DD feeling sick and lightheaded after reading?

[Dizzylin]

My DD is 8 and an avid reader, she reads every night before she goes to sleep. She has started to come down after cut off time (we give her a time to stop reading) and complaining that she is feeling sick and dizzy. She has complained of feeling sick and dizzy at school too.

We have tried to work out what is causing her to feel this way and the only common thing seems to be her reading and that it seems to happen after she's been reading. Has anybody had any experience of this?

No but has she had an eye test recently?

Yeah, my first thought is it’s a severe reaction to eye strain. I’d definitely take her to an optician to rule that out.

Eye test?? Seems the obvious first move.

Yes that's what I am thinking but just wondered if anybody had experienced it and found out what caused it.

Optom here - It could be one of lots of things, convergence insufficiency, eye muscle imbalance, occulomotor gaze disorder, long sightedness, astigmatism, antimetropia, anisometropia, accommodative issue. There's no way of knowing without an eye exam. All are relatively straight forward to sort out.

Thank you, we have an appointment booked for Sunday.

Sometimes when I’m concentrating (sometimes reading, but always when plucking my eyebrows!) I sort of forget to breathe, or maybe breathe very shallow or hyperventalate or something... that can make me feel dizzy and sick. Maybe it’s to do with that?

Is she reading a book or on something with a screen?

She does have a tablet but she reads paper books. Fingers crossed we will get some answers tomorrow otherwise it's the docs on Monday.

Oh :( I was thinking it might have been screen sickness. Hope you get to the bottom of it!

Is it positional? As an adult I used to get this thing when I'd feel dizzy when my head was in certain positions. For me this was most pronounced when reading a book in a chair, or using a laptop. Can't remember what it's called, but was caused by debris in my inner ear. Doctor had me do these strange movements with my head, and it fixed it almost immediately.

Thank you for all of your responses. We are picking up some glasses after school, her eye sight is actually ok but the optician thought that maybe it is her eye muscles adjusting when she's stopped reading. It's a very small prescription.

I've had the exact same thing Suzie so I know what you mean.

If the glasses don't help in the next few days we will be going to the gp.