Press Release | October 29th 2004 | Mary Russo
October 29, 2004 – Birmingham, MI – From doctor’s offices, emergency departments even the Mayo Clinic come the “silent” sufferers; patients who are experiencing headaches, dizziness and other symptoms with no relief and no hope left. Because of a fortunate set of circumstances, these patients are finding their way to Vision Specialists of Birmingham and to Dr. Debby Feinberg to be fit with special lenses that in many cases, may be the only treatment required.
Dr. Feinberg is at the forefront of the practice of Neurovisual Optometry which includes the treatment of Vertical Heterophoria. Vertical Heterophoria is a condition where a patient’s eyes and sight are not perfectly aligned. In order to see properly, the body compensates to overcome the imbalance. The strain that results causes a long list of problems including: dizziness, severe headaches (sometimes diagnosed as migraines or
sinus problems), lightheadedness, poor depth perception, unsteadiness while walking, light sensitivity, neck and shoulder discomfort, trouble reading, car sickness and a feeling of being overwhelmed in large stores or malls.
Dr. Feinberg’s patients have gone from doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital seeking relief. “My patients have suffered on the average of 8 – 12 years before they come to see me,” says Dr. Feinberg. They have frequently tried many medications and therapies with minimal or no help for their symptoms.
How did Dr. Feinberg discover this amazing connection between condition and cure? Herein lies the fortunate set of circumstances. While a student at the Illinois College of Optometry, Dr. Feinberg became interested in Heterophoria while treating a patient with the condition. Then, her brother-in-law Dr. Arthur Rosner, an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist in Sterling Heights, was found to have Vertical Heterophoria, and Dr. Feinberg was able to help him. After that, he began to notice similar symptoms among some of his patients. Dr. Feinberg’s husband, Dr. Mark Rosner, himself an Emergency Physician, began recognizing that he too had patients that were baffling doctors with chronic headaches and dizziness. None of them were responding to conventional therapies or treatments. They sent these patients to Dr. Feinberg, and most all of them experienced marked improvement.
How in the age of specialists and aggressive diagnostic testing did this diagnosis and treatment elude discovery? “It was a case of different ranches of medicine not exchanging information,” says Dr. Mark Rosner.
The “exchange of information” between Dr. Arthur Rosner and Dr. Feinberg resulted in the development of the “Quality of Vision Questionnaire”, their greatest diagnostic tool. It consists of 29 questions, describing a number of situations and symptoms that reveal to the doctor if there is an optometrically correctable cause for the patients’ symptoms, including Vertical Heterophoria.
Treatment of Vertical Heterophoria involves the use of prism lenses. In some cases relief is immediate and dramatic. In some instances, patients leave Dr. Feinberg’s office wearing the “test” glasses, not wanting to remove them because their dizziness and headaches had disappeared. “I treated a woman who suffered with migraine headaches for 9 years, had been to a dozen specialists, whose symptoms disappeared when she was fitted with the proper lenses,” says Dr. Feinberg.
“It is heart warming to know I’ve helped these people, and heart breaking to know how long and how much they have suffered,” says Dr. Feinberg. She is working to make other health care professionals aware of the diagnosis and treatment of Vertical Heterophoria by speaking at professional conferences, writing articles and teaching. The information is valuable, “it is another important tool in our diagnostic toolbox,” she
says.
Dr. Feinberg is now receiving referrals from ENT Doctors, Emergency Physicians, Internists, Chiropractic Physicians, Psychologists, Pediatricians and Physical Therapists. It is not uncommon to have patients refer friends and family members to Dr. Feinberg now that they recognize the symptoms.
Dr. Debby Feinberg is in practice with her father, Dr. Paul Feinberg, and together they are one of the oldest professional eye care practices in Oakland County. They recently opened their new location, Vision Specialists of Birmingham, at 700 N. Old Woodward, #202 in Birmingham, Michigan. They provide care for the traditional optometric patient as well as the patient requiring Neurovisual Optometric services, and treat patients by
appointment – 248.258.9000.