Is this double vision?

Question

when i drive at night and my headlight reflect of of the lines on the road i see two of them or the double yellow line i see 4. but this ONLY happens at night. any sign that my headlights reflect off of i see two of also. I can distinctly tell which is the 'actual' one but it worries me. Could i have double vision only at night, and are there glasses that help with that?

Answer 1

Is the double vision occurring in a single eye, or only with both eyes together?

Try closing one eye.  Do you still see twice the normal number of yellow lines?  Close that eye and open the other one.  How about now?

If you only see double when you're using both eyes together, that's one issue.  If you can see double out of a single eye, that's a different issue.

I don't have any suggestions if you only see double when using both eyes together.

But there is an eye condition called "keratoconus" that can cause you to see multiple images out of a single eye.  It usually starts when you're in your late 20's or your 30's.  It usually worsens until about age 40.   I have it in both eyes: mild in the left eye (sees two of everything) and moderate in the right eye (sees six of everything).  I first noticed it at night, too, because it's most noticeable in very high-contrast vision fields.

Other places where it can be noticeable in early stages: looking at a crescent moon on a clear night.  Do you see more than one?  (It's harder to tell with a full moon, because the extra images may overlap with real one.)   How about reading movie credits, when it's white text on a black background: do you see a second layer of text sitting above (or below, or next to) the "real" text?

When you see two yellow stripes in the road instead of one, does it look like this: very near your car, it's just a single line; the farther down the road you look, the more the two lines separate from each other.  If you look at the horizon, you can see the fake one "floating" about four feet above the ground?

editing to add a bit more:

If it is keratoconus, glasses cannot correct it, unfortunately.  For many people, though, RGP contact lenses help a lot.  (Rigid Semi-Permeable contacts, not the soft ones).

Check the images at this site to see if they resemble what you are seeing:

http://drspinello.com/kcvision/album/Dou...