I didn’t have any control, they did their own thing. At the evaluation, I got very sick and worn out. I didn’t at that time understand that the majority of my symptoms were vision related.  My evaluation had to be split between 2 days, it was that rough. Dr. Wonderling informed me that every symptom she could create while evaluating, she could take away. This gave me hope! I signed up for 12 weeks, 2x a week and did the homework the other 5 days a week.

Prior to starting treatment, I had blurry vision 24/7, I got car sick, couldn’t drive, couldn’t watch TV, couldn’t track when reading, couldn’t process what I was trying to read, I had double vision, daily headaches, couldn’t shop, couldn’t manage the simplest of housekeeping chores, I got sick at every meal as nausea and dizziness severely limited my activities and daily showering and dressing were difficult. I started therapy with Jennifer, the first few sessions were difficult, I maybe lasted 20 minutes before my fatigue and nausea would set in. Eventually I was able to do the whole session.  The syntonic phototherapy helped me get better sleep at night, I was finally sleeping a full night after 5 months. I quit getting car sick, I no longer had to nap immediately after the appointment. Showering and daily chores got easier. I no longer had daily headaches, my dizziness had subsided, no more balance issues, and I wasn’t as tired or fatigued and was able to start cardio exercises with a treadmill and elliptical.

At my 12 week evaluations, there was a huge difference, I completed the testing in one day, there was significate improvement and I happily signed up for another 12 weeks. I am able to help with dinner, dishes, laundry, and other daily chores. My eyes and brain are now communicating. I can drive for 20-30 minutes. I can go shopping. I enjoyed learning about my eyes, what they do, how they do it. I’ve learned to control my eye movements. My PCS and TBI are still an issue cognitively but my quality of life has vastly improved and my sense of humor is back, thanks to VTA.”

—Julio, vision therapy patient with TBI