DEAR ABBY: I want to thank you for a letter you published in 2007. It came from a woman saying her daughter had "convergence insufficiency disorder," in which the eye drifts and causes double vision. I was 61 and had that problem, but I never knew what it was.
I would get headaches from reading and did poorly in school. A teacher once suggested my mother have my eyes checked. The doctor gave me the standard eye chart test, which showed nothing. He recommended more tests, but Mom reasoned they would find nothing and be a waste of money. She insisted I was lazy, and believed corporal punishment would make me study harder.
In 1980, after I had a family, I started night school. It was difficult, but I taught myself to focus on each word before moving to the next one. After you printed that letter, I went to an eye doctor who prescribed "prism" glasses, which made reading much easier. Many people have been diagnosed with this problem, but I'm sure a lot more have not been diagnosed. Children can be given exercises to correct it, but the older a person gets, the less likely the exercises will help.
Your column reaches a lot of people, and it would be nice if you could mention this again to help others the way you helped me. Thank you. -- BOB IN PENNSYLVANIA
DEAR BOB: Among other things, my column is sometimes a community bulletin board. I'm glad something you read here made your life better. Because good vision is increasingly important in our tech-focused world, it is to everyone's benefit to have an eye examination once a year. Anyone with persistent vision problems should schedule an evaluation with an ophthalmologist or an optometrist so it can be corrected.