How to cure spasm of accommodation after 3 years of trying?

[alicelena]

For the past 3 years I haven't been able to study because I have been diagnosed with spasm of accommodation with the following symptoms:
- After focusing for a few minutes, vision becomes vertically double (eg. while reading, watching movie, intense eye contact during conversations)
- Tired, dry, stingy eyes
- Headache starting from the eyes and forehead towards the whole head
- Sometimes nausea if I force it longer
- Also recently, slightly more sensitive to (artificial) light than usual

The eye clinics, neurologist and psychologists cannot find any problems in their tests. My eyes work fine except when I have to focus. I do need glasses of +0.5 for reading, but it doesn't relieve the spasms.

It started during a stressful period of deadlines during which I had to work on the computer for a long time without breaks.

I tried several treatments, such as:
- dilation drops (atropin, irifrin, cyclopentolate)
- eye exercises
- exercising (yoga, swimming, fitness, dance)
- neck/shoulder/back massages (10 sessions twice a year)
- vitamins (multi, omega 3, luteine)
- long breaks for my eyes
- warm eye masks

Those are only effective for immediate relief, but not for long term. The fatigue always comes back after focusing again. That's why nowadays I am learning to live with it by using alternative methods for studying (eg. braille, screenreader software). However I hope I can heal my eyes soon.

My questions are:
1. Are there any other treatments I could try?
2. Which treatments that I have tried so far could have effect in longer term?
3. Is spasm of accommodation a correct diagnosis?
4. Are there any other fields of medicine I could look into, since it does not seem to be a optical/neurological/psychological problem?
5. Why are these symptoms still here after all these years? Is this a rare case? Will it ever go away? Can it get worse? Do I just need more patience?

Thank you so much in advance for your advice.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

I would suggest you see an eye MD ophthalmologist that specializes in eye muscle problems (strabismus) sometimes called "pediatric ophthalmologists"  (almost all do adult eye muscle problems). You need to be checked carefully to see if you have a difficult to diagnose eye muscle problem or another problem called "convergence insufficiency"   You may need stronger glasses for near with base in prism.