What Is Suppression

What does it mean when one of my eyes is suppressed? And how does that impact vision?

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What Is Suppression?

Suppression is the act of one of the eye’s shutting down visual input being sent to the brain. This can happen intermittently or be constant. Suppression could also be isolated to one eye or alternate between both. Usually this happens when binocular vision cannot be achieved so in order to compensate an eye would suppress the visual information.

How Does Suppression Happen?

It can occur for a multitude of specific reasons but to keep it simple it happens when our binocular system engages but can’t achieve fusion. Fusion is when both of our eyes are acting in concert and take two separate images they’re perceiving and form them into one image in our minds. When fusion can’t be achieved we will end up with diplopia, or seeing two separate images at once. As you could imagine this isn’t what someone would like to experience all the time. Our minds, being powerful tools, figure a way around this in order to reduce the comfort one would experience with double vision. The mind effectively turns off the incoming data from one of the eyes, usually the weaker one, just like a light switch. Now the mind is only taking in the sensory information from one eye, making for one distinct picture in our mind. Usually, the lack of fusion is ascribed to the system being brought to and exceeding its breaking point or the range when it cannot achieve binocularity.

How Does Suppression Happen?

This is indeed a good question. If someone is to experience suppression, is it isolated to one eye? The answer, like most things medically related, has a few components to the answer. The answer varies depending on what specific person it’s affecting. Most people experience suppression within a certain binocular range where the demand exceeds what they are able to do. If suppression occurs in this range a person might use their stronger eye over the weaker one. Suppression can be constant or intermittent once a person is in that range meaning once they hit that point the suppression won’t subside until the demand is decreased or, like our light switch metaphor, it will flicker on and off resulting in intermittent suppression. Another feature of suppression is that it can be alternating which means that a person will switch between what eye is relaying information and what eye is not. For the most part, people aren’t aware of the alternation as well as the occurrence of suppression in general.

Symptoms and Treatments

We touched on a few symptoms earlier but we’ll go over them in detail now. The list of symptoms includes but is not limited to:

Eye turn/deviation
Inaccurate depth judgment
Incoordination
Inaccurate eye-hand coordination
Abnormal postural adaptation
Spatial disorientation
Lacking concentration or distractibility while performing visually demanding tasks

Summary

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms it might be worth a look during an advanced vision exam. At this is one of the things we check for throughout a comprehensive vision exam. In the event that suppression is diagnosed we would be able to treat it through vision therapy.

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Testimonials

Vision therapy is well worth the response, time and effort. Our Son had a hard time focusing and writing neatly. After vision therapy Seth could complete a task in half the time if previously took. His abilities to focus improved greatly and so did his handwriting.

Also, he was better at listening. As a parent, we wanted learning to be fun for our Son, and vision therapy made this possible.

Amanda T.

Vision Therapy is well worth the expense, time and effort. Our son had a hard time focusing handwriting neatly. After vision therapy Seth could complete a task in half the time it previously took his abilities to focus and improved greatly and so did his handwriting.

Also, he was better at listening. As a parent you wanted learning to be fun for our son and vision therapy made this possible.

Alexa H.

Vision Therapy has given or son the tools he needs to be able to scan and read the written word more effectively and efficiently.

He love working with John and these working sessions give him the motivation to gladly work on his homework assignments.

It amazed us to see the difference in the tracking of his eyes and along a line of it's from the beginning to the end of the treatment.

Dr. McBryar , Kristen and John are all marvelous and we would recommend them to anyone I only wish that we would have found them sooner!

Charlotte M.

Prior to coming to the institute for vision development my son complained of daily headaches. Therapy has eliminated his headaches completely. I love knowing my son is able to learn pain-free for the rest of his life because of the work that has been done over just a few weeks in this office. He he absolutely loved coming that didn't even feel like going to a doctor or therapy. We are grateful for the relief he was able to find by coming here.

Thank you!

Olivia C.

Seems much less frustrated with life

Reads non-stop and fast

Spelling abilities have been hugely improved

Seems much more confident

Thank You!!!

Kelly O.

When we first came to the practice, my son did not have huge issues, but lots of small ones- trouble with reading, sports (hitting the baseball consistently), coordination, etc- that were not easily detectable,but when put together presented issues. The staff here were all very professional and loving towards him. While I was concerned in the reading, my son was concerned with the athletic side. Seeing improvement night off the bat gave him confidence that i have nor seen in him and made him want to not only Come to therapy, but also made him want to work hard. He has surpassed his grade level and above in reading and hit his first home run this year! Thank you!!!