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+--- Thread: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing (/showthread.php?tid=1931)
From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - tod - 10-01-2011
Hi everyone,
My name is Tod. About 9 years ago I began wearing glasses, which I had avoided for a long time. My vision was around -1.5 at that time. A few months after I started wearing glasses, I developed floaters which plague me to this day (of course they said it was merely a coincidence).
My vision declined by about -0.25 diopters per year and settled at -3.0 about three years ago. It was actually worse than that, because six months after I started wearing my new -3.0 eyeglasses, I noticed that lettering on a sign I could see clearly with the glasses six months earlier, in a controlled environment (a hockey rink with year-round constant lighting), was now fuzzy.
It was at this time that I had enough. I switched to my old -1.5 glasses for a year and saw my vision stabilize at the next eye exam -- for the first time in seven years, it did not worsen. Then, I began the vision improvement experiment that I am still writing about on my blog.
For my experiment, I stopped wearing glasses almost entirely. I've been doing this for two years now and have solid results to report. My vision has improved by +0.25 each year, and I just recently tested at -2.5. I still have a ways to go of course, but I am astounded that I have any progress at all. The optometrist is baffled. Naturally. The sad thing is she keeps telling me to wear my last prescription (she has no idea I'm either going without or wearing undercorrected lenses). So she's comfortable letting me walk out of her office with glasses that exceed my present prescription. How can she think that's acceptable?
As I mentioned, I've been writing about this on my blog. [It seems that I'm not allowed to post a link to it. Oh well.] I go into my experience and the theories in more detail.
Keep trying. I'm getting results and I'm not even doing eye exercises (I used to, and I should start again).
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - tod - 10-01-2011
If you search for "Do Glasses Make Your Vision Worse Tod FM" you will find my articles.
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - Deliverance - 10-01-2011
Hi tod and welcome!
Congratulations in your improvement - keep up working at it!.
Do you really think that glasses are the problem? I think, the answer is yes and not. You can strain your eyes with and without glasses and your vision will get worse in any case, the only difference I think is that glasses encourage even more a incorrect, strained way of seeing than without it. It have been discussed already a lot in this community,
I'm really sad to say this but, our dear and genius Dr. Bates have not presented in the best way his methods as a cure of vision problems, That's why we have so little success and people struggle with it today... yet it remains 100% effective for people who really know how to apply it correctly. Becouse what Bates said was pure common sense and what the eye with normal vison does. But people complicates it.
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - tod - 10-01-2011
I agree with you. I started using computers heavily around age 9, and finally got glasses around age 20. So glasses didn't cause the problem, initially. It's the near work, I believe.
There has been a myopia explosion in the past 30 years, and it can't be explained by genetics. I quote a newspaper article on my blog:
Quote:The number of Americans who need glasses is rising sharply, according to a new study at the National Eye Institute. The scientists, writing in a recent issue of Archives of Opthalmology, found a 66% increase in myopia â the medical term for nearsightedness â since the 1970s, equalling 47 million people. ⦠Whatâs more, there was a swing from mild to more severe myopia over the 30-year period.â
Parade Magazine, February 7, 2010
Genetics has been the same for thousands of years. What has changed in 30 years? Our environment, our habits. It's hilarious that doctors who comment on this data say "The reason for the increase is unknown." Correlation may not be causation, but surely this points in a certain direction?
I don't get hung up on Dr. Bates. People attack the shortcomings in his writings or his research and try to brand the entire movement as psuedoscience. Natural vision improvement is a legitimate line of inquiry (there is no illegitimate line of inquiry, actually).
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - Deliverance - 10-01-2011
Ok.
From my point of view
Near work as a cause of myopia is just a theory, and in fact this leads to the same concept of: A strain to see.
"Near work" is just a name for this, it's like if we say "distance work", if you strain to see at the distance (it's the myopic habit every time they look at things, they refuse to pay attention to what is there, yet they aren't aware of this unnecesary strain they are putting on their eyes-visual system.)
Quote:Genetics has been the same for thousands of years. What has changed in 30 years? Our environment, our habits. It's hilarious that doctors who comment on this data say "The reason for the increase is unknown." Correlation may not be causation, but surely this points in a certain direction?
The explanation given by that medics don't makes sense to me, genetics has nothing to do. I agre with, our environment and our habits like a cause. However they can't explain the actual origin of the problem. I would go for Dr. Bates writings instead of wasting the time reading something that has been already solved.
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - David - 10-01-2011
Welcome, Tod! You can post a link after 5 posts. It's to help keep away the spam bots.
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - clarknight - 10-04-2011
Absolutely love the way this guy worked his own way around the dishonest optometrist.
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - JMartinC4 - 10-04-2011
tod Wrote:I agree with you. I started using computers heavily around age 9, and finally got glasses around age 20. So glasses didn't cause the problem, initially. It's the near work, I believe. There has been a myopia explosion in the past 30 years, and it can't be explained by genetics. I quote a newspaper article on my blog:Quote:The number of Americans who need glasses is rising sharply, according to a new study at the National Eye Institute. The scientists, writing in a recent issue of Archives of Opthalmology, found a 66% increase in myopia â the medical term for nearsightedness â since the 1970s, equalling 47 million people. ⦠Whatâs more, there was a swing from mild to more severe myopia over the 30-year period.â Parade Magazine, February 7, 2010Genetics has been the same for thousands of years. What has changed in 30 years? Our environment, our habits. It's hilarious that doctors who comment on this data say "The reason for the increase is unknown." Correlation may not be causation, but surely this points in a certain direction? I don't get hung up on Dr. Bates. People attack the shortcomings in his writings or his research and try to brand the entire movement as psuedoscience. Natural vision improvement is a legitimate line of inquiry (there is no illegitimate line of inquiry, actually).
Lord Wrote:Ok. From my point of view Near work as a cause of myopia is just a theory, and in fact this leads to the same concept of: A strain to see.Actually, the explosive increase in the incidence and severity of myopia has been happening for longer than 30 years - the US National Science Foundation published their study, Myopia - Prevalence and Progression, in 1989, which said the same thing, looking at the history of myopia since the 1880's. But the true observed increase doesn't start until the 1940's, which is still a 70 year period to-date, easily predating home computers. (Which is still nowhere near the thousands of years necessary to blame it on 'genetics'.)
"Near work" is just a name for this, it's like if we say "distance work", if you strain to see at the distance (it's the myopic habit every time they look at things, they refuse to pay attention to what is there, yet they aren't aware of this unnecesary strain they are putting on their eyes-visual system.)Quote:Genetics has been the same for thousands of years. ...The explanation given by that medics don't makes sense to me, genetics has nothing to do. I agre with, our environment and our habits like a cause. However they can't explain the actual origin of the problem. I would go for Dr. Bates writings instead of wasting the time reading something that has been already solved.
Unfortunately none of these studies look at the most obvious (to me) facts:
1) Most normal sighted people have a slightly dominant better-visioned eye.
2) Most myopes who wear their prescribed lenses continuously (as prescribed!) develop a dominant worse-visioned eye (at least while wearing their lenses).
3) Most myopes who don't wear their lenses retain an over-dominant but better-visioned eye.
4) Most myopes who wear their prescribed lenses continuously as prescribed, have to get stronger lenses every year.
5) Most myopes who wear their lenses as little as possible do not (although their optometrists often prescribe them anyway - "They haf vays of making you see vurse!".)
So, it's probably how the lenses are being prescribed - making the eyesight equal in both eyes rather than keeping the better eye a little bit better. That is one probable, common-sense explanation for the progressive worsening.
The increasing incidence can be got at from another study, combined with research into the myopic experience. In 2006. Dr. of Laws, Richard Standler, looked at the legislatively-mandated use of neonatal eye antibiotics which began in the mid-1930s and has been continuously enforced at all US hospitals ever since. From the mid-30s to the late-50s the only nea in use was a long-lasting caustic 1% solution of silver nitrate; since the early 60s most hospitals have been using short-acting non-caustic erythromycin ointments. Dr. Standler thinks this is bad for mother-child bonding, either way.
But what Dr. Standler doesn't know is that, if he were to interview equal numbers of myopes born from the mid-30s to the late-50s versus those born from the early-60s to-date, he would probably discover a very different myopic experience, overall, between the two cohorts. I.e., most of the first set, exposed to the long-lasting and caustic eye antibiotics at birth, have no memory of clear distance eyesight; whereas most of the second set, exposed to short-acting non-caustic eye antibiotics at birth, have fond memories of clear distance eyesight.
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - JMartinC4 - 10-05-2011
I thought of two other external, systemic, non-natural factors that would probably need to be looked at in research into the root causes of the increasing incidence and progressive worsening of myopia:
1) The surge of C-Section births, probably starting in the 1980s
2) The surge of childhood dental orthodonture, probably starting in the 1970s
Each of these may also reflect some differential in the myopic experience. They could very likely affect the orbital strain associated with common myopia.
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - coba_aja - 10-13-2011
improving 0.5D a year??? hmmm perhaps i have to be more patient. I thought i could do with 1D a year.
I am now -9D and -7D, perhaps it will progress even slower. I can not take away my glassess all the time so i made a lower prescription.
Re: From worse than -3.0 to -2.5 and continuing - clarknight - 10-14-2011
SCHOOL NUMBER - BETTER EYESIGHT
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF IMPERFECT SIGHT WITHOUT GLASSES - AUGUST, 1927
Demonstrate
That glasses lower the vision.
Stand fifteen feet from the Snellen test card and test the vision of each eye without glasses.
Then test the vision of each eye with glasses on, after having worn them for half a hour or longer. Remove the glasses; test the vision again and compare the results. Note that the vision without glasses becomes better, the longer the glasses are left off.
Test the eyes of a person who is very nearsighted. Remove the glasses and test the sight of each eye at five feet, nearer or farther, until the distance is found at which the vision is best without glasses. Now test the vision for five minutes at this distance, which is the optimum distance, or the distance at which the vision is best. For example, near-sighted people see best when the print is held a foot or nearer to the eyes. If the eyes see best at six inches, the optimum distance is six inches; but if the distance at which the eyes see best is thirty to forty inches, the optimum distance is then thirty or forty inches.
In near-sightedness, glasses always lower the vision at the optimum distance. The same is true in far-sightedness or astigmatism. For example, a near-sighted person may have an optimum distance of six inches. If glasses are worn, the vision is never as good at six inches as it is without them. This demonstrates that glasses lower the vision at six inches, or the optimum distance in this case. In far-sightedness without glasses, the optimum distance, at which objects are seen best, may be ten feet or further. If glasses are worn and the sight is improved at the nearer point, the vision without glasses at the optimum distance becomes worse.