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Prism
Power
EMMELLE
Thurs., Sept 6th, Fri., Sept 7th &
Sat., Sept 8th 10-5
Local doctors treat patients worldwide
to correct rare eye condition.
Marielle Temkin I JN Intern
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
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50
August 30 * 2012
the eyes fight for alignment. This
causes a whole host of issues rang-
ing from blurred and double vision,
headaches, dizziness, head tilt, nausea,
motion sickness, unsteadiness when
walking — the list goes on and on.
"I used to get regular massages in
addition to going to the chiropractor,
and I took a lot of Motrin," Forta said,
"but a lot of my neck and shoulder
pain was alleviated when I started
wearing the glasses Dr. Feinberg made.
Not all of the pain was gone, but it was
enough that I felt significant relief"
Feinberg, 55, along with her father,
Dr. Paul Feinberg, 86, and their col-
league Dr. Morrie Dubin treat patients
from across the country and the world.
This is because they run the only oph-
thalmologist practice in the country
that treats vertical heterophoria, which
affects about 5 percent of the total pop-
ulation. "We've found only one other
doctor in Germany who also treats
this," Paul Feinberg said.
Debby Feinberg's journey with VH
started in 1985 with her brother-in-law,
Dr. Arthur Rosner, an ear, nose and
throat (ENT) doctor.
"I was with him one day when he
pulled out a wedge prism to read with:'
she said. "He explained that a doctor
from medical school gave it to him to
help with eye strain he had when read-
ing:'
When she asked him if the prism
helped, he responded negatively.
She believed she could help him, so
he came into the office for an exam.
"I thought that if I put prisms in his
glasses, it might alleviate his strain:'
she said. Her hunch proved to be right.
Twelve years after she treated
Rosner, he came to her with an idea.
"As an ENT, Arthur sees a lot of
dizzy patients because dizziness is
typically an inner-ear problem," Debby
said. "He wasn't able to help some
of them, so he tried sending those
patients to other eye doctors because
he thought they might suffer from VH
as he does."
At first, he resisted sending the
patients to Debby because they are
related, but the other ophthalmologists
he sent them to were unable to help.
"He explained to me that these
patients sounded like he did before he
started wearing prism glasses, and he
thought I could help them as I helped
him 12 years ago:' she said. "I was
doubtful, but I agreed to see a few."
She found she was able to help most
of the patients Arthur sent her. As she
saw more and more patients with VH,
her husband, emergency physician Dr.
Mark Rosner, conducted research that
led him to discover Raymond Roy. In
the 1950s, Roy had an insight as to how
prisms could help people with VII.
"For whatever reason, no one picked
up on his work at the time," Mark said.
Using the experience of the
Feinbergs and Dubin in treating VII
plus information Mark discovered
when researching, the team at Vision
Specialists of Michigan in Bloomfield
Hills perfected the process of using
prisms to treat patients with VII. Since
1995, they have treated more than
7,000 VII patients who, on average, get
70 to 80 percent better.
Manifestations
"Our patients come to us with medical
histories full of MRIs and visits to vari-
ous kinds of doctors:' Paul Feinberg
said. This is because the symptoms
VII presents do not appear to be eye-
related when you first look at them;
typically, when someone suffers from
dizziness or anxiety their first instinct
is not that they have an eye problem.
Dizziness can cause anxiety, which
can lead to agoraphobia. "People with
VII can get very overwhelmed in
large, open, busy spaces such as a mall
or stores like Home Depot:' Debby
explained. "Some also feel too anxious
to drive."
Another effect of VH is that kids
are sometimes tagged as having atten-