Fist of all, sorry for my English since it is not my fist language.
Back in 2008, I started a thread about my fist 4 month experience with Bate method , here is the topic
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And today, July 4th 2013, I am totally CURED form myopia. No more blurry vision. My vision is 20/20 crystal sharp and clear! Its amazing.
So I will list here what I have done from May 2008 and what i think about vision improvement here.
_Basic info: I was myopic. About -2.5 to -2.75 Diop, both eyes. Wearing glasses from 15 year old to 24 year old ( in 2008). So it was about 9 year wearing galsses. Test with snell chart showed that my vision was about 20/200.
* 5/2008 => 11/2008
+ Take off glasses complely
+ Practice Long Swinging many times everyday, a few hundreds swing each time.
+ I am a programmer, work on computer a lot so I wanted to use the computer to help me to improve my vision. So I decided to put the computer screen 5 centimeters further a way from me every week. At first the screen was 30 centimeters away. And up to 11/2008, I can put it 80 to 100 centimeters away and work easily. It was a huge improvement.
+ working on the snellen chart a few time a day.
The result:
+ at first I experienced terrible headaches. But they went a way after 1 or 2 weeks when I got used to see without glasses.
+ my vision improved up to 20/40.
At that time, i was very satisfied with the result. I could live without glasses. Could work, play sport⦠effectively without glassed. You know, went form 20/200 to 20/40 was a huge improvement. ( but compare to my 20/20 vision today, 20/40 is nothing lol )
+ most effective exercise in this period for me was just working on computer (8 hour every day) with the screen put further away every week. Long swing helped too.
* 11/2008 to 1/2013:
didnât practice as often as before. Got married, got 2 kids, life got much more busy. When I got busy with other things I didnât spend enough time to practice long swing or wok on snellen chart any more. Any my main strategy:â putting the computer screen further every weekâ hit it maximum potential since I can not put the screen more than 1 meter away ( have you ever seen someone that sit 1.5 to 2 meter away from the computer screen at work? lol)
- But sometime when I was not so busy and had more free time, I spent a few minutes to work on the snellen chart and do the long swing as well. And although I know that I didnât spend enough time to practice, my vision still improved during this period. I know that because when I drove, I could see things that I usually couldnât see well before. That means my vision was improved.
* 1/2013 to Jun 15 2013 (a bout 2 weeks ago)
This period, I was not busy with work. Kids also growed and I didnât have to spend much time to take care of them. My wife quit her job to stay home, take care of the kids and do all the house work. So this period I have free time again. And I decided to continue my journey to 20/20 vision.
Practice:
+ Long swing many times a day.
+ working on snellen chart many times a day.
Result:
Great! My vision improved significantly. Got clear vision many many times during the day. But these clear flashes were not stable. They usually went away after a link. Then came back quickly after another blink. I got so many clear 20/20 flashes, but I just counldnât keep them permanently.
Something was missing! And I was confused!
One day, I read a part of Davidâs method a bout center vision
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goto the part a bout âCLAIM YOUR CENTER OF VISIONâ
I notice that I donât have good enough habit of central fixation. The idea is look at smaller spot at a time on any larger object you're looking at. The smaller the better.
And then I read somewhere that Dr Bate said that reading fine print all so help to improve vision. Bingo. I think I found what I was looking for
I immediately change the font of my webbrowser to the smallest that I can, zoom out of the webpage to the point text on the browser is so tinny but still sharp and black, and readable. Then I just sit normally ( about 1 meter from the screen) and read the webpage.
After 5 minutes I looked out of the window and everhing was bright, shard and 20/20 clear.
Now I know I found my powerful exercise. Since I am a programmer, work 8 hours a day on the computer, that mean with this newly discovered exercise, I am back to practicing fulltime a gain.
And since 2 weeks ago, I just worked on computer, reading webpage with tiny font many hours a day, and my vision improved every day.
And today, when I am outside, walking down the street with stable 20/20 vision, seeing people, houses, cars, tree, street signs clearly and easily, I feel like a happy child! That is the vision that I once had when I was a child and now I regain it after a long 5 years journey. But it is definitely worth it!!!
So that is my story. I think if I had more free time, know what to do and practice every day I can be cured sooner. But that is life, we have so much things to worry about beside improve our vision. And 4 out of 5 years I didnât try hard to practice at all lol.
Your story can really give me the inspiration to recover my vision. I'm also a programmer and working on the computer alot, so I think I'll take advantage from this wonderful experience.
Programmer here as well, thank you for sharing your story. Congratulations on joining the 20/20 master race.
I've really been slacking on moving my computer back, especially since it's a laptop. Thanks to this post I'm going to take more serious measures to make sure I have concrete goals in mind.
May I ask what specifically you did with "practise with snellen test card"?
ho, great job and it is encouraging to hear about your recovery. I really need to do some long swinging. You persevered in practicing long swinging daily. Why do you think it is so useful? Do you swing your vision left to right, or all possible directions? Do you do this mainly looking at things indoors or outdoors (medium or long range)? -thanks, Lou
shocker Wrote:May I ask what specifically you did with "practise with snellen test card"?
I mean you stand 20 feet (or less, just stand where you still can recognize some letters on the snellen chart. Then move your point of view from one part of the letter to another part of the letter. When you done with one letter, move on to another letter. Just keep moving your point of view. That practice helped me to get a lot of clear flashes, and overtime my eye sight getting better.
lou_deg Wrote:ho, great job and it is encouraging to hear about your recovery. I really need to do some long swinging. You persevered in practicing long swinging daily. Why do you think it is so useful? Do you swing your vision left to right, or all possible directions? Do you do this mainly looking at things indoors or outdoors (medium or long range)? -thanks, Lou
I like long swing because:
+ it is very effective . It keeps my eye moving. Overtime it trains me to regain shifting habit. You know, you just need good habit of shifting and central fixation and you get perfect eye sight. Thatâs all. Long swing helps me with shifting.
+ itâs easy to do. Just swing left to right then right to left. Very simple. I like to do it outdoors..
+ Itâs not time consuming. It just takes me a few minutes to do it every time. So practicing long swing 5 times a day for me is not a problem.
Im also following some Dr.Bates methods. Thanks for the experience.
Can you explain what are the clear flashes? While working on snell card with blinking I can see next line clearer but after some time it comes back to normal. Is that called clear flash?
Im not working right now and working full time on my eyesight improvement. I left my glasses 2 months back my improvements till date are,
Right eye : - 5.5D with 0.5 cyl to - 4.5D without cyl
Left eye : -3.25D to -2.5D
These improvements occurred in just 2 days after taking off my glasses completely. I am following Leo angart eye exercises (for 1hr), Long swing (trying to do 50 times a day but sometimes I skip), working with snell card (looking a foot away from letter and imagining more darker and clearer letter and after looking to letter on chart makes the letter dark), trying to do switching whenever possible with objects around the house , learning to breath freely most of the time, habituated blinking smoothly and frequently (around once every 2-3 sec ),sketching whenever possible (looking borders of objects in the house), palming with Greg Marsh CD program (Audio Guided activity) 2 times a day for 25min each, sunning one time a day for 15min in the early hours. for centre fixation Im trying to move eyes(smoothly from one corner to other) on a black dot (around 2cm) from a certain distance (around 10ft) without stain (This black dot thing I read some where in the internet).
Most important thing is learning to live without glasses, more of attitude and posture changes (overcoming perfectionism, not taking tension in every small daily life aspects, relaxing shoulder whenever there are getting stressed, packed my television set to store room). Changed my diet to more healthy that before, i worked as a software developer, now I spangly use.....there are too many, giving 100% effort to relax.
Hope I get some advice what shall I do to get improvement in eyesight....
Im not a native speaker, sorry for mistakes in language.
Its great to know your success story! congratulations.. It really inspires me to continue my journey to attaining that perfect vision that I dreamed of. I am myopic too.
I have a question.
Quote:I am a programmer, work on computer a lot so I wanted to use the computer to help me to improve my vision. So I decided to put the computer screen 5 centimeters further a way from me every week. At first the screen was 30 centimeters away. And up to 11/2008, I can put it 80 to 100 centimeters away and work easily. It was a huge improvement.
So every week the computer screen was put 5 cms further. Could you feel your vision stabilizing in one week for that particular distance which you practiced working on your computer before you decided to move the computer screen ahead for another 5 cms? or you just thought that it would be better to move it further every week and the focus would stabilize eventually?
I work with computers too and it would be wonderful if I tried this too!
Thank you David and everyone. It has been a while since my last post, some of you asked me questions and i will try to answer from my experience. They are my experiences, that means they worked for me, but it doesnât mean that they are the only way to improve your vision. There are many exercises that Dr Bates created, I just used some of them and got good result. But I do believe that other exercises that I didnât use are useful too. Just try and find the exercise that suitable for you and easy to incorporate into your daily schedule.
And about my current vision, I have something to share to you. My day vision is still 20/20 as I said. I compared my vision with my brotherâs vision (he has normal vision). In day light, anything he can see I can see clearly too. I am happy with my day vision. But night vision is still not perfect. I think my night vision is about 20/30. But It keep improve every week. I can drive very fast at night now because my night vision is much better now. But I know that it is not 20/20 at night and I still wok on improving my night vision.
I did not palm. I tried it sometime and I didnât like it. But I think it is useful for other people. I just prefer swinging and working on snellen chart and reading fine print on computer screen.
Squirrel Monkey Wrote:So you never wore glasses from the day you started?
In the beginning I had to bring glasses with me just in case I need it. But I had reduced prescription.. When I was -2.5 D, I bought -2 D glasses. I used my glasses very rarely. For example if I was droving and got lost and wanted to read the street name, I put on my glasses and then took it off. I think that I used my galsses no more than 10 minutes/day. As my vision improving, I didnât need to bring my glasses with me as often. Now I donât remember where my glasses are I think I lost my glasses lol
athidi Wrote:Congrats!!!!
Happy to listen your success story....
Im also following some Dr.Bates methods. Thanks for the experience.
Can you explain what are the clear flashes? While working on snell card with blinking I can see next line clearer but after some time it comes back to normal. Is that called clear flash?
Hi Athidi, I think what you got is a form of clear flash. If you keep working, you will experience a 20/30 or even 20/20 clear flashes. That mean with a 20/20 clear flashes, you can read 20/20 line from 20 feet (6 metters). At first, a clear flash often disappear after you blink.
I see that you have learnt a lot about Bates method. Keep the good work, try all the exercises, find the exercises that you like and that work for you. Keep practice them and enjoy better vision every month. (or even every week).
Pallavi Wrote:So every week the computer screen was put 5 cms further. Could you feel your vision stabilizing in one week for that particular distance which you practiced working on your computer before you decided to move the computer screen ahead for another 5 cms? or you just thought that it would be better to move it further every week and the focus would stabilize eventually?
I work with computers too and it would be wonderful if I tried this too!
Hey, 5cm further every week was what work for me. Usually after one week, I can work quite comfortable on my computer. Not perfect but comfortable enough. Then I move my computer screen 5 cm further. I think you just need try and find out how long and when to move the screen further by your self . It is just a principle that work for me: move the screen further every week.
If you decide to try this method, prepare for some terrible headaches. I mean awful headache. But after the headache gone, I got better vision. So âno pain no gainâ is true for me
Now my favorite exercise is :reading fine prints on computers. But read letter by letter (not word by word). What does that mean? For example, a sentence like this:
âThe Sky Is Blueâ
Usually, you read like this: âTheâ, then move to âskyâ, then move to âisâ, then move to âBlueâ.
Reading fine print like this still helps me to improve vision. But I find a better way to improve my vision. In stead of reading word by word, I read letter by letter. So what I read now is:
âTâ then âhâ then âeâ then âSâ then âkâ then âyâ âIâ âsâ âBâ âlâ âuâ âeâ
To prevent my habit of reading word by word, I use google to translate the fine print to Portuguese or Dutch
This exercise is my favorite now and my vision keeps improving, especially night vision.
Even for me I felt some headache (I didn't even try to see any thing hard) the next day i came to see clear flashes (same as that u explained) I saw clear flashes of the next line (which I was trying to see) after practicing 2 min near snell card.im trying to make them normal
Thank you for the advice! I did try this method. It does get a little uncomfortable when I read words at a particular distance (distance from where I can see a little better though not that clear) from the computer..because sometimes the letters are clear and after sometimes when i blink again, i see the letters and words become blur or look double. I blink, breathe and try to remove tension from my neck, shoulder muscles. However, i didnt experience headaches as of now..I hope to get some success and if it works, i'll post my reuslts!
I think I lost my glasses lol