Brain Injury and Stroke

When I started at Dr. Ho’s office, my vision was the most limiting factor in recovering from a moderate TBI. My PT referred me to the office and I’m so thankful they did. I went from being able to read for around 1 minute to being able to read chapters at a time; therapy restored my ability to read for pleasure. The exercises also improved my vision to the point that I could return to driving. To me, one of the most significant changes was being able to transition from sunglasses (wearing them constantly indoors and outdoors due to light sensitivity) to tinted contact lenses. These lenses helped to restore my confidence and feel less self conscious. Gradually, we were able to work on the exercises that helped me transition away from the contact – now I can see without any issues with light sensitivity. I am so grateful for my time at Ho Vision Group. It truely helped me regain aspects of my life and was a big step in my recovery from TBI.

I survived a stroke in August of 2015 at the age of 35. As a result, I experienced left neglect and a field cut in both eyes. I was referred to Dr. Ho by my occupational therapist and I’m so grateful. My goal was to get back to driving and be more independent. I was very discouraged when I first started, but Dr. Ho always told me I would get to where I wanted to be with consistency and hard work. It’s is a great feeling to have a positive Dr. that believes in your recovery and I am so glad I found Dr. Ho. She truly loves what she does and she has been a blessing to me! I am finally close to taking my drivers exam and I see my improvement from working with her. I feel confident getting behind the wheel now and I always mention her to other people when given the chance.

I was having problems seeing correctly and reading for many (4) years. I was treated with diagnosis of sinus problems and Fuch’s disorder. As problems progressed with dizziness and imbalance, they did a CT and MRI to check for any other problems. I was diagnosed with large hemangioma (brain tumor) and it was excised. Since it was large, my left eye was not ready to be aligned along with the right. Going to see Dr. Ho was great! During a whole year with exercises to direct my vision and strengthen my eye muscles was remarkable. Every visit to Dr. Ho introduced me to new exercises. Over time (approximately 2 months), I was able to read better and focus. After 3 months, I was able to drive again. I have continued to use the exercises to strengthen my eye muscles and my vision is great. I am very thankful and blessed for all her help. I would suggest anyone who needs vision problems addressed and change to Dr. Ho. I continuously do all my exercises because I see the change not as good as I would be if I did the exercises. I will not stop doing them because I see the change in being lazy and I assume my eye muscles get lazy. It is very remarkable ho Dr. Ho and her knowledge and training have helped my eyes get much better over a period of time.

I have been receiving treatment with Dr. Ho for the last couple months. The reason I was here I had a traumatic brain injury two year ago and I have been going through this journey of seeing all these doctors and specialists. One of the things that I was struggling was my eyes and my balance. After doing therapy at Vanderbilt for the last couple months, I felt like I had come a long ways with my balance but I was still having a lot of trouble with my eyes. So they referred me to Dr. Ho a couple months ago. Initially I struggled a lot with just like focusing on moving objects, really sensitivity to brightness of light, and just focusing on certain objects. Also just noticing my periphery, a lot of times I would just see what’s ahead of me, but not able to take in what all my surrounding areas. Through working with Dr. Ho in the past two or three months, I’ve improved a ton. Being to look at screens and correctly reading. Essentially everything she does is trying to retrain those neural pathways in your eyes to work properly. The way she describes it is “these things that were in your subconscious that were easy to do are now really taxing and really hard to do”. Essentially it’s training your eyes and your head to do these neural pathways and processes again to be as easy as they once were. So even though I’m moving back to Alabama now and I’m not completely all the way better, I am thankful and I feel like I’ve made tremendous improvement over the last few months even though it is kind of a grind with all this therapy. It’s not immediate gratification. I really feel like by sticking to it day-by-day and accepting the grind of it, I’ve noticed over the long-term my symptoms are improving. It has been encouraging because like I said, this has been a two year long journey that I’ve been walking on and a lot of it has been frustrating periods that I haven’t improved. These last couple of months have given me a lot of hope moving forward that I can get better and I won’t be stuck like this forever. I’d definitely encourage you to give it an option because it definitely has had a huge impact on my life.

On November 7, 2017, while leaving the Wal-Mart parking lot, I had an “episode” with my eyes, which I thought was an ocular migraine, since I had those before. It seemed at huge white cloud was all around me and I lost my bearings. I knew exactly where I was, where I needed to go, but seemed unable to find my way around the parking lot to the exit. IT took me several minutes to do, but was able to leave and go to where I needed to be. I crossed Hwy 41 towards my home. I had the very clear sensation that I was going the correct way, but things seemed strange. I did arrive safely, unloaded my packages and put them up. I continued to feel “weird” but was convinced it was an ocular migraine. IT was not until the next morning that I went to the optometrist where he checked my visual field and informed me that I had a stroke. A feather would have knocked me over. I had no other symptoms; no motor skill deficits, no speech issues, and I was aware of everything around me and what I was doing. He insisted I have a brain scan, which I had at a local hospital. A neurology referral was suggested, so I chose to go to Vanderbilt. Further studies confirmed the stroke and visual field loss in the bottom left quadrant of each eye. Another referral was made to Pi Beta Phi for evaluation r/t my ability to drive safely. It was determined that I was not able to do so. I was given the option of two physicians who work in the field of vision loss. I chose Dr. Ho. After nine months of treatment by Dr. Ho, I have recovered sufficiently to take a driving test, which I passed on September 14th. I cannot imagine what my life would be like without the treatment she gave me. There were times when my frustration level was out the roof, but she encouraged me to continue because things were getting better. It is amazing what the brain can accomplish! I had no idea how the exercises were helping, but each visit was better than the last. I spent many hours practicing the exercises. It was a daily vigil and not easy to maintain. My frustration level was high because of the loss of freedom. I am a goer and doer, not accustomed to depending on others to get me to the places I needed to go. To say it was a challenge is putting it mildly. I was frustrated and got discouraged at times, but I can say, without a doubt, that it was worth every minute of practice. It truly is amazing what the brain can accomplish. I will be forever thankful to Dr. Ho and how she encouraged me and helped me to regain the skills I needed to drive. If you are having issues such as I had, seek her out. She is amazing!!

In the beginning, I could only see double and I was sent home from the hospital with a patch over one eye. I was recommended vision therapy by my nurse at mid-town St. Thomas to see Dr. Ho ASAP! What a blessing that recommendation has been to me and to regaining my vision correctly without it being blurry or doubled. upon seeing Dr. Ho, she immediately told me to take the patch off and not to wear it anymore! She gave me eye exercises to strengthen my eye muscles because one eye would not follow with the other which caused my double vision. With Dr. Ho’s expertise she has put me on the path of regaining my eye sight in 6 months, not 18-24 months that I was told it would take to regain my eye sight without being double vision by the doctors at St. Thomas mid-town and they also said I may ‘never’ have my sight back without seeing double! The patch is very bad and doesn’t help to build the eye muscles back up – to me it weakens them. Dr. Ho has truly saved my vision and independence in my life! Without coming to her, I might have given up the possibility for any quality of independence for the rest of my life. Dr. Ho and her staff are 5 star quality professionals. Her assistant has been so attentive to all my needs throughout this healing process. And for that, I’m greatly appreciative!