Hi, Ruth,

Astigmatisms have to do with the focal ability of your eyes. A
healthy eye is basically round (to some degree), and it is the shape
of the eye that allows the eye to focus on one point. When you have
astigmatisms, your eye is less round, and the more oval shape creates
a situation where your eye has more than one focal point. It seems
that astigmatisms can cause reading and comprehension problems.
Depending on the degree of astigmatism (how irregularly-shaped the
eye is), the worse time a person has focusing on an object.

If you have time to read the following (it's long, which seems to be
my trademark), maybe it will give you some insight into your
daughter's condition. I think for your daughter's sake, it's worth
looking into the Irlen color system, astigmatisms, and potentially
your daughter's antibiotic history.

I always had trouble reading, comprehending, and focusing since a
very young age, and I learned to use different techniques to get
around my disability, one of which was to take notes on everything I
possibly could so I could read them over and over later. I would re-
write my notes and use different colored pens, particularly red and
blue, and I would categorize the material, for example, a word or
concept in red and the definition in blue. I would sometimes have to
read material up to 20 or 30 times to really get it, and even then, I
often questioned if I had read the material correctly. I managed to
get good grades in school, but with an extreme amount of effort. I do
have a college degree, a BA in German Language, and I am going back
for a second degree, this time in engineering.

My vision was always exceptionally good when I would read the eye
charts at the eye doctor as a kid and into adulthood, so I was never
tested further. When I was about 41 yrs old, my near vision started
to get a little fuzzy. An optometrist diagnosed me with a slight
need for reading correction but also astigmatisms. The first few
days that I wore my glasses, I was completely taken aback as suddenly
I wasn't having to read material more than twice and I often only had
to read material once to get was I was reading. I was really
surprised. Since I joined this group, this is why I like to ask
about astigmatisms when I hear about learning problems.

You may wonder why I joined the group. At the beginning of this
year, which was two years after my first pair of glasses, and in the
middle of my engineering studies, I had an ear infection and was
prescribed cephalexin not knowing that I had a well-known but
uncommon neurotoxic allergy to it that affected my eyes, among other
things. One of my symptoms caused me to want to rip my glasses off
my face, and glare and light had become a real problem. I felt I
just couldn't see and everything around me was irritating. I have
Kaiser medical care and they didn't feel I needed to see an
opthamologist, and new glasses didn't help. Because of my other
symptoms (memory loss, loss of muscle control, severe agitation,
headaches, random high pulse), my doctors basically considered me a
hypochondriac as they couldn't find anything wrong via an MRI, heart
stress test, and blood work. They wanted to put me on
antidepressants, which I refused. My grades tanked at school. My
college's disability center couldn't help but they did suggest the
Irlen method, and they gave me a colored overlay sheet, which
interestingly happened to be one of my favorite colors, turquoise-
blue. I could put the colored sheet on top of my books and notes. I
was surprised that it did seem to help with my ability to focus and
comprehend, not much, but it did help. This is why I ended up here
on this group, where I learned more about the Irlen method and in
reading other people's stories. I do want to try the Irlen lenses at
some point, but I can't afford them right now. Over time, my
symptoms of light sensitivity and other symptoms from the antibiotic
reaction have decreased, and, after 10 months since taking the
antibiotic, I have had a full week symptom-free, but it's not
completely gone. Typically, a neurotoxic reaction to an antibiotic
does not last longer than a month, but I have had effect up till now,
10 months later. My doctors have agreed that I did have a reaction
and are puzzled at the length of the reaction.

I don't know medically how astigmatisms, antibiotic reactions, and
light sensitivity cause learning disabilities, but being a person who
has experienced all three, I do find the Irlen theories awfully
interesting. Is this why I found that the red and blue pens helped
me before I got my glasses? Somehow, they seem to help the eyes
focus by eliminating other light frequencies as suggested on the
Irlen website? And, funny that after getting my first pair of
glasses, my use of colored pens significantly decreased to the point
of almost no use at all. Are astigmatisms and color inter-related?
And, strange after the antibiotic reaction that the colored overlay
sheets made some difference and a new eyeglass prescription didn't.
I just find these questions interesting and can't help but believe
that the Irlen method does have some validity.

Lastly, part of what can happen when a person has a neurotoxic
antibiotic reaction is that they have a form of seizures. These
seizures are called non-convulsive epilepticus and they are
characterized by delayed speech, disorientation, confusion,
agitation, loss of motor skills (muscle control) rather than by the
typically-known body convulsions where a person's limbs flail about
uncontrollably. Such non-convulsive seizures have been well-
validated in medical journals by EEG and show a characteristic
pattern of brain wave disturbance. It is this kind of reaction to
antibiotics that lead researchers to better understand seizures, how
they work and how to treat them. It is interesting to me that,
during my ordeal, where my glasses didn't help, the colored overlay
sheet did somewhat. So, all this said, in your daughter's case and
in other cases of learning problems and in my case with the
antibiotic-induced light sensitivity, it does seem that elimination
of different frequencies of light using the colored overlays does
somehow relax the brain. The Irlen website talks about autistic
children and their reactions to different colored light. One color
will agitate one autistic child and relax another. All very
interesting, and all worth looking into, I think.

Ok, I've written more than you probably wanted to read. But keep up
with the good work in trying to get help for your daughter. Who
knows where I would've been in my life if I had had proper help when
I was a child.

Regards,
Larissa





--- In glimmercoloredfilterglasses@yahoogroups.com, "ruth_mnsfld"
<ruth_mnsfld@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Larissalle,
> Not that i know of. I haven't heard of it before, what is it?
>
>
>
> --- In glimmercoloredfilterglasses@yahoogroups.com, "larissalle"
> <larissa4@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi, Ruth,
> > Has your daughter ever been tested for astigmatisms?
> >
> > --- In glimmercoloredfilterglasses@yahoogroups.com, "ruth_mnsfld"
> > <ruth_mnsfld@> wrote:
> > >
> > > My daughter has just had the Irlen Syndrome test at school. The
> > > results where not good, to which i have made an appointment for
> her
> > at
> > > our nearest Irlen Centre. I was wondering if anybody had any
> advice,
> > > or infomation if there is a payment scheme as the cost is alot
> > > straight off.
> > >
> > > Thx Ruth
> > >
> >
>