axial myopia cannot be reduced without a positive stimulus.
But axial myopia is reversible.
How to reverse it?
i suggest you use a snellen. put up the snellen and move slightly beyond the point where things get blurry. The letters now should have a mild "fuzz". Now actively focus on the letters. focus on smallest details, "shift" if necessary. If this is done for a while,, you will feel a "stress" on your eyes. The lens of the eyes are actually trying to flatten, and if held for long periods of time the shape of the eyes will permanently change. its important you ACTIVELY try to focus and clear the image or this will not work. I suggest doing this for blocks of an hour at a time until you really "feel" your eyes working. This may be called "print pushing", but it does take a bit more particpation than passively reading.
This is the most common sense and fastest way to "solve this problem". So if you are truly "desperate", i suggest trying this.
How much have you improved your vision and what was your prescription before starting vision improvement?
I agree with you on print pushing, Ive had some success with that. As an example, If Im not wearing glasses during class I cant read the words on the projector. However, if Im close enough to ALMOST be able to read it Ill start being more active with my attention and try to see things clearer. This usually gets me shifting and blinking frequently and somewhat unconsciously and eventually things clear up a bit, my eyes get a little teary, warm and fuzzy.
How much have you improved your vision and what was your prescription before starting vision improvement?
I agree with you on print pushing, Ive had some success with that. As an example, If Im not wearing glasses during class I cant read the words on the projector. However, if Im close enough to ALMOST be able to read it Ill start being more active with my attention and try to see things clearer. This usually gets me shifting and blinking frequently and somewhat unconsciously and eventually things clear up a bit, my eyes get a little teary, warm and fuzzy.
i started with 20/30-20/40. I "did bates" for several months with no success. My ciliary myopia cleared up because i did less close work. To me its common sense that axial myopia cannot be reversed without a positive stimulus. my vision now is about low 20/20 consistently. I have only been doing this "exercise" for a 3 weeks, but several hours a day. But in a few months I believe i can improve my vision significantly with this approach.
some people suggest plus lenses for this exercise, but i think it works better without plus lenses. i was my plus lenses for close work prevention, but i do my "vision improvement" with this technique without the plus.
Quote:They can cure themselves, and for this purpose it is not necessary that they should understand all that has been written in this book, or in any other book. All that is necessary is to follow a few simple directions.
Place a Snellen test card on the wall at a distance of ten, fourteen, or twenty feet, and devote half a minute a day, or longer, to reading the smallest letters you can see, with each eye separately, covering the other with the palm of the hand in such a way as to avoid touching the eyeball.
...
Children under twelve years who have not worn glasses are usually cured of defective eyesight by the above method in three months, six months, or a year. Adults who have never worn glasses are benefited in a very short time — a week or two — and if the trouble is not very bad, may be cured in the course of from three to six months. Children or adults who have worn glasses, however, are more difficult to relieve, and will usually have to practice the methods of gaining relaxation described in other chapters; they will also have to devote considerable time to the treatment.
It is absolutely necessary that the glasses be discarded. No half-way measures can be tolerated, if a cure is desired. Do not attempt to wear weaker glasses, and do not wear glasses for emergencies. Persons who are unable to do without glasses for all purposes are not likely to be able to cure themselves.
Children and adults who have worn glasses will have to devote an hour or longer every day to practice with the test card and the balance of their time to practice on other objects.
02-14-2014, 06:09 PM (This post was last modified: 02-14-2014, 06:13 PM by Aethersky.)
yes i read the bates book and i know he mentioned reading the snellen chart. But it was very vague and unemphatic. His other methods seem to be emphasized and are "all over the place". he should have explained an d looked into why the students were cured by doing that.
However he does not mention the importance of creating positive stress. the autofocus and positive stimulus is achieved THROUGH relaxation, blinking, shifting, central fixation. Bates placed too much emphasize on relaxation. Its necessary to sustain this stress for a long time to change the shape of the eye. The bates method is a piece of the "formula".
02-14-2014, 07:15 PM (This post was last modified: 02-14-2014, 07:18 PM by panda.)
Bates's instructions are simple. I am not convinced that he told the children to do anything except to "read the smallest letters you can with one eye at a time." He didn't even say "relax when reading the card, don't try to see." He just told them to read it. I have searched Better Eyesight Magazine for more instructions he may have given the children (for example, maybe he taught them how to palm, or shift, or etc.). But I found nothing. In each magazine article and his book, I just found that he instructed them to simply "read the smallest letters you can with one eye at a time." I believe he knew that some children would start off squinting, frowning, and doing other things to try see the card, but I also believe he knew that just doing these simple instructions every day, they would eventually fix their eyesight.
(In the above paragraph I am referring to the instructions Bates's gave to the children and teachers in schools. Of course in his clinic he didn't just have children read the test card, he did other exercises with them too).
Who should I listen to? Bates or Aethersky? Luckily I don't have to choose. I know what you mean about the "stress" you feel when looking at the Snellen Test Card. I don't try to relax when looking at the card. I don't try to only look at clear letters. I challenge myself, and do make an effort to see. This happens to me naturally, and I believe the children Bates's gave instructions to would do the same.
In the past year I have not practiced enough with the test card, but I have learned that being in the bright sun for about 1 hour improves my vision tremendously. Other than that, the Bates's exercises don't seem to work for me. Or maybe they work for me but I just don't realize it. But the Bates's method has been a success for me so far, because 1) I have not worn my glasses for over one year and 2) my vision has gotten better, not worse
For the past three days I have decided to dedicate myself (before your thread started). I have practiced with the card for a minimum of 1 hour every day.
I will do it exactly as Bates said to do, one eye at a time, reading the smallest letters I can, for at least 1 hour a day. And by "reading the smallest letters I can," I don't mean reading the smallest crystal clear letters that are easy for me to see. I mean reading the blurry letters that I can still barely distinguish with help of memorizing the Snellen Test Card. I also wont probably do the whole hour in one session. Sometimes I will do 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and then 15 minutes.
In 3 months I will report my progress. I remember reading in Better Eyesight Magazine that one of the reasons (or maybe the primary reason, I don't remember) that children are cured faster than adults is that children just do what they are told, while adults try to mix their own ideas with their teachers. So I will just it like Bates says, word for word, and see how it goes.
Edit: One more note. In every website, book, etc. dedicated to teaching the Bates Method, I never read about practicing with the test card in the way Bates himself describes it (one eye at a time, reading the smallest letters, for 1 hour or more a day). Most websites just explain palming, shifting, etc. and they don't even mention using the test card at all. But in reading his book and magazine it seems Bates believes this is one of if not the most important thing (along with permanently discarding glasses) that one should do.
02-14-2014, 08:01 PM (This post was last modified: 02-14-2014, 08:48 PM by Aethersky.)
yes bates made many good contributions and he is known as the father of natural vision. but many people focus on his statement of relaxation: that only through relaxation does eyesight improve. so many people "relax" and keep doing excessively close work and they see no progress. The concept of pushng focus needs to be emphasized alot more in order to reverse axial myopia.
the necessity of reading the snellen for 1 hour a day may be dr bates "lost secret". Because i am a student and i know near work causes the eyes to go down, i also wear a +2.5D plus lens protect my vision. But i do the real imprvoements with the snellen.
Hello my name is Christof. My last prescription was: on left eye -3D 1.5CYL, on right eye -4.5D 1.5CYL.
This was however under corrected to read 20/30 line. My total refractive error must be way worse.
This is my first post here. I decided to register, to share my improvements. I discarded my glasses on 20.April.2014. For 2 weeks I have done some heavy research. Particularly reading Prefect Sight Without Glasses, International Myopia Prevention Association website and this forum. All reading was done without glasses. I was sticking my nose in the monitor. Distance at the beginning was probably less than 30 cm. I also had to greatly enlarge font on web browser. I tested my vision with test card. I could not see even 20/200 letter with either eye.
After 2 weeks I noticed some improvements, because reading on the computer was easier. During that time I practiced mainly Shifting and Central Fixation on distant objects, which at the beginning were really awkward.
At the beginning of 3rd week I have started practicing with Snellen test card. I don’t know if I should be proud of it, but I decided to put it to a hardcore level. I started to practice 4 hours a day, every day in blocks of 1 hour, without a break, each eye separately. However I start at the edge of blur and every 5-10 minutes I move chart a little further. I have a significant astigmatism. Letters appear to have gray shadows, when distance increases I also see some distortion on small letters.
First 5 days were a nightmare. I developed severe headache, pain in eyes and dizziness. I took a break for 2 days and pain disappeared. Then I continued and pain appeared again but it was tolerable. There was no more dizziness. In the next few days headache and pain in eyes completely disappeared.
Now distance from the monitor is about 60 cm with normal font. I experience clear flashes all the time. Working on the computer is based on clear flashes. When I don’t see something(tiny font), I close my eyes for 2 second then open and I can usually see what I want.
I do not test my vision with Snellen test card at the distance; because I have early noticed that it heavy depends on lighting. I also want to surprise myself and test it on 20.July.2014.
My shifting and central fixation skills are much more natural now. Some flashes are really sharp, some occur with double vision. They always disappear after blink.
I palm sometimes for like 1 minute and always get clear flash when I open my eyes. During palming I just close and cover my eyes, nothing fancy, like remembering black or something.
I do sunning sometimes too but not regularly.
I don’t do those silly exercises like long swinging, swaying, opposite movement, nose-feather or nose pencil.
So far I am happy with results. I also believe that some people get poor results with Bates Method, because they don’t practice at least one hour a day with test card. It is essential exercise. You don’t have to be even on the edge of blur. In the end of my 1 hour sittings when distance is large for me, I still can feel this warming and twitching in eye.
I am going to continue working with test card. I hope this could cure my astigmatism too or at least reduce it.
It has been 3 months since I discarded my glasses. Today I have tested my eyes with Snellen test card, indoors in daylight.
Vision fluctuates a lot but here are the best results.
Both eyes -> 20/30
Left eye -> 20/30
Right eye -> 20/50
At the beginning I couldn’t see 20/200 with either eye. I don’t train 4 hours anymore. It was too time consuming. Now I train focusing with Snellen 2 hours a day, 1 hour each eye.
Now I know that the most important thing is patience and not being so obsessed with it. It will take some significant amount of months to get vision without fluctuations.
Greetings, Christof
I had great succes using print pushing for just one month. After one year of natural vision improvement without results I finally tried out print pushing and the results were great. I mostly trained my right eye because it is my weaker one but I probably improved on my left eye too. I didn't use the snellen test chart for this. I used my computer. Every few days i could move farther away from the screen and read very tiny print. When I started this my edge of blut on my right eye was about 90 cm. Now it's about 115 cm. I did this in just one month. I can't imagine what would happen if I do this for a year.
This was really the breakthorugh in vision improvement. Now i know how it works and I can't wait to get back to 20/20 eventually.
My current vision is 20/40 in a room with good day light on both eyes.
20/50 on the left
20/60 on the right
Nice results Ricky. I believe that in case of vision improvement measuring edge of blur is more objective than Snellen card. It gives you your error of refraction. However this is quite inaccurate (+-1cm). So for people with high myopia it’s hard to measure fine changes.
Unfortunately I didn’t measure edge of blur at the beginning so I haven’t got any reference, but now:
Left eye -> 35 cm
Right eye -> 24 cm
Clear flashes and vision fluctuations are formed in brain not in eyes. Ciliary muscle cannot flatten lens for long periods of time. However when you try to focus at something, weird thing happens. Just right after you open your eyes, after soft blink, you see better. Ciliary muscle relaxes rapidly, that causes lens to flatten. This last shorter than a second, and then lens go to normal relaxed state.
I believe that this caused my severe headache and pain in eyes while I stared doing focusing with test card.
To my understanding is that those two things: forced lens flattening and brain image improvement(clear flashes or vision fluctuations) sense a response that there is a need for better eyesight. In fact those two things are connected with each other and occur simultaneously.
07-21-2014, 09:46 AM (This post was last modified: 07-21-2014, 11:45 AM by Ricky.)
Yeah I agree. Measuring your edge of blur is actually better than the snellen test chart. Vision improvements are so minor you won't go down a line so quickly but you can easily recognize a change of a few centimeters with your edge of blur. People with very high myopia might consider using a weaker minuis lens for print pushing. that makes it easier because they don't have to go so close to the screen. somebody who has -10 D has his edge of blut at about 10 cm! -9D is only 11 centimeters. So if you want to improve from -10 to -9 it's just 1 centimeter difference. That's very hard to measure. The difference between -2D and -1D is 50 centimeters. Quite a difference.
I think clear flashes are a sign that your eyesight is about to improve permanently. What i noticed in the last month is that their seems to be siome kind of pattern in vision improvement. First you start print pushing but nothing really happens with your eyesight. If you continue this you will actually see fluctuatuins in your vision and with your edge of blur.After about a week these fluctuations become permanent and the cycle repeats if you continue to practice.
08-22-2014, 06:54 AM (This post was last modified: 08-22-2014, 06:55 AM by johnmadden.)
I've got -2 in both eyes, my right eye seems weaker now though. Do I do this one eye at a time, with a fixed time limit. Like 30 mins on the right eye and 30 on the left? Or can i do both eyes at the same time as it is more convenient
