Hello everybody, my name is Miroslav and its my first post here, but i am not new to the forum at all. First i want apologize for my language, bulgarian english grammar is hard for me .  I am 25 years old and i started seeing worse at around the age of 7, i never wore my glasses of school because i was scared that everybody will make fun of me, so from first to eight grade i was not wearing glasses and i had to squint in order to see the board and naturally i was very bad in school. In 9th grade i started using contacts, i wore them for 2 years with time my eyes started rejecting them, they felt dry etc. And in grade 11 i finally put on pair go glasses, without caring about the opinion of others (i was a person with with very bad mentality as you can imagine, very low self esteem and lack a desire to live).

Everything started in the beginning of 2015 i was considering doing an Lasik eye surgery (so proud of myself that i did’t). So i was reading all those negative comments on the forums of people having problems after the surgery and etc. About that time a videos on youtube started popping on the recommended page, videos of people talking about those eye exercises and practices. So this idea started forming in my head, that maybe there is no need to do the awful eye surgery, and maybe there is an alternative way. And i quickly changed my mind about the Lasik, it was no longer an option, but i hated the glasses, so i needed to do something, it was a period in my life that my mindset became more healthy and i wanted to become a better person in every area in life. I did more research and i found about dr. Bates and that there is quite a lot of people who restored their vision, i found this forum and some youtube channels. It was april 1st that everything started for me i was at the book store and i saw a book by Leo Angart (i think the book is great just the bulgarian translation lost some of its real meaning). I read the book immediately and i started doing the exercises that Mr Angart was recommending. I still went to the eye surgery clinic but just to do an eye exam on their fancy equipment, according to the doctor my diopter was -3 for both eyes with -0.5 cylinder, so not that bad, compered to some other people. But i no longer wanted to wear glasses, knowing that there is hope, the first month when i took off the glasses was really scary for me, i was afraid to cross the street, and at night my vision was horrible (good thing i decided not to do the surgery and saved the money so i had the oppurtunity not work, at least for that year, plus i was still at uni). So i was doing mainly palming and the long swing, and i had a chart that i used, i use a rope and and a pencil exercise that you make the rope and move the pencil and notice how fat away you can move it and see the letters, i also use a tibetan wheel. At the same time i was reading the forum and the posts on the site, and i got the idea that i was doing the exercises wrong because i was still straining, and i had the mentality that if i  want to achieve clear vision i have to be like solider, and that was wrong. So i got the original book of dr. Bates, and after reading it more stuff became clear to me. It was the summer of 2015 when i had my first clear flash, it was on of the most joyful experiences . And till the end of the year i was noticing small improvements in my vision, clear flashes started to appear more often and my nigh vision improved (i remember when i was still wearing my glasses i was having trouble to see in the dark, for example i was walking home in the nigh and i was stepping in potholes and ect, i had the sharpness form the glasses but i just was not able to see the detail in the dark i don’t know if it makes sense) i was walking confidently at night and i was seeing more detail in the darkness just not sharp. Till the end of the year my understanding of how vision works improved. From the begging of 2016 i started working a computer job, it was good that it was not that stressful and hat a lot of downtime that i use to swing on the chair . I wore glasses with -1.25 of diopters and i was seeing everything on the monitor just fine, without straining. I was wearing the glasses only for work i didn't have a car at that time. I worked on this job till the end of April, the downside was that i stopped doing my exercises as often i kinda stop palming and just did the long swings and that was it. At the same time i saw my first clear flash at night it was just for a moment and it was more like 20/40 but i was still felt very good. And from May till September i moved to USA for a work and travel program and i did 2 jobs and i stopped doing any practices, i was just doing palming once a day for no longer than 5 minutes. Most of the time i was forgetting that i was short sided, my jobs didn't require sharp vision, but the summer had its stressful moments and i guess i started staring again (i did not wore glasses at all even while traveling, and being in the airports, i didn't have to use them). When i got back in Bulgaria i bought a car and i attempt to drive without my glasses, it was not bad at all in the sunny weather i was seeing almost clear i would assume something like 20/50, i was seeing the road signs and people crossing the streets, so i didn't felt unsafe.  And for bad weather, night and highway driving i used my -1.25 glasses even though i think i will feel more comfortable with -1.50 for the night. But in the day time when i was going for a drive, i would completely forget that i was myopic and at some point i will remember that i was living my dream and i was feeling good about it (i was probably straining at some degree without even noticing it). 

(11-25-2016, 08:30 AM)Nadia Wrote: Hi Miroslav,

Please don't get discouraged by what the optometrists measured in terms of dioptric powers.  That the Bates method works by reducing diopters is a huge misconception.  Your eyesight has improved, but not quite perfect.  By perfect, I mean 20/20 or better.  20/20 should not even be used any more, instead they should be talking about the resolution of the eye and use a more scientific measure such as minute of arc or dpi or ppi (as in photography and print resolution.)  However, since you are myopic (shortsighted), there is a distance from your eyes, where your eyes are perfect.  The colours, the black, you see the outlines, the contrast perfectly, it's not blurred by a bit, it's not faded, no double images, etc.  Now what is happening that this range of perfection, between your nose and whatever distance (probably 40 cm) hasn't expanded (much).  Instead the world beyond this range has become closer to perfection.  So when the Optometrist decides your perfect prescription, all she/he can do is take the outer limit of your perfect range and extend it by optical means to infinity.   Hence you get dioptric powers that are similar to the old ones.  Think about it.  if it worked with the expansion of the range, then you would need to get weaker glasses every month but you would still not be able to drive because your far vision would not improve at all until you reached 0 diopters.

I know I'm not saying it well, not expressing this concept very well yet but I will keep working on it because it may be one of the main stumbling points that keeps the Bates Method in the category of pseudo-science.

Here is a little formula for finding your own diopters:  
If you can see perfectly until 40 cm from your eyes, convert it to meters: 0.4
1/0.4=2.75  
multiply that by -1
so your diopters would be -2.75 (without astigmatism)

Also there is a lot of subjectivity when it comes to how well you see under what conditions.  It is quite possible that you can see 20/40 or better (which is good enough, with -1.25 glasses) or even without any glasses at all.  This comes to show that the Bates Method is a patience game, it's about building up your trust and self-confidence until no glasses can make you see the World sharper than your unaided vision.  How to reconcile this perfectly with science??  That's a tough one but it's still worth trying. :-)  Please ask me if you need me to try to explain something better!
Keep it up!
:-)