Ordinarily, our eyes work in perfect unison, enabling the brain to unify the 2 images the eyes send into one clear image. When our eyes are even slightly misaligned — a condition called Binocular Vision Dysfunction (BVD) — the eyes and brain struggle to fuse the two images. The condition can cause various symptoms, including motion sickness.

If you experience motion sickness, schedule a consultation with an optometrist trained and experienced in developmental or functional optometry who will assess your vision and recommend optimal treatment.

senior woman wearing eyeglasses 640BVD can develop as a result of a stroke, brain injury, or similar neurological disorders. Facial asymmetry, where one eye is physically higher than the other, can also cause BVD. Facial asymmetry or a nerve or eye muscle abnormality is something many people are born with.

Binocular Vision Dysfunction can cause nausea, dizziness and motion sickness. While the exact cause of these symptoms is unknown, what we do know is that they can occur when the brain receives conflicting information from each of the body’s three balance-sensing systems.

The three systems include the eyes, the inner ear and the position-sensing nerves in your arms, legs, neck, and head. Nausea, dizziness, and motion sickness occur when there is a conflict between the signals coming from your eyes, your inner ear, and position-sensing nerves.

For example, when sitting on a roller coaster, the eyes and inner ears detect the person’s movement, despite the fact that the limbs are stationary — the legs are not pumping, the arms are not swinging. Therefore, the position-sensing nerves in the rest of the body are communicating to the brain that the body is not in motion. This conflicts with the information the eyes and inner ears are sending to the brain, leading to nausea and motion sickness.