anyone with Nystagmus?

[Amorosasrojas]

I was just wondering of there is anyone with Nystagmus here, or if anyone knows of new cures.

[misst_dwn]

I do not have nystagmus, but my son does.  He has not been diagnosed yet, we go in a few weeks to Emory.  The first thing that they did was to put him in glasses.  He is only six months old so we do not know yet if it has helped his vision but it seems to have stabled his eyes some.  There is also something called a null point, it is a way of holding your head or positioning your body, from what I can tell from this null point vision should improve.  Do you know what is causing the nystagmus or what type it is?  

[John C Hagan]

Nystagmus is a difficult problem. If a person is born with it they will likely always have it and it almost always is associated with reduced vision anywhere for "okay" but not normal to legal blindness. (not complete blindness!)

If nystagmus develops in someone that wasn't born with it a thorough neurological and neuro-ophthalmic work up needs to be done to find out why it developed.

Infants with nystagmus should be seen by a pediatric ophthalmologist ASAP.  Emory University (Atlanta, GA, USA) Ophthalmology is a fantastic world known ophthalmology program and consistently ranked in the top 10 training programs in the United States. (I trained there I'm proud to say).  

The null point is the direction of gaze in which the nystagmus is of the lowest amplitute or even stops.  Surgery on the eye muscles is often done to try and move the null point to the straight ahead position to make the nystagmus less noticeable but more important to see better.

There is ongoing research into nystagmus cause and treatment and the future holds hope that more people with this problem will be helped.

JCH MD