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Re: The lens and accomodation - Judyb - 05-26-2009
johnwayne Wrote:I believe that the sceptics said this sort of change in length in the eye was impossible because of the nature of the eye, which is why I thought the study was interesting.
Thanks for all the replies.
Cheers, JW
The sceptics said that accommodation is not achieved via axial enlongation, which this study confirmed. The tiny amount of enlongation (equivalent to less than 0.03 D) confirms that enlongation does not provide eye accommodation (2.00D to 5.00D for near tasks).
Judy
Re: The lens and accomodation - sorrisiblue - 05-27-2009
Judy said:
Quote:The sceptics said that accommodation is not achieved via axial enlongation, which this study confirmed. That's not true, this study was done on far too few people, and also did not study someone who can accommodate with a lensless eye (which was the biggest hole that Dr. Bates punched in the 'only the lens accommodates' theory). Further, the authors themselves make no statement that axial elongation does not achieve accommodation. They were smart enough to realize the limitations of their instruments in this study and were much more cautious. What they wanted to show was the fact that they measured longer eyes in myopes than emmetropes and to see how that changed when they accommodate. They admit that the magnitude of that change has a lot of possible error in it! There are published cases of people who can accommodate without a lens, and until a study as thorough as this one catches one of those people, you can't make statements like this. Here's my take on reading this article (and not just the abstract). There's a lot of interesting information there!
Now that it seems we answered John Waynes first question (to remind people of published cases that some lensless eyes accommodate, and that Bates showed exterior muscles are capable of accommodating), I looked up this article that he cited the abstract to. By the way, the title is 'Eye Elongation during Accommodation in Humans: Differences between Emmotropes and Myopes', by W. Drexler, O. Findl, L. Schmetterer, C Hitzenberger, and A. Fercher, from Vienna, Austria, 1998. (University of Vienna and General Hospital Vienna). Emmotrope means someone with normal eyesight. Always cite articles properly! Always read the full article before making blanket statements about their conclusions! I tried to search for more recent work expanding on this but I didn't find any so far, but they've published a lot so I might have missed it.
What you get from the abstract is just a drop of water in the pond! What you always have to remember about 'science' (I'm in science, so I see how much crap gets published and how misleading abstracts can be) is that the results are valid for the subjects studied and limited by the error of the instruments used, which you will never get from the abstract. Plus, you want to read a paper to see if you trust the authors. After reading the full paper, I have the confidence in the authors of the paper, they did a very good job of discussing both at length. So let's look at what they said about the possible sources of error here and how widely they think their own results should be used.
At least the abstract told us there were only 23 subjects, where we need hundreds to figure accommodation out. Not every lensless eye can accommodate, but some can. It would have been interesting to have one of these subjects doing this test. Of course, that was not the goal of this research, so they obviously studied only health adults with lenses still in their eyes, so keep that in mind!
The eye length in the emmetropes studied varied from 22.565 - 24.843 mm. In order to relate the change in length to a diopter, you rely on another paper cited that said 120 um corresponds to .34 D (papers cited are from 1981 and 1987 by the way). um, micrometers are 1000 times smaller than mm, millimeters. We are talking about huge possibilities for measurement error here! 1 diopter change in accommodation is 0.35 mm, and the length of the eye (not accommodating) is 22-24 mm long! That means we are looking for changes about 2 orders of magnitude smaller than what we are measuring (length of eye)! At this point, one needs to examine the possible sources of error VERY carefully. Which these authors did satisfactorily:
These measurements come from refelctions of a laser through the surface of the eye, have a look at their graphs, you can see the noise and possible sources of error for determining lengths, and they state themselves: 'Because the axial eye length was determined by measuring the distance between the anterior corneal surface and the retinal pigment epithelium, a change of choroidal thickness during accommodation cannot be excluded. Future investigations with increased sensitivity of PCI, and therfore the possbiliity of measuring choroidal thickness, may possibly help to discriminate between cleral and choroidal contributions to eye elongation during accommodation.' What does that all mean? It means that the optical changes they measured and concluded were changes in axial length of the eye could have been caused by a change in choroidal thickness. Remember, they are talking about changes of micrometers here, so a change of thickness in many places of the eye in this magnitude during accomodation is very likely. They recommend further studies to verify this.
Further, since they are working with reflections, you have to remember that they are limited by what the laser light reflects on as it passes through the eye on its way to the back surface and then back again. They discuss this thoroughly. If the refractive index of the lens, thickness of lens, or these parameters through any other surface changed, then it would have completely washed out their measurements. For example, they state that a 0.3% change in refractive index of the lens would have accounted for the change in axial length they measured. That isn't very much, and one wonders if the shape of the eye changed and the refractive index of the lens changed, then there are too many factors to figure out which of them is changing during accommodation.
Now at the end is where the most interesting conclusion comes out. forget about whether the conversion from optical distance to physical distance to diopters is accurate or flawed. The most interesting conclusion they show is that if you look at the raw data and you will see that the change in axial eye length of emmotropes was double that of myopes. Here is where my own opinion comes in: One could say from this observation that emmetropes have much greater flexibility in their visual system than myopes. Could we then further say that if the reduced flexibility in myopes is due to tension, that by relaxation this flexibility could be regained? If tension is holding the eye in an elongated state (4 diopters is theoretically 1.4 mm too long according to the papers cited), then relaxation could release that and allow the normal flexibility to resume working properly.
Remember, work from facts, not theories. 'accommodation is not achieved via axial elongation' is a theory
'the axial length of emmotrope eyes changes twice as much as that in myopes during accommodation' is an observed fact
Theories are built from facts. And you'll want to make sure you believe the facts behind theories before you believe the thoery itself. That is where Otis made a great point in the main forum, that Helmholz himself didn't think he showed enough facts to warrant a statement such as 'only the lens accommodates'. That was a theory that was extrapolated from others from his results. If even Helmholz didn't believe from his work that only the lens accommodates, then neither do I (besides the fact that Bates showed this to be untrue).
My last prescription was about 7.5 D, which would correspond to 2.6 mm elongation. I can easily imagine that my tension could pull my eye 2.6 mm out of shape when I'm stressed out. I crane my neck forward a few inches. When I'm tense my shoulders are more than an inch higher than when I'm relaxed. Even slight tension will cause me to unconsciously hold my thumb up more than an inch above my desk instead of just letting it rest on the surface. so 2.6 mm of tension in my eye? I can just as easily believe that I have it as that I can relax to remove it. How else could one explain that although the optometrist says I need -7 glasses to see 20/40, I can frequently see 20/40 on my chart without any glasses? I can read licence plates clearly from distances of 10-30 feet which suggests sight as good as 20/30. Not all of the time, but this time is increasing daily as I learn to be aware of when I'm tense and releasing that tension.
Re: The lens and accomodation - blauw - 05-27-2009
sorrisiblue Wrote:Judy said:Quote:The sceptics said that accommodation is not achieved via axial enlongation, which this study confirmed. That's not true, this study was done on far too few people, and also did not study someone who can accommodate with a lensless eye (which was the biggest hole that Dr. Bates punched in the 'only the lens accommodates' theory). Further, the authors themselves make no statement that axial elongation does not achieve accommodation. They were smart enough to realize the limitations of their instruments in this study and were much more cautious. What they wanted to show was the fact that they measured longer eyes in myopes than emmetropes and to see how that changed when they accommodate. They admit that the magnitude of that change has a lot of possible error in it! There are published cases of people who can accommodate without a lens, and until a study as thorough as this one catches one of those people, you can't make statements like this. Here's my take on reading this article (and not just the abstract). There's a lot of interesting information there!
Now that it seems we answered John Waynes first question (to remind people of published cases that some lensless eyes accommodate, and that Bates showed exterior muscles are capable of accommodating), I looked up this article that he cited the abstract to. By the way, the title is 'Eye Elongation during Accommodation in Humans: Differences between Emmotropes and Myopes', by W. Drexler, O. Findl, L. Schmetterer, C Hitzenberger, and A. Fercher, from Vienna, Austria, 1998. (University of Vienna and General Hospital Vienna). Emmotrope means someone with normal eyesight. Always cite articles properly! Always read the full article before making blanket statements about their conclusions! I tried to search for more recent work expanding on this but I didn't find any so far, but they've published a lot so I might have missed it.
What you get from the abstract is just a drop of water in the pond! What you always have to remember about 'science' (I'm in science, so I see how much crap gets published and how misleading abstracts can be) is that the results are valid for the subjects studied and limited by the error of the instruments used, which you will never get from the abstract. Plus, you want to read a paper to see if you trust the authors. After reading the full paper, I have the confidence in the authors of the paper, they did a very good job of discussing both at length. So let's look at what they said about the possible sources of error here and how widely they think their own results should be used.
At least the abstract told us there were only 23 subjects, where we need hundreds to figure accommodation out. Not every lensless eye can accommodate, but some can. It would have been interesting to have one of these subjects doing this test. Of course, that was not the goal of this research, so they obviously studied only health adults with lenses still in their eyes, so keep that in mind!
The eye length in the emmetropes studied varied from 22.565 - 24.843 mm. In order to relate the change in length to a diopter, you rely on another paper cited that said 120 um corresponds to .34 D (papers cited are from 1981 and 1987 by the way). um, micrometers are 1000 times smaller than mm, millimeters. We are talking about huge possibilities for measurement error here! 1 diopter change in accommodation is 0.35 mm, and the length of the eye (not accommodating) is 22-24 mm long! That means we are looking for changes about 2 orders of magnitude smaller than what we are measuring (length of eye)! At this point, one needs to examine the possible sources of error VERY carefully. Which these authors did satisfactorily:
These measurements come from refelctions of a laser through the surface of the eye, have a look at their graphs, you can see the noise and possible sources of error for determining lengths, and they state themselves: 'Because the axial eye length was determined by measuring the distance between the anterior corneal surface and the retinal pigment epithelium, a change of choroidal thickness during accommodation cannot be excluded. Future investigations with increased sensitivity of PCI, and therfore the possbiliity of measuring choroidal thickness, may possibly help to discriminate between cleral and choroidal contributions to eye elongation during accommodation.' What does that all mean? It means that the optical changes they measured and concluded were changes in axial length of the eye could have been caused by a change in choroidal thickness. Remember, they are talking about changes of micrometers here, so a change of thickness in many places of the eye in this magnitude during accomodation is very likely. They recommend further studies to verify this.
Further, since they are working with reflections, you have to remember that they are limited by what the laser light reflects on as it passes through the eye on its way to the back surface and then back again. They discuss this thoroughly. If the refractive index of the lens, thickness of lens, or these parameters through any other surface changed, then it would have completely washed out their measurements. For example, they state that a 0.3% change in refractive index of the lens would have accounted for the change in axial length they measured. That isn't very much, and one wonders if the shape of the eye changed and the refractive index of the lens changed, then there are too many factors to figure out which of them is changing during accommodation.
Now at the end is where the most interesting conclusion comes out. forget about whether the conversion from optical distance to physical distance to diopters is accurate or flawed. The most interesting conclusion they show is that if you look at the raw data and you will see that the change in axial eye length of emmotropes was double that of myopes. Here is where my own opinion comes in: One could say from this observation that emmetropes have much greater flexibility in their visual system than myopes. Could we then further say that if the reduced flexibility in myopes is due to tension, that by relaxation this flexibility could be regained? If tension is holding the eye in an elongated state (4 diopters is theoretically 1.4 mm too long according to the papers cited), then relaxation could release that and allow the normal flexibility to resume working properly.
Remember, work from facts, not theories. 'accommodation is not achieved via axial elongation' is a theory
'the axial length of emmotrope eyes changes twice as much as that in myopes during accommodation' is an observed fact
Theories are built from facts. And you'll want to make sure you believe the facts behind theories before you believe the thoery itself. That is where Otis made a great point in the main forum, that Helmholz himself didn't think he showed enough facts to warrant a statement such as 'only the lens accommodates'. That was a theory that was extrapolated from others from his results. If even Helmholz didn't believe from his work that only the lens accommodates, then neither do I (besides the fact that Bates showed this to be untrue).
My last prescription was about 7.5 D, which would correspond to 2.6 mm elongation. I can easily imagine that my tension could pull my eye 2.6 mm out of shape when I'm stressed out. I crane my neck forward a few inches. When I'm tense my shoulders are more than an inch higher than when I'm relaxed. Even slight tension will cause me to unconsciously hold my thumb up more than an inch above my desk instead of just letting it rest on the surface. so 2.6 mm of tension in my eye? I can just as easily believe that I have it as that I can relax to remove it. How else could one explain that although the optometrist says I need -7 glasses to see 20/40, I can frequently see 20/40 on my chart without any glasses? I can read licence plates clearly from distances of 10-30 feet which suggests sight as good as 20/30. Not all of the time, but this time is increasing daily as I learn to be aware of when I'm tense and releasing that tension.
Long but interesting post.
This is also where I find diopter readings to not align with VA readings..... as you are about -6 or so and you see sometimes 20/50 to 20/30..... just like how some people can be -.50 and see 20/20 without glasses..... Could this also be the constant changing of the eye?
To pull your eye 2.6mm out of shape is a lot of tension indeed.
I read that the emmetropic eye is 23.3mm and so that would mean when you are stressed you pull your eye to be 25.9mm's.
It looks like the more you relax and practice Bates, Sorrisi you will wind up emmetropic be it 23.4mm or 23.3mm!!
Good luck to all,
blauw
Re: The lens and accomodation - johnwayne - 05-28-2009
Sorrisblue,
Sorry about not citiing the article properly, I was in a bit of a hurry. I wanted to read the full article but could only find the extract. I am not a scientist I can't follow all the measurements etc. Most of it didn't make any sense to me, except the conclusion.
I partly posted it because Judy originally said that 'ultrasound studies show that the eye length does not change in accomodation', and I find a study to refute this doing just a quick google search on the subject. So she wasn't right about that.
The rest of your post was facinating and I like to take the time to study it more deeply myself.
Cheers, JW
Re: The lens and accomodation - johnwayne - 05-29-2009
blauw Wrote:Long but interesting post.
This is also where I find diopter readings to not align with VA readings..... as you are about -6 or so and you see sometimes 20/50 to 20/30..... just like how some people can be -.50 and see 20/20 without glasses..... Could this also be the constant changing of the eye?
Do you know how the mainstream would explain the cause of the difference? How would they say it occurs?
Cheers, JW
Re: The lens and accomodation - blauw - 05-29-2009
johnwayne Wrote:blauw Wrote:Long but interesting post.
This is also where I find diopter readings to not align with VA readings..... as you are about -6 or so and you see sometimes 20/50 to 20/30..... just like how some people can be -.50 and see 20/20 without glasses..... Could this also be the constant changing of the eye?
Do you know how the mainstream would explain the cause of the difference? How would they say it occurs?
Cheers, JW
They would probably say Blur Interpretation.... ? We all know what that is
Yet when someone couldn't see the Golden McDonald's arches at all the other day and can see it today through the Bates Method its not blur interpretation especially when it is crystal clear.
blauw
Re: The lens and accomodation - johnwayne - 05-29-2009
Yes you're right. If something is seen clearly, it's not blur interpretation ... (And the funny thing is, the moment you do actually interpret something blurry, it will often become clear anyway. A big part of Clara Hackett's teaching relies on looking at blurred objects and making guesses as to what they are, which is what people with sight problems resist doing. But I'm getting off the track here; that is for another thread).
Cheers, JW
Re: The lens and accomodation - Judyb - 05-30-2009
johnwayne Wrote:blauw Wrote:Long but interesting post.
This is also where I find diopter readings to not align with VA readings..... as you are about -6 or so and you see sometimes 20/50 to 20/30..... just like how some people can be -.50 and see 20/20 without glasses..... Could this also be the constant changing of the eye?
Do you know how the mainstream would explain the cause of the difference? How would they say it occurs?
Cheers, JW
They would say that there is not good correlation between refractiver error and unaided acuity. Unaided (and aided) acuity depends on many factors including, but not limited to, colour and contrast of the chart, ambient light, pupil size, familiarity with the chart, nature of the chart and wlllingness to guess as well as refractive error. Using a non Snellen chart like a Landolt C or vernier or grating chart and using standard lighting from measure to measure would create more consistency in measures.
Re: The lens and accomodation - johnwayne - 05-31-2009
Thanks Judy that answers my question very well.
Cheers, JW
Re: The lens and accomodation - JMartinC4 - 06-01-2009
Something that is not being properly accounted for is the changing nature of the ambient lighting in many if not most locations. The changes could be from not only the very subtle movements of the earth, but the effects of cloud cover, global dimming (?!), reflective/glare-producing surfaces, and head/face/body positioning relative to all that.
On my morning commute, there are for me at least two distinct areas (I'll call them focal node points maybe) wherein I will always or almost always experience clear vision: 1) Crossing the Key Bridge into Georgetown; 2) On 35th St. from P St. to R St. and especially at the intersection of 35th and Reservoir Rd. I would like anyone else's observations of those areas. I'm thinking it has to do with time of day (ordinarily between 7 - 9 am, although the improvement has held at various other times for me). There are obviously many factiors/variables that I have not tried to account for in any systematic way, such as amount of coffee consumed (usually 1-2 cups) prior to and during the commute (ordinarily no breakfast other than coffee), and amount of overcast or blue sky, etc.
blauw Wrote:johnwayne Wrote:blauw Wrote:Long but interesting post.
This is also where I find diopter readings to not align with VA readings..... as you are about -6 or so and you see sometimes 20/50 to 20/30..... just like how some people can be -.50 and see 20/20 without glasses..... Could this also be the constant changing of the eye?
Do you know how the mainstream would explain the cause of the difference? How would they say it occurs?
Cheers, JW
They would probably say Blur Interpretation.... ? We all know what that is
Yet when someone couldn't see the Golden McDonald's arches at all the other day and can see it today through the Bates Method its not blur interpretation especially when it is crystal clear.
blauw
Re: The lens and accomodation - johnwayne - 11-01-2010
This is what Tom Quackenbush currently has to say about the Bates theory of accomodation:
Notes on Accommodation and Presbyopia
While seeing clearly in the distance (20 feet or more) the lens inside the normal human eye has a relatively flat curvature. The ciliary muscle that controls the shape of the lens is expanded, pulling on the edges of the lens, maintaining this relatively flat curvature. When the eye is seeing clearly in the distance, it is said to be "at rest", i.e., not accommodating.
The orthodox teaching on how the eye accommodates to see clearly up close is simple: the ciliary muscle contracts, releasing its pull around the lens, and the lens then increases its curvature. With more curvature in the lens, the eye is able to see clearly up close. When the ciliary muscle expands again, the lens regains its flatter curvature and the eye sees clearly in the distance again. The credit for the lens being the mechanism of accommodation is mostly attributed to the great ophthalmologist Dr. Helmholtz.
As a result of his research, Dr. Bates believed that the lens had nothing to do with accommodation. He felt he had proven that the lens does not change its curvature during accommodation and that Helmholtz was wrong mainly because of inadequate experimental equipment.
In the February 1992 "Better Eyesight" magazine, someone asked Bates about the role of the ciliary (lens) muscle:
Qâ2. What is the function of the ciliary muscles?
Aâ2. I do not know.
Not a great answer from someone who wants to overturn the Helmholtz lens theory of accommodation.
Bates, as a result of his research and experiments on the two oblique, external eye muscles, believed that these muscles, which are wrapped around the eye somewhat like a belt, produced accommodation. More specifically, when the eyeball is "at rest" the two oblique muscles were relaxed, the eyeball was in a round shape and a person sees clearly in the distance. When the two oblique muscles contracted, the eyeball became elongated, and a person was then accommodating to see clearly up close. It is his opposition to Helmholtz' lens theory of accommodation that probably led many conventional eye doctors to reject much if not all of Bates' work. (Bates also believed that when the two oblique muscles are chronically tense, they elongated the eyeball to produce myopia, or nearsightedness: chronic accommodation!)
Modern research, using sophisticated equipment, has confirmed Helmholtz' theory that the lens increases its curvature during accommodation, proving that the lens plays a major, if not total role, in accommodation. Ironically, it appears that Bates' experimental procedures regarding the lens were inadequate.
Interestingly enough, research in Austria in 1998 has shown that the eyeball can elongate during accommodation for myopes and people with normal sight---but it elongates only a slight amount---not enough for a person to see clearly up close. "The detected eye elongation can be explained by the accommodation-induced contraction of the ciliary muscle, which results in forward and inward pulling of the choroid, thus decreasing the circumference of the sclera, and leads to an elongation of the axial eye length." [Source: Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Vol 39, 2140-2147, Copyright © 1998 by Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology; ARTICLES AND REPORTS. "Eye elongation during accommodation in humans: differences between emmetropes and myopes"; W Drexler, O Findl, L Schmetterer, CK Hitzenberger and AF Fercher; Institute of Medical Physics, University of Vienna, Austria.] Is this elongation of the eyeball during accommodation that Bates observed?!
It should be pointed out here that the convention teaching is that in myopia, for example, the eyeball "grows" into an elongated shape, theoretically due to genetics, and that the elongation of the eyeball has nothing to do with the contraction of the two oblique muscles. The point here is that if one believes the two oblique muscles have nothing to do with myopia, they might also believe the oblique muscles have nothing to do with accommodation. In any case, modern research by eye doctors has shown conclusively that myopia is not genetic. Note in the Austrian research they state that the eye elongation "can be explained" by contraction of the ciliary muscle. It could also be explained by the contraction of the two oblique muscles.
Now for presbyopia:
The conventional opinion on presbyopia is that around age 40 everyone's lens begins to lose its ability to change its curvature (more), i.e, to accommodate. The reason given for this is that the lens is "hardening," and that this is due to aging. The harder lens, the less the accommodation. The lens supposedly hardens in its "at rest", relatively flat curvature. This would allow a person to still see clearly in the distance, but not up close, called presbyopia.
(Presbyopia is not the same as hyperopia. In both cases, close vision is more blurred that distance vision. Hyperopia is when the eyeball is too short. Conventional theory says it just grows this way, or is genetic. Bates proved hyperopia is caused by chronic contraction of the four recti muscles.)
There are a few problems with the presbyopia lens-hardening-with-age theory. The biggest one is that there are many people who have lived well over the age of 40 who never became presbyopic. Even people 99 years old with perfect eyesight have been examined by eye doctors. These "old" people see clearly both far and near naturally, without glasses, contact lenses, surgery, drugs, etc. Since old-age non-presbyopia is a fact observed by essentially all eye doctors of any experience, one might wonder if older people who never become presbyopic are doing something different than the older people who become presbyopic. (I have never know anyone to suggest that presbyopia is hereditary, or any other reason for that matter, except the lens hardening of course.)
While writing Relearning to See I contacted two eye doctors, an ophthalmologist and optometrist, to asked them what the mechanism of accommodation is for older people who have normal sight. Interestingly enough, both of them gave me the same answer. (These two eye doctors did not know each other.) Their answer was: "We don't know." What?! Before age 40, we are told that the lens/ciliary muscle is the mechanism of accommodation. After age 40, if a person has normal eyesight, we are told that the mechanism of accommodation is unknown! Of course I have thought about this strange situation a long time. (If anyone has an explanation from an eye doctor of how the eye accommodates in older people with normal eyesight, I would like to know.)
The eye doctors are in a real dilemma here. If they say that the lens is the mechanism of accommodation for older people without presbyopia, then obviously there is a way for the lens to still change its curvature in older people---it obvious hasn't hardened, or at least not enough to prevent normal accommodation. But this would contradict their conventional teachings, and many (if not most?) eye doctors would probably not be willing to risk taking that position. After all Bates was ejected from his post of teaching ophthalmology due to his beliefs and teachings. If they maintain their position that the lens is hard and cannot change its curvature for anyone older than age 40, then these older people are accommodating in some other way---in which case the lens' ability to change its curvature could be considered irrelevant since the eye is obviously able to accommodate in some other way! A curious problem to say the least.
When I was taking my Teacher Training Program in 1983 from the late Janet Goodrich, who I consider to be the world's greatest modern Bates teacher, I was surprised in the first class to hear her say, contrary to Bates' view, that the is was the mechanism of accommodation. However, her explanation of presbyopia was that the ciliary muscle is strained, preventing the lens from increasing its curvature to see clearly up close---not that the lens had become harder. Since that time I have heard this former theory from a modern, holistic-oriented ophthalmologist, and also from an optometrist.
This is the theory I currently subscribe to. Bates eliminated his own "stone-hard" presbyopia. Many presbyopes have improved their reading vision or have completely eliminated their need for their "readers" by relearning natural vision habits all day long. [Bates used the terms "habits" and "all day long."] How can this be? If one takes the position that the lens hardens in presbyopia, then he/she might also take the position that the lens "unhardens" when he/she eliminates their presbyopia with the Bates Method. While possible, that does not seem very likely. If one takes the position that the ciliary muscle is too tense in presbyopia, one could more easily take the position that the ciliary muscle simply releases its chronic tension as the presbyopia is improved or eliminated with the Bates Method which, as you may know, is based on relaxation. This later theory makes more sense to me, especially after hearing so many presbyopes tell me how much stress was occurring in their lives when they became presbyopic. In any case, for the presbyopes who have improved or eliminated their presbyopia, the mechanism of accommodation does not seem to be very important to them. They just wanted to get their natural reading vision back.
Presbyopia can improve even when a student does not believe it can improve. One of my students came up to me after a few weeks in the Natural Eyesight Improvement course. She whispered to me that her presbyopia was improving. While wondering why she was whispering, I ask her, âIsn't that why you enrolled for the course?â Surprisingly her answer was âNo. I never believed my presbyopia would improve by attend your course.â I asked, âThen why did you enroll for the course.â Her answer was, âSo my presbyopia would not get worse. I have been practicing the good vision habits you have been teaching us only so my presbyopia would not get worse. My eye doctor had convinced me it is impossible to improve presbyopia.â Why the whispering? She was embarrassed to admit all this in front of the other students!
On a humorous note, I had a student who eliminated her presbyopia and returned to her eye doctor, an ophthalmologist, for a vision exam just to see the expression on his face when he saw that her vision was now normal. He said it was worth the $40.