Think Outside The Box

“One year ago last week, my son suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which after 5 months left him unable to read in spite of a 20/20 vision diagnosis at our local optometrist. This was quite unnerving as he was about to begin his junior year taking multiple advanced placement classes that required advanced reading skills. We were referred to Dr. Zelinsky by a friend whose son had suffered similar injuries and symptoms and who had been helped by the Mind-Eye Connection.

During our first visit, Dr. Zelinsky quickly diagnosed my son with a condition in which the eyes, the brain, and the auditory processing parts of the brain do not function together, resulting in his inability to read. Upon having the correct lenses placed in front of my son’s eyes, he was able to read a passage of text right there in the office. In the following weeks, his headaches subsided as the nervous system calmed down and de-stressed. Even his reading comprehension returned better than ever with the new glasses. Over time, my son’s brain was able to resume working with the eyes and ears, and we are almost at the point where he no longer needs his glasses in order to read.

Without this visual treatment that thinks outside the box and makes connections that traditional optometry fails to make, my son would have been impaired and would have been forced to give up his rigorous college-bound track he had worked so hard to achieve. We are very grateful to Dr. Zelinsky for her problem solving, teaching spirit, and intense curiosity to find answers outside of traditional, but often incomplete optometry methods.

Our story doesn’t end there, however. Several years ago, my second son began having visual spatial issues in which he would accidentally drag extra numbers from his periphery vision into the problem on which he was working. This caused many mistakes and began destroying his confidence in Honors Algebra II Trig, which had been his favorite subject. In addition, a gifted student, my son was also having trouble with reading comprehension. This was troubling. He too had visited our local optometrist and was given a 20/20 diagnosis. Once Dr. Zelinsky diagnosed him and we purchased glasses according to that diagnosis, these issues improved immediately. He even seems to be able to focus and concentrate for longer periods of time and is slowly gaining back the lost confidence.

In addition to my older sons, my youngest son had already worn glasses for about a year because of an issue in which his eyes would go in and out of focus, causing them to be exhausted by the end of the day. He struggled to read a line of text without having to reread it several times, which reduced his comprehension. He was also making silly mistakes in math. His glasses helped these issues somewhat and his eyes didn’t feel quite so tired by the end of the day as they no longer had to struggle to focus. However, the progress seemed partial, and because my other two boys had been helped with neuro-optometry, I decided to take my youngest son to Dr. Zelinsky as well. He is happy to report that with his new glasses he can read much faster and more efficiently, remembering what he has read. He has consistently scored As in math with very few errors. Dr. Zelinsky was even able to help him with taking computerized tests, on which he had consistently tested much lower. In his case, traditional optometry was able to help him to a certain extent but was limited in that it was incomplete.

After our experiences with the Mind-Eye Connection, I have referred many students I teach to Dr. Zelinsky. I believe there is so much more that neuro-optometry can do to improve eyesight, coordination, attention span, reading comprehension, and stress levels. There are also other conditions than traditional methods like typical near-far vision tests and eye health exams fail to treat.

If it weren’t for Dr. Zelinsky’s diagnosis and treatment, my oldest son would have had to give up his dream of becoming a mechanical engineer. Now he is being courted by some of the top universities in the nation and has scored as high in the reading portion of the ACT in math and science! I wonder how many other people are out there walking around with a 20/20 diagnosis wondering why they are not performing like they used to, or perhaps they have never been able to perform at the level they know they can. It can make the difference between discontentment and fulfillment, insecurity and confidence, and mediocrity (and in many cases deficiency) and excellence!”

~Tracey G, Illinois