Wow! Thanks for the tip on practical application of palming. I had read that you did something like that, but didn't understand it until just now when you more fully explained it. I think I'll try that the next several times I palm.

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FIAT LUX! Translation = "Let there be light!"

glad it helped! I hope it works for you as well.

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see my vision diary blog: http://sorrisi.wordpress.com

Start: 5/200
After 8 months: 20/50
now, 5/10, 10/20, still improving and loving it

Hi sorrisblue,

Thanks for your reply !

I'd love it if my eye doc would give me a more reduced Rx than the one half diopter reduction that I have coming in the second set of glasses that I ordered from her. Alas, she's not a Bates' believer and refuses to go any lower. Part of me thinks getting the reduced Rx through Zenni would be beneficial because of my fear that I'd go in for an eye exam when I feel that my vision has improved and the stress of wanting my vision to be better might result in my being able to read the eye chart as well as I can now, or even worse... not to mention the financial expense.

Could you clarify what you're saying in your third paragraph...? Are you recommending frequent eye doc visits for reduced Rx lenses as the eyes improve....? Or are you recommending wearing the current full Rx when necessary... and if so, wouldn't that slow down the progress...? I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying.

I'm aware of Bates' referring to eye turns as "squint". And I've noticed the more I relax my eyes, the less I squint, the less eye turn, and improved vision. The tough part is, it's difficult to "not squint", especially first thing in the morning due to me battling hypothyroid issues... I typically don't sleep well, don't wake up feeling "refreshed", battle daily fatigue, etc. First thing in the morning, the eye turn is more noticeable. Later in the afternoon, the eye turn is less because, while I'm still fatigued, I'm more awake in the afternoon. I'm on thyroid medication but, am still slowly increasing the dose until I feel it's optimized. Fortunately, I can say that since I've started palming, the eye turn has reduced dramatically, even with the thyroid issues.

Thank you for the palming tips. I've already put the tips to use and allowing myself small movements of my wrists/arms has helped tremendously.

By the way, as noted in your signature, going from 5/200 to 20/50 in only eight months is very impressive ! Did you do that with reduced Rx's along the way, or did you use your full strength Rx glasses only when necessary....?

Also, I spent last weekend reading through most of your blog. And I'm looking again at your post re: Snellen charts (that you mentioned in your reply to my other thread).

Susan, as a temporary hold over, I'll tell you what I think Sorrisi meant. Say you are starting at -5 diopters as a reduced prescription. After two months, that is too strong and you really should be wearing -4.5. But you just bought these glasses and don't want to have to pay another $50 to get another further reduced pair. So you reason that you'll wait until your next visit, while you are defeating your own purpose by wearing glasses that are too strong.

I think that is what she was saying.

My mom had/has thyroid issues and she said that it took her 6 months to get the prescription amount figured out for optimum performance. So, it may be a while until your thyroid doesn't give you issues, but you can still work with the Bates method, and just have better results after your thyroid levels are right. Although, even the results you are getting right now with the thyroid levels not at optimum, are still results.

_________________
FIAT LUX! Translation = "Let there be light!"

Susan, this may not work for you, but my approach when I was coming down from a strong eyeglass prescription was to do without them as much as I could, and to use the weakest pair I could manage with and not strain, all the time knowing that my ultimate goal was to see without glasses at all times, no matter what the conditions. Yes, I have been called stubborn more than once! I still have about 5 pairs of glasses in my car from -8 (I tried to give these to a -9 friend supposedly working on NVI and she didn't want them!) to -1.5, even though I don't wear any of them now. Hmmm -- maybe it's time to get rid of them completely now, tapping on any anxiety that brings up.

I'm giving all this history because, unlike Sorrisi, Zenni glasses were good enough for me, and I loved the cheap price, plus as I remember they only charged a flat shipping rate of a couple of dollars whether you ordered one pair or 3. Your eyes and vision are yours to decide about, of course. I'm only giving this as an alternative viewpoint. It's all in how you look at it!

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Nancy
2012: 20/45 on average, no glasses except for night driving
2001: 2/200, -10 hard contacts with -1.75 cylinder
Vision & dreams blog: http://dreamersight.wordpress.com/
Vision & dreams website: http://dreamersight.com/

Thanks for the input Fiat... I agree with you, it seems that wearing full strength Rx glasses when necessary would indeed defeat the purpose of taking them off as much as possible. I can't tell if Sorrisi is recommending reduced Rx or not. On one hand she talks of wearing reduced Rx for work herself. But she also notes that while Bates' had the ability to prescribe reduced Rx glasses, he didn't recommend that approach. I'll be interested to see what she says when she returns.

Re: hypothyroid issues.... I was Dx'd in Oct. '11. So it's been six months for me and we're still working on finding the right dose of thyroid med. I'm dealing with adrenal fatigue as well and that throws a whole different wrench into the works. Not fun. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Hi Nancy ~~ Thanks for your input as well. I agree that reduced Rx would be the best way to go, even though the lenses may not be the same quality that I'd get my from eye doc. And Zenni may be my only option as I know my eye doc won't go for dramatically reduced Rx glasses. I'll ask the optician (when my mid-distance glasses arrive) for cards with both Rx's written down. Then I'll be back with questions about how much to lower the Rx for each eye when ordering from Zenni. I think there's a half diopter difference with my left eye being the slightly worse.

I appreciate the alternative viewpoint. Gives me more to take into consideration.

Susan, the adrenal thing throws in a whole different card on top of the thyroid issues. Definitely not nice, but hopefully you and your doctored will get everything straightened out as soon as possible.

_________________
FIAT LUX! Translation = "Let there be light!"

Thanks for jumping in Fiat Lux, that is exactly what I meant (regarding reduced prescription). If you go the reduced Rx route, Susan, it's necessary to change the prescription as the eyes improve.

Sorry for the confusion Susan! what I meant by mentioning Dr. Bates, was that he would have preferred NO glasses. He obviously didn't recommend wearing a full prescription, he just recommended wearing no glasses at all. So why didn't he recommend a reduced prescription? He seemed to have experimented with everything except for that. I think that question is interesting food for thought and that's why I wrote it. I have personally taken the path of wearing glasses as little as possible, and a reduced prescription for work. It's better than not doing the Bates method at all! This approach is difficult though because the eyes are changing and the glasses are fixed, I think that is why Dr. Bates did not recommend wearing reduced prescription glasses.


Have you tried palming before sleep?

If you have any questions on my old posts as you go through them, feel free to reply with a comment, I see the fresh comments even on old posts!

Best,
Sorrisi

_________________
see my vision diary blog: http://sorrisi.wordpress.com

Start: 5/200
After 8 months: 20/50
now, 5/10, 10/20, still improving and loving it

I've also wondered why Dr. Bates changed his stance from "no glasses, ever" to "reduced glasses are OK, but you will improve more slowly", later in his career. I've speculated it was because he ran into so many people who couldn't handle the no glasses at all route, and he still wanted to help them improve their vision, humanitarian that he was. I have no proof of this, of course. I still think it's way too easy to let yourself depend on glasses when you don't really need them if you're used to using them. If you decide not to use them, you find creative ways to get things done without them. I'm remembering Dr. Bates writing about 2 teen boys walking to see him in NYC, without their strong glasses, and one getting on the other's shoulders to look at the street sign to know if they were on the correct route to his office! I thought of this anecdote after I made my last blog post about doing what I needed to do to see without glasses. I could see me doing that if I'd known about the Bates Method years ago, and had the good fortune to be alive when he was so I could learn from him in person.

_________________
Nancy
2012: 20/45 on average, no glasses except for night driving
2001: 2/200, -10 hard contacts with -1.75 cylinder
Vision & dreams blog: http://dreamersight.wordpress.com/
Vision & dreams website: http://dreamersight.com/

Fiat ~~ Thanks for the well wishes re: the thyroid/adrenal issues. It's a slow process but, I'm getting there.

Sorrisi ~~ The more I thought about your previous post today, the more I thought, "....ya know, even if she recommends going without glasses completely, I'd never be able to go cold turkey 100%.... I still have to commute to the job, still have to DO my job (which involves photography, thus I must be able to see what I'm photographing)... etc, etc,...." I should've thought of that sooner.

Re: palming before sleep.... Yes, I typically palm for 15-30 minutes when I get home from work, then another 15-30 minutes while laying in bed... plus whatever I can sneak in at work. For example: I just finished palming for 30 minutes while laying on the couch a little bit ago. Something I've noticed when doing this in the afternoon is, when I open my eyes, I can see the hands on the analog wall clock, located about 15 feet away, clearly enough to tell what time it is (the bright window light helps to increase the contrast on the clock too). Mind you, the hands are far from sharp. But, prior to palming, I couldn't even see that there were hands on the clock without my glasses.

I'll take a look at your old posts. And I continue to follow your blog.

Where did he write about that story? I want to read it.

_________________
FIAT LUX! Translation = "Let there be light!"

Fiat, it was somewhere in the huge BEM (Better Eyesight Magazine) tome -- I read that big book all the way through at least twice, and several sections many more times. I can't tell you exactly where, but maybe you can find it with some creative searches in the on-line version on Clark's site. I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it though, as there's really not much more to the story than I wrote.

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Nancy
2012: 20/45 on average, no glasses except for night driving
2001: 2/200, -10 hard contacts with -1.75 cylinder
Vision & dreams blog: http://dreamersight.wordpress.com/
Vision & dreams website: http://dreamersight.com/

A google search of central-fixation.com for that story didn't turn anything up.

I remember that story too. I recall reading it in Quackenbush's book, which does use several excerpts from Bates' writings, so I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

Yeah, it didn't, but it did turn up a neat story to think about while palming in a 1924 edition.

_________________
FIAT LUX! Translation = "Let there be light!"

Hi folks,

I'm back. Haven't had much to add recently as I've been waiting for my mid-distance Rx glasses to come in. Just picked them up from the eye doc this afternoon. Oddly, even though they are .5 diopter less ins strength, I feel as though I can see the distance just as easily as I can with my stronger glasses. Weird.

So, here are the "official" Rx's of each set of glasses (I figure that will help you in answering future questions that I may come up with).

Driving glasses:
OD (right eye, yes?) = -4.75D
OS (left eye, yes?) = -5.50D Cyl = 1.25 Axis = 180

Mid-Distance glasses:
OD (right eye, yes?) = -4.25D
OS (left eye, yes?) = -5.00D Cyl = 1.25 Axis = 180

Now for the questions.... Since I want to continue on this vision improvement journey.

The optician didn't provide the "pupil distance", and quite frankly, I forgot to ask. If I want to order a much further reduced Rx (like I've seen Fiat mention that he has a pair that are about half of what he'd wear for driving), is pupil distance something that I could approximate by measuring myself...

Fiat (and anyone else who'd like to chime in), would you recommend a reduced Rx that is half of my current Rx...?

Also, the Rx printout lists the "material" of the lenses being "CR-39 / IQ" for both sets of glasses. It does not list the "base curve" of each lens though. Changing base curves has been something of an issue for me in the past. Do you think doing Davids / Bates methods will make the base curve "thing" (that's my technical term) less of an issue if I were to order a reduced Rx online...

I know I don't do well at all in polycarbonate lenses... way too many aberrations in the plastic that negatively impacts my vision (makes the ground look wavy). I know I bookmarked a site that sells CR-39 lenses, slightly higher cost than Zenni optical but, still cheaper than the $300 - 400 that I just paid for these two sets of glasses.

Nancy.... do you have any thoughts you can share with me....?

susan