Ghosting Vision

I am an 18 year old college student. Recently I have been experiencing "ghosting vision", where I can kind of see two images, but the ghost image is much fainter and not completely distinct from the regular image. I have vertical ghosting, so the ghost image is slightly above the actual object. Its worse with bright objects on a dark background (TV, LED alarm clock, etc.). It goes away if i look out of the top part of my eye but gets worse after blinking or looking straight or out of the lower part of my eye. Also if I squint a little bit it helps, but if i open my eyes wide it gets worse I first seemed to notice it about 2 months ago and its getting worse. I have the ghosting with both eyes open or with one eye closed, it seems to be slightly worse in my left eye. I wear contacts and glasses, and the ghost images are apparent whether i wear contacts, glasses, or neither (actually worse with neither). My prescription has not changed in awhile, but my eyes havent gotten any worse and I just visited an opthamologist a week ago, who said it was probably dr. She said it was probably dry eyes. I did have surgery to correct a drifting eye (right eye) when i was 2 years old, and i have somewhat of a droopier eyelid in my left eye (eyes are very straight though according to my opthamologist, but can be very slightly off, "lazy eye").  I dont think it is because of having a lazy-ish eye because i still have ghosting with both eyes open or with one eye open (either or). If it is a possible factor, I do tend to have problems with stress (i am in college after all) and am somewhat of a hypochondriac. Could that be making it worse?

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

Ghosting is usually due to a residual refractive error-astigmatism or sphere.

Dr. O.