His black pupils cling to the wand. Despite the passing minutes, Sara
(the first name has been changed)
does not let go of the orange dot at its end which oscillates on each side of her brushing. "Are you okay? », Asks her, eye to eye, the orthoptist, Charlotte Rigal Sastourné, seated in front of her patient, in her Parisian office. With the other hand, this specialist in visual disturbances, holds in front of the student's right mirette, a sort of graduated ruler, in Plexiglas. "Thanks to this bar of prisms, I am training his eyes," she explains, concentrated. The effort seems slim. In fact, it is painful for Sara, who is starting her first vision rehabilitation session.
Since the confinement transformed the lectures of lecture halls into digital handouts, to be studied at home, the future lawyer has spent the year, absorbed by her computer screen, cloistered in her two-room apartment in Boulogne (Hauts-de -Seine), between his bed and his coffee table.
“Even the art of pleading is done on Zoom,” she quipped.
In fourteen months, I've only had one day of college lessons ”.
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Eight hours a day revising the bar exam, to the point of nausea.
“There are times when I see the lines getting mixed up, I have sudden dizziness, headaches and even vomit.
When it hurts too much, I close the shutters and I stay in the dark, doing nothing.
It's really disabling, ”says the student, slowed down in her program.
Every hour, victim of eyestrain, Sara has to pick up the phone, put on her glasses, cast her tired gaze out the window, towards the small pavilions in the distance.
The bar exam is approaching, it will be in four months.
"I am in the m…".
"My patient base has increased by 30%"
Myopia, astigmatism… Nothing! Dehydration? Internal ear problem? His ophthalmologist first sent him for a check-up with the orthoptist. Obviously, this is indeed a "lack of convergence". The medial rights, two muscles of the eye, which allow you to see up close, are overworked, resulting in them being made stronger. "My patient population has increased by 30% since the confinements, their symptoms are more important than before", notes Charlotte Rigal Sastourné.
Through the large graduated ruler, the orthoptist deflects Sara's eye, which must compensate by contracting her muscle. “See on my bar, there are different levels, I go from one diopter to 45, imagine it's pounds. The more weight you put on your arms, the more your muscles will strengthen, it's the same for the eye. By repeating these exercises, his headaches and dizziness will disappear ”.
In 6 to 12 sessions, of 20 minutes, she will have great eyes, able to go through entire books.
“Come on, we want, she encourages him, perfect!
Now close them and roll them up to relax them ”.
Sara grimaces, training resumes.
In front of her face, the prisms parade, larger and larger, until the student sees double.
“There are two sticks there,” she says, limited to 20 diopters, instead of 40, proof of the lack of tone in her muscles.
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The screens are not the cause, they only revealed this fragility, which can be innate, caused by aging or, like Sara, by visual overactivity.
“If you suffer from insufficient convergence but you are a shepherd, looking at his sheep in the distance, you will have no symptoms, image specialist, teacher.
But if, watching them, he reads all day, that will be the case!
".
Still poorly known, orthoptics is gradually starting to become more democratic.
"As soon as my patients talk about it, I see all their friends and families arriving at the office," laughs Charlotte Rigal Sastourné.
People are starting to understand that having a headache a lot is not normal.
"