Nystagmus wiewed thru binoculars

I have congenital nystagmus and when I try to
fixate on an object, the image appears wobbly and
the longer I try to hold the fixation, it appears to be moving
back and forth. However the other day I was looking
thru a pair of regular binoculars and everything appears
stable, with no movement. Do the the binoculars
help keep the image stable on the retina?

Mike

 

(Dave) wrote in

If during normal viewing, your image appears wobbly (the medical term is
"oscillopsia"), then you may have some form of nystagmus other than
congenital, or you may have some other form of nystagmus sitting on top of
your congenital nystagmus. Most congenital nystagmus patients don't
complain of oscillopsia.

Binoculars don't keep images stable on the retina--indeed, they contribute
to image instability because of hand tremors.

My guess is that you have something called "nystagmus blockage syndrome",
in which your nystagmus is suppressed when one eye is in an extreme
position. You probably don't do this when your viewing with both eyes,
because you might see double. When you look through the binoculars,
however, a misaligned eye wouldn't see a target, just blackness, so your
non-viewing eye deviates inward, "blocking" the nystagmus. Most people
with this particular syndrome supress vision in the eye that they
dramatically deviate, but apparently you don't.

When you remove the binoculars, are your eyes pointing at the same point?
What happens if you cover one eye with a patch?

Scott
(not a doctor)

 

One other possibility. Mechanical stimulation of certain portions of the
trigeminal nerve has been shown (if memory serves) to damp congetinal
nystagmus. Possibly, you're hitting a portion of this nerve division
when you hold the binoculars up to your face.

I know this sounds odd, but try scratching your skin lightly above your
eyebrow, low on your forehead, while looking at a visual target, and
observe what happens

Scott