Vital Visionaries: Conger Family – Avoiding an ADHD and Dyslexia Diagnosis with Vision Therapy

Life Before Vision Therapy 0:00

Hi, I'm Seth and this is Margaret Conger and we're from Morrison, Colorado. I would say our life before our son saw Dr. Alphabomb was very uncertain, and Atlas's behavior was, it was scary. And we had taken Atlas to an occupational therapist. We just weren't seeing a whole lot of progress, but he did have pretty explosive meltdowns fairly frequently. They would last anywhere from 30 to minutes to 1 hour and a half, one to three times a day. get very close to things and either lick things or touch things.

And it was sometimes inappropriate. We sort of felt like we were walking on eggshells all the time. we never really knew what was triggering these explosive meltdowns. I mean, sure, maybe being tired or hungry, but we really tried to stay on top of that. It was very sad to see our son in this state. It was scary for us because we were sort of at a loss to how to help him and support him, and it was exhausting on top of that as well. So we did an intensive training across the time of a week with Atlas and we started noticing some pretty distinct changes within just a few days of vision therapy.

And those were a significant decrease in the length of time or even the frequency of meltdowns. We saw immediately more attention So we could, prior to this, we would say Atlas's name four or five times with no recognition and no interaction.

Early Improvements During Training 1:51

And, you know, even while we were during training, I would his name once and he would just perk up and look up. His patience has changed dramatically. And then we saw an ongoing series of changes with him that are around his overall behavior, his temperament, and then also his scholastic, is mathematic abilities actually at school. So interestingly enough, we have some test results from before and after doing vision therapy, where he was at or below the benchmark for his age group. And then within months of doing vision therapy, far exceeded test results of his other peers.

In fact, he's now in the 99th percentile for mathematics for his age group and the 90th for reading. for his age group, which he was in the 40th percentile or below in both those categories prior to vision therapy. And we've lived in same house, we eat the same food, have the the friend groups. There's really no other possible dynamics that could have changed this except for the intensive training that we did with Dr. Apapa. On the fun side, he loves soccer and has played organized soccer since he was probably four or maybe even three on teams and had scored one goal in like

Academic and Sports Gains 3:24

three years and the fall season before he did vision therapy. His team did not win a game. In the spring, same soccer league, the same type of kids, everything, his team went undefeated and Atlas was the high goal scorer on the team. And he said to me at one point, he says, Dad, it's because I can see things better. He started swimming, it's like things started firing on all cylinders and he was able to, because he is able, to see he started skiing significantly better. It was almost like he's taking more risks, safe risks but he wasn't so timid and scared of jumping off of a diving board or skiing or sports that he'd been doing for years.

We saw such a significant increase in his abilities. Some things that he is able to do now that was not able before, read, write, count. That may seem basic, but really it's been, his growth has been exponential. And it was so immediate that there was no way of saying, well, this is just because he's in school for a couple of months. It was pretty drastic, pretty immediately. So being able lay in bed with him and watch him read has monumental. really special. catch a ball, like hit a bowl, something that was being thrown at him.

It was impossible for him to react quick enough to, so he would just kind of shy away from it instead of attempting to do that. But even when we were with Dr. Bryce, it was very, very fun. He actually grabbed like a little foam football towards the end and started throwing it to Atlas in the office. And Atlas was catching it with no problem, which just didn't happen before. I know it's really pretty amazing. You know, I think other, other things that you can do now is regulate his emotions. So he understands when things are, you know things, are turning and he can understand it's because he's tired or he is hungry or there's something else

Emotional Regulation and Root-Cause Insights 5:33

going on underneath where he didn't before. And we'd be like, where did this come from? And now, he, is he seven years old, right? There's still going to be emotional outbursts and cause he was a child, but we can see them coming and we understand why they're happening. I think it's interesting both of us work in the field of functional and integrative medicine. So we are very aware of the underlying long-term causes and root causes to major health issues, including gut issues cardio, you know, cardio metabolic issues even brain function and upwards.

I mean, both us are actually co-published on a paper that reversed mild cognitive impairment in people. And we understand that really well. And, we never thought that vision could be leading to so many of the common behavior challenges in children and in adults. It wasn't even a concept that we thought about. But to understand that there is a root cause that is the connection between your eyesight and how your brain is functioning and what your is telling your body to do now makes so much sense that we can see it in dozens of scenarios and situations with with others, with our friends, children, even in certain behaviors with ourselves.

And it just makes so much sense that the sense, right, that is the most impactful or most used in your day-to-day basis, which is eyesight. if it is not perfectly correlating with your brain function, that it's going to cause symptoms of other things. And as Dr. Applebaum mentioned, he said, there is a 100% chance that your child would have been diagnosed with ADHD. and then probably dyslexia and probably other things when it became time and he would have been medicated and even though we work in that field of functional medicine we would've said well we have to do something for our child to calm him down and we had to something so that he can learn better and it turns

Hope for Atlas's Future 7:54

out it was literally just retraining his brain and his eyes to start working together again. And so the trajectory that we changed for our lives and for his life is so dramatic that really anything we can say would just be an understatement. It makes me feel really proud and I know that my wife feels really that proud that can share this story that may impact others who've been in similar scenarios that were without answers and maybe this will help them find some answers. That's what vital visionary means to us.

One of our biggest goals for Atlas now that he has full use of his senses and his brain function is that, he will get to live a life based on his choice of direction without being held back from something that doesn't have an answer to. And that will allow him to choose a path that is really meaningful for him, that he's really in line with his hopes and dreams, rather than feeling like he is being held back from something and can only push so far. And so I'm just excited to see what that, is for, him without being helped.