"Do you know that there are people who really believe that you start out little and incomplete and then you add unto, and you get bigger and stronger, and then you reach this sort of peak of physical perfection and then it's downhill forever more. This long or short slippery-slide toward an inevitable crashing and burning in a heap of death. And there are people that go to school to be trained to watch for evidence of that in anyone who's silly enough to let them look!
...
Do you know if you went for examinations - and there are all kinds of ways - they could test you in terms of brain patterns, they could test you in terms of blood flow and heart rate...the tests are endless. There are thousands upon thousands of examinations that they could utilize to "see" you. And if you went every hour for the rest of your life, you would get an infinite variety of readings. ...The outcome of the test is very different on a day that you are disconnected than on a day that you are connected."
- Abraham, 2001
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Subject: Medical exams -- what they do, and what they
fail to do.
We all are under the medical "thumb". While I respect
that truth, I do think that we need some "relief" for
certain aspects of it.
As you know, I advocate prevention, when the maximum
probability of success exists. For this I am condemned as
"practicing medicine".
Thus I am told that if you advocate Bates, or any other
method when the person is at 20/70, the person
might DESTROY his vision, if he attempts to "practice
Bates" with no medical (or optometric) exam.
There is no way around this one.
If fact, I do advocate that if you have a visual-acuity
issue (from checking your own IVAC Snellen),
you SHOULD go for a medical type of check.
There are a number of HONEST medical reasons
for loss of visual acuity, macular degeneration,
R.P., incipient detached retina, and others.
The exam should pick these up, and the OD, or MD
should identify them as MEDICAL issues, and talk
about options.
In general, if all these are eliminated, and a
-2.0 diopter (over-prescribed) clears the 20/20
line, then you have a negative refractive STATE.
When that is the case, you should be "empowered"
to employ Bates to clear your Snellen.
At 20/60, you can function with no minus lens,
for everything EXCEPT driving a car.
In my opinion, you should start aggressively
using Bates, monitor your Snellen and
verify SLOW clearing to 20/40 or better.
If you do this, you can truly "...throw away
you minus glasses and SEE".
But I do think this type of disclaimer is necessary
to avoid any "charges" of giving "bad" advice.
That is the suggestion I make to people who wish
to use these preventive methods.
