Ocular Lock – Releasing tension that affects how you experience the world through your eyes

Most people think of “eye problems” as trouble with vision, or the ability to see clearly. However, our eyes do more than just interpret light into shapes and colors. The eyes also focus near and far. They move side to side, up and down, and all around. Our ability to move the eyes is what helps us to be able to focus on words flowing across the page in a book, to see a basketball being passed across the court, or even detect how far away a bird may be flying in the sky. If our eye muscles can’t move correctly or smoothly, it can make it very difficult to perform basic daily tasks or even to feel safe in our environment.

In Koren Specific Technique (KST), we call the inability to move the eyes correctly “Ocular Lock”.

Ocular Lock occurs when the cranial bones (and sometimes facial bones or other spinal segments) affect the ability of the eyes to track up/down/right/left/around, converge (move together), diverge (move apart), and hold their position.

Signs and Symptoms of Ocular Lock

-          Trouble focusing in class. For some children, the inability to pay attention in class is not due to behavioral challenges or mental disabilities. It may be due to the eyes not being able to maintain focus on an object across the room (or even just one side of the room), difficulty tracking the words on a page when asked to read, or struggling to see objects coming closer or farther away from their bodies. If the cranial bones are stuck and preventing the muscles of the eye to move properly, they may not be to perform these simple tasks.

-          Fear of objects coming toward them. Consider PE class or playing on the playground. Kids may not actually be afraid to participate in dodge ball because they don’t’ want to get hit – they may be afraid because their eyes can’t focus efficiently enough to catch a ball or see it clearly and quickly enough to move out of the way. One of the major roles of the eye muscles is to converge and diverge (move closer together and farther away). If the eyes can’t do that, a person may be uncomfortable with objects moving quickly toward or away from them.

-          Inability to hit a baseball with a bat or catch a ball. If the eyes cannot track a ball from far away to close up, the person will not be able to focus and consistently make contact with the ball.

-          Headaches when reading. Many people have good vision, but struggle to read – even suffering from headaches and eye strain. This may be linked to difficulty using the eye muscles that help move side to side, up and down, and convergence. It causes straining of the eyes and head muscles, that may then lead to tension headaches. 

-          Lack of interest with reading, school, and learning in general. The frustration of not being able to focus or concentrate because of improper eye function may discourage a person from learning to love the process of learning. Exhaustion from straining to focus and move the eyes may inhibit the educational process and then come across as lack of motivation, behavioral issues, stubbornness, etc.

-          History of Birth Trauma – It’s important to look back to the very beginning of cranial tension – the womb space and the birth process! In the womb space, for example, if a baby is in a breech position for a long period of time, it can affect the shape of the head and the movement of the cranial bones because of how the head is tucked up against the lower rib cage. In the birth process, there are many opportunities for jamming the cranial bones and causing some form of head trauma. Forceps, vacuum extraction, getting stuck on the pubic bone, having a hand up by the face, etc. may affect the head’s ability to adapt. If this is your or one of your children, don’t hesitate to ask questions and have a pediatric or cranial adjusting Chiropractor check it over!

-          And more!

How can a Chiropractic Adjustment help with Ocular Lock?

A Chiropractor trained in KST can check the patient while looking in different directions (usually as if looking around the clock one hour at a time) and check for any restrictions in the cranial bones, facial bones and spinal segments that may be contributing to problems with the eyes.

One of my favorite bones of the body, the sphenoid bone, resides in the center of the head and touches all the other bones of the skull and even some of the bones in the face! This bone must move correctly for our brain and cranial nerves to be able to properly communicate with other parts of our body. The eye itself is innervated by four cranial nerves (II, III, IV and VI) that pass through the sphenoid bone. Three of those cranial nerves are responsible for eye movement and the other one is for our vision. The sphenoid bone is one of the most commonly involved bones in cases of Ocular Lock due to its role in the neural pathways of cranial nerves extending from the brain to the eyes and eye muscles.

For example, one of my patients plays softball in the summers. Typically she was a consistent hitter, but had a dry spell at the plate over the course of several games. I checked her eyes while looking at one o’clock, two o’clock, and so on until I found tension in her head. While holding her gaze on the spot where her cranium tightened, I adjusted her cranial bones until they released and the tension disappeared. I also checked her cranium and spine while she was in her batting stance and watching a pretend baseball moving toward her. She had several restrictions along the path of the ball coming toward her, showing that her eyes were struggling to converge as the ball moved toward her bat. After adjusting all of the restrictions that showed up, she had a softball game that night. At her first at bat, she smashed the first pitch for an in-the-park home run. Later, she caught a fly ball at third base and proceeded to have a triple play. She could track the ball coming toward her again and anticipate more efficiently what was going on around her so she could function at her best!

There are many examples of how Ocular Lock can affect a person’s ability to perform optimally. If you have ever had a traumatic brain injury, head collision, difficult birth, wear glasses, have chronic headaches, struggle to pay attention in class, feel like you can’t concentrate while reading, or are just wondering if this may be something that could help you, please contact Mind and Body Family Wellness for more information and to answer any questions you may have.

Cheers to great eye function!

Yours in Health,

Dr. Jessica Tallman, DC
Mind and Body Family Wellness