Is there a Bates book specifically for Strabismus, (squint) crossed, wandering eye conditions.
I give my readers all the info I have. I know all Bates activities cures this problem but people want a quick cure with step by step treatments. I have only cured a very slight problem in my own eyes, gave directions to couple kids and it helps but I need more practice.
I have read that learning to move my own eyes in all directions, causing myself squint can teach me to cure/avoid squint.
I am tempted to try this to get a better understanding of the problem and direct experience in curing it.
THE evidence is conclusive that squint and amblyopia, like errors of refraction, are purely functional troubles; and since they are always relieved by the relief of the strain with which they are associated, it follows that any of the methods which promote relaxation and central fixation may be employed for their cure. As in the case of errors of refraction, the squint disappears and the amblyopia is corrected just as soon as the patient gains sufficient mental control to remember a perfectly black period. In this way both conditions can be temporarily relieved in a few seconds, their permanent cure being a mere matter of making this temporary state permanent.
One of the best ways of gaining mental control in cases of squint is to learn how to increase the squint, or produce other kinds of squint, voluntarily. In the case illustrated the patient had divergent vertical squint in both eyes. When the left eye was straight the right eye turned out and up, and when the right eye was straight the left eye turned down and out. Both eyes were amblyopic and there was double vision, with the images sometimes on the same side and sometimes on opposite sides. The patient suffered from headaches, and having obtained no relief from glasses, or other methods of treatment, she made up her mind to an operation and consulted Dr. Gudmund J. Gislason, of Grand Forks, N. D., with a view to having one performed. Dr. Gislason, puzzled to find so many muscles apparently at fault, asked my opinion as to which of them should be operated upon. I showed the patient how to make her squint worse, and recommended that Dr. Gislason treat her by eye education without an operation. He did so, and in less than a month the patient had learned to turn both eyes in voluntarily. At first she did this by looking at a pencil held over the bridge of the nose; but later she became able to do it without the pencil, and ultimately she became able to produce every kind of squint at will. The treatment was not pleasant for her, because the production of new kinds of squint, or the making worse of the existing condition, gave her pain; but it effected a complete and permanent cure both of the squint and of the amblyopia. The same method has proved successful with other patients.
Some patients do not know whether they are looking straight at an object or not. These may be helped by watching the deviating eye and directing them to look more nearly in the proper direction. When the deviating eye looks directly at an object the strain to see is less, and the vision is consequently improved. Covering the good eye with an opaque screen, or with ground glass, encourages a more proper use of the squinting eye, especially if the vision of that eye is imperfect.
Children of six years, or younger, can usually be cured of squint by the use of atropine, a one per cent solution being instilled into one or both eyes twice a day, for many months, a year, or longer. The atropine makes it more difficult for the child to see, and makes the sunlight disagreeable. In order to overcome this handicap it has to relax, and the relaxation cures the squint.
The improvement resulting from eye education in cases of squint and amblyopia is sometimes so rapid as to be
almost incredible. The following are a few of many other examples that might be quoted:
A girl of eleven had convergent vertical squint of the left eye. The vision of this eye at the distance was 3/200, while at the near-point it was so imperfect that she was unable to read. The vision of the right eye was normal both for the near-point and the distance. She was wearing glasses when she came to the office - convex 4.00 D. S. combined with convex 0.50 D. C., axis 90, for the right eye; and convex 5.50 D. S. for the left eye - but had obtained no benefit from them. When she looked three feet away from the big C with the left eye, she saw it better than when she looked directly at it; but when asked to count my fingers held three feet away from the card, they so attracted her attention that she was able to see the large letter worse. The fact was impressed upon her that she could see the card better when she looked away from it, or she could see it worse, at will; and she was also asked to note that when she saw it worse her vision improved, and when she saw it better her vision declined. After shifting from the card to a point three feet away from it, and seeing the former worse a few times, her vision improved to 10/200. The ability to shift and see worse improved by practice so rapidly that in less than ten days her vision was normal in both eyes, and in less than two weeks it had improved to 20/10, while diamond type was read with each eye at from three inches to twenty inches. In less than three weeks her vision for the distance was 20/5, by artificial light, and she read photographic type reductions at two inches, the tests being made with both eyes together and with each eye separately She also read strange test cards as readily as the familiar ones. She
Otis,
I made a small E-book Adobe pdf out of the chapter you gave me on Strabismus. I copied/paste all pages from Bates original book.
You can have it if you like; <!-- e --><a href="mailto:mclearsight@aol.com">mclearsight@aol.com</a><!-- e -->
Going to add more info. on Strabismus to the book from other sources in future.
Person E-mails me, says he is getting strabismus, cross eye after using Bates method. Asked him if it is the true Bates method he is using or a different treatment going by Bates name that may be giving him bad advice, straining type exercises? He just found my website after searching for help to treat the strabismus so I am thinking he might be doing a different method?
I never heard of Bates method causing this. Multiple clear images, yes, as the blur, astigmatism is reversing, clearing and this always corrects to one clear image but never heard of strabismus.
I cant understand what he means by the Bates method causing the Strabismus.
Said he did not have the crossed eye until after he was practicing some type of Bates method, if that is what he really was using. I am waiting for his reply.
I will let you know what exercises... he did that caused it.
Maybe something else caused it at same time he started these exercises??
Otis, write me up a little book on all the steps you did/do that corrected your Strabismus.
It will be great help to people. I will pay for it.
I don't have time to "write a little book".
I would read Alex and i-blindenss "Libraries" on this subject. It is far more "complete" than anything I could "write". See:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.i-see.org/">http://www.i-see.org/</a><!-- m -->
But let me say this:
1. The "method" was to use a steroscope, and I practiced "centering" an " X " in a circle using this device.
2. I was "forced" to play tennis and other "out-door" activities.
3. I can not call this work "pro-Bates or "anti-Bates". But whenever I mention this work I am accused of getting "Bates wrong". I get tired of that idea.
Otis, write me up a little book on all the steps you did/do that corrected your Strabismus.
It will be great help to people. I will pay for it.
I am CERTAIN that using Bates methods of reading your Snellen -- does NOT cause strabismus. But a lot of very biased people will say that it does -- with no proof at all.
Whenever you choose a "course of action", be it Bates or Prentice, you will have a degree of "fear" that using these methods will "cause" other secondary effects. That is one issue that i-blindness can and should address.
My interest is to repeat Bates 1913 study -- brought up to date with science as it developed after Dr. Bates died in 1931. I think the N.E.I., should stop stone-walling Bates and other second-opinion (preventive) advocates.
Thanks Otis.
That steroscope sounds interesting. Would like to get that device.
I have heard of Tennis and similiar games that get the eyes moving, moving together help all eye conditions.
clarknight Wrote: Person E-mails me, says he is getting strabismus, cross eye after using Bates method. Asked him if it is the true Bates method he is using or a different treatment going by Bates name that may be giving him bad advice, straining type exercises? He just found my website after searching for help to treat the strabismus so I am thinking he might be doing a different method?
I never heard of Bates method causing this. Multiple clear images, yes, as the blur, astigmatism is reversing, clearing and this always corrects to one clear image but never heard of strabismus.
It would be interesting to find out.
Maybe it could also be that a helpful Bates exercise is bringing out latent strabismus that he was controlling with strain before without really knowing it. I've heard sungazing can bring it out too, and that most people have minor cases. Ever notice how it's so much harder to look at a very bright light (sunlight) with two eyes than with one eye?
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Robert Lichtman wrote a post on Effortless Vision a while back that he thought many people had some level of strabismus & didn't realize it, which is the same point David is making. You could probably find this with a few searches there. NVI often brings strains to the surface you weren't aware of, & you may mistakenly think it's making you worse.
David and Nancy
This sounds familiar.
Bates method uncovering strains, muscle tension the person does not know they have, which are the underlying cause of the blur...
Also, I was thinking maybe Bates method relaxes all the eyes muscles but if one muscle is more tense, it might continue to be tense, be the last to relax and result in temporary strabismus: the tense muscle pulling the eye out of alignment.
I will check out that other post.
I am not sure if this is Bates but I remember Leo is recomending the string exercise. You know when you have string and put a few beads on some distance along the string. You have to tigh one side for example on bad, or chair, and put another end onto your nose and then look into each beads. the point is that you need to see like two strings crossing in X in the bead, or V or Y is all good. I have tested with one friend who has strabismus and she was initially seeing just one line, But , by the time she switched on the other eye adn was able to see X. So, person needs to move along the string and look into each beads (or you can make knots)
As I said I am not sure if this Bates, but I read many of the Bates teachers have it.
Thanks Flower Power.
I do have the bead string on my website.
Thomas Quackenbush has a in depth chapter on this: steroscopic vision and bead string.
I have referred my readers to this forum and this topic
One Bates teacher told me the Fusion String is "a strain machine" but I guess this could be said about the eye chart also. Any tool depends on how you use it. This is where the benefit of a teacher comes in. The student may be straining & not realize it because the habit is so familiar.
