Health Tip: If Your Head Posture is Unusual

-- If your head isn't typically kept upright and is leaning forward, backward, to the left or right, there could be various causes involving vision, the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus says.

Here's the association's partial list of examples:

• Eye misalignment: A person may compensate for misaligned eyes in order to prevent double vision and relieve eye strain.
• Nystagmus: Some patients with these "jerky" eye movements will develop a head turn or tilt to make the eye movements slow or stop.
• Difference in vision between the eyes: in some cases, a person will turn the head to place an eye with better vision closer to the target.
• Ptosis: A person with droopy eyelid may elevate the chin to help see beneath the droopy lid.
• Refractive errors: A person may turn the head to the side to compensate for a refractive vision problem, such as astigmatism. It is thought that the head turn allows the person to see better by looking through the narrowed openings of the eyelids, which simulates "squinting."

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Posted: October 2018