The Link Between Motion Sickness, Nausea & Eye Muscle Strain

If you frequently experience motion sickness and nausea, you may never have considered the fact that your eyes could be causing these problems. Symptoms such as these are often the result of two common forms of Binocular Vision Dysfunction (BVD) known as Vertical Heterophoria (VH) and Superior Oblique Palsy (SOP). With these conditions, one eye has moved slightly out of alignment with the other, resulting in the images your eyes see being slightly out of position vertically.

The brain rectifies this situation by forcing the eyes back into alignment, which puts a great deal of stress on the eye muscles and causes them to become fatigued and overworked. Symptoms such as dizziness and nausea, anxiety, neck pain, headaches, and difficulty reading may appear.

Eye Pain and Nausea: What’s the Connection?

Eye misalignment can cause symptoms like motion sickness, vertigo, and migraines, often misdiagnosed. BVD, including VH (Vertical Heterophoria) affects about 20% of the population. Misaligned eyes force extraocular muscles to work harder, leading to eye strain. Eye misalignment can lead to eye strain, nausea, vertigo, and migraine headaches by sending conflicting signals to the brain, resulting in dizziness or motion sickness.

Prolonged eye strain can also cause chronic headaches and migraines, with many finding relief after correcting eye misalignment. Symptoms like blurred vision, light sensitivity, double vision, difficulty focusing, nausea, and migraine headaches should prompt a visit to an eye care professional. Addressing eye misalignment can significantly improve quality of life.

Why Is BVD Frequently Missed?

Standard eye exams focus primarily on visual acuity, assessing how well your eyes can see. Binocular vision, or how your eyes work together, is often overlooked. Standard tests typically detect only severe misalignments (ex: double vision), missing smaller issues like VH and SOP that can cause motion sickness and nausea. 

Digital eye strain from frequent use of computers, phones, tablets, gaming devices, and more can also lead to nausea, vertigo, and migraines. Computer vision syndrome (CVS) is a common misdiagnosis for BVD. These subtle misalignments are often missed because:

• Standard eye exams mainly detect refractive errors like nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism.
• Binocular vision dysfunction symptoms can be mistaken for gastrointestinal, inner ear issues, or stress-related migraines.
• Most eye care professionals are not trained or equipped to perform specialized binocular vision tests.

Key Points:

• Routine eye exams focus on visual acuity, not binocular vision.
• Smaller misalignments causing VH and SOP are often undiagnosed.
• Symptoms may be mistaken for other health issues.
• Specialized binocular vision tests are essential but not always available.
• Early diagnosis and treatment of eye misalignment can improve comfort and quality of life.

Treatment for VH and SOP

Treating Vertical Heterophoria (VH) and Superior Oblique Palsy (SOP) involves a multifaceted approach tailored to each patient’s needs. Effective treatment addresses both symptoms and underlying misalignment to enhance visual function and quality of life.

• Corrective Lenses: Specialized prism glasses help realign the eyes, reducing effort and alleviating symptoms like double vision, eye strain, and headaches by bending light to compensate for misalignment.
• Vision Therapy: While not an effective treatment option for VH, some doctors recommend non-surgical exercises to improve eye muscle coordination for other binocular vision issues like convergence insufficiency.  These activities include:
  • Eye Tracking Exercises: Enhance the ability to follow moving objects.
  • Focus Flexibility Exercises: Train eyes to switch focus between near and distant objects.
  • Eye Teaming Exercises: Improve coordination between both eyes.
• Surgical Intervention: For severe cases, eye muscle surgery adjusts the position or length of the eye muscles to correct significant misalignments when other treatments are insufficient.
• Lifestyle Adjustments: Managing symptoms through:
  • Ergonomic Changes: Optimize workspace setup to minimize eye strain.
  • Regular Breaks: Reduce eye fatigue by taking frequent breaks during intense focus tasks.
  • Visual Hygiene: Maintain a proper distance from screens and follow the 20-20-20 rule (every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds). Implementing different screen usage habits can also help stop nausea, vertigo, migraine headaches, and other symptoms.

Regular Monitoring and Follow-Up: Ongoing appointments with an eye care professional ensure the treatment plan’s effectiveness and adjust as needed for changes in symptoms or visual function.

Schedule a NeuroVisual Examination

The team at Vision Specialists of Michigan wants to help you find relief from motion sickness and nausea. Call us at [company_phone] or fill out our screening questionnaire, and you could soon be back to living and enjoying a normal life.