When this forum started, small niche forums like this were popular. Today, people spend all of their "social" time on Facebook, Youtube, etc. it's time to put the forum into archive mode. I'll keep it online. No reason to delete it.
You can find us at other sites:
Facebook - Join our group. Private group, so your activity is not visible to anyone outside of the group.
(in my experience that is the best way to do it for sensitive topics like this)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/eyesightimprovement
Youtube - I got plans.
Twitter - https://twitter.com/iblindness - I rarely check it at the moment. I'm not a big fan of Twitter.
And of course, you can comment on the blog posts.
Hopefully we'll have other things going on in the near future too and grow the community!
Contact me here.
https://www.iblindness.org/contact/
David]]>
I am writing this post with the glasses on my nose, and it seems like a failure to me.
I am presently in a dead-end with this 'eyes-reeducation' thing, and it affects me far too much.
I have been struggling on my lonely path towards 'normal sight' since 8 years now.
I wore glasses since the age of 4, after that I have been diagnosed with a slight strabismus, associated with slight hyperopia and astigmatism.
Strabismus was cured fast, but hyperopia and astigmatism remained.
My eyes prescription always remained the samed:
Right Eye: +0.50 (-0.50 145°)
Left Eye: +1.00 (-0.75 70°)
The main problem with my eyes is the pain; without glasses, my vision is '20/20' but this burning, aching feeling in the eyes almost never leaves, by close or far vision.
My path towards 'normal sight' began at the age of 20 (I am now 28), when I started to walk a lot through the city. I started to feel umcomfortable with my glasses : limitating my vision field, feeling their presence each moment on my nose, flattening the vision, deforming the colors, and so on... Something was wrong with the glasses, and I began to have difficulties to look through them, and I looked at them instead. Very embarrasing.
Looking for a solution without glasses, I discovered the brilliant work of Bates and the genius explanations from David, and full of hope, i set out on the path. I began little by little to be convinced by the relevance and the efficiency of the method. I am now fully convinced that it works in a way.
Besides, since my teen years, I am dealing with strong anxiety/depression/emotionnal issues, and life is a challenge each day. I began very early to take an interest in relaxation/meditation/yoga, in order to tackle the roots of those 'problems'. Through this practices, I builded a kind of
bodily hypersensitivity and a 'too-reflexive-consciousness'; I hope that some of you understand what I mean by that.
This hypersensitivity associated to eye-strain feels like hell in daily life, when the eyes are open. Although the Bates Method works in a way, I didn't manage to have steady improvements regarding eye-strain, and I must say that I am now exhausted; without glasses, there is too much pain, and after all those years I can't manage to make up my mind to wear glasses again.
I am stuck.
I would appreciate any comments that could help me !
A few questions among others:
1) Is it possible that such a low grade of hyperopia/astigmatism produces such pain in the eyes ?
2) Is this 'psychological self-reflexive-hypersensitivity' the core problem ?
With gratitude to the Bates Method and to this website and its contributors !
Yanok]]>
I've been thrashing about online, finding lots of information about The Bates Method, but I cannot find the actual exercises.
Can someone direct me to a good, clear online source that describes the EXERCISES/METHODS in detail, and explains how to perform them?
Thanks]]>
My name is Tom. I've been wearing prescription bi and trifocals for decades. In that time some opticians and Ophthalmologists have told me I have astigmatism, and some claim I have no astigmatism...
I lost my glasses about three years ago and have been getting by using inexpensive 3.0 diopter reading glasses. Frankly, I think I'm none the worse for it, and am perhaps better off, though my vision is not good.
In the past year or two I've noticed a very strange vision anomaly, and am not sure whether it's been with me all along. I think it has been, and is the underlying source/cause of my blurred vision. I noticed it while looking at a small red pilot light on an electronic device. The room was dark and instead of seeing a single small dot or red light I saw a circular array of maybe 12 or 15 lights around that actual light - with additional lights filling the area between the actual/central light and the lights forming the circumference ring.
It looks like a pizza with carefully arranged pepperoni slices on top.
I've been researching a lot this past week and have learned the term "polyopia." That seems to be what I'm exhibiting, but I'm not sure whether mine is cerebral (a brain issue) or ocular (an eye issue). There are ways to determine which it is, but my circumstances don't apply strictly to either version. So far, I think it's the ocular version because:
1) Use of pinhole glasses does overcome the multiple images (I can see clearly), and
2) In a dark room the multi-image array is fairly large, but turning on the light reduces it's size.
Both those results indicate an ocular rather than cerebral cause. On the other hand, the multi-image array appears in both eyes and appears in each eye when the opposite eye is closed. That seems to indicate cerebral rather than optical. So I'm confused... Ah, but look at how much I've learned thanks to the Internet!
That's my situation. Thanks for reading. Now I'll go ask some questions in the other forums.]]>
A certain individual male (not myself) is attempting to gain compensation from myself through the family court system. His claim is that these entitlements are needed because he cannot drive a car and cannot work. The reason stated is that he has extropia and has no depth perception.
He has a degree in the medical field and lives in a location where medical facilities, in which he could gain employment, are within easy walking distance. He has a valid driver's licence, regularly rides his bicycle through the town, occasionally drives a motorcycle, and has been witnessed participating in activities such as swimming, playing an instrument while sight-reading sheet music, mowing the grass and shoveling snow. He was recently seen walking into a court room with a blind cane then seen two days later riding his bicycle. He was also seen (recently) at a play where he was sitting 10-feet from the talent and was using binoculars. The blind cane and binoculars have only been seen since the actual legal proceedings were initiated.
If he does have extropia, and I am not doctor, then why can't he work? Why the blind cane and binoculars? If he has extropia then I'm guessing that he has had it is entire life and had no issue going to college and then working in his field until we decided to divorce. I work in finance and make more money than him, but he has the potential to make the same. However, he is trying to fool the system.
According to him he has 20/20 vision but his doctor says that he has no depth perception. I'm worried that he will prevail. I would use some advice.
Thanks,
Ran]]>
Thanks]]>
It tends to cponcentrate in gel and collagen so taking the oil in a liquid form is best. You can readil get liquid in a health food store that is molecularly distilled. It sits on a shelf and needs no refrigeration.
Hope this helps you with your vision.]]>
Just over a year ago, I made the decision to improve my vision. I am in my early 50s and have worn glasses/contacts since I was 10. Since the late 80s/early 90s my glasses prescription has been pretty much unchanged at L -6.0 and R -5.75. (My eyes were last tested in 2012.) During this time I have almost exclusively worn contacts at the corresponding contacts prescription of L -5.5 and R -5.25.
For a variety of reasons I decided in February 2016 I no longer wanted to continue wearing contacts, and that I didn’t want to wear glasses either! Around that time I had a chance encounter with someone who had improved their eyesight with eye exercises, which motivated me to find out more and begin my own journey.
I have been doing what many of you are doing: palming, ocular stretches and rotations, wearing under-corrected lenses (or no glasses at all for most indoor activities), print pushing and walking outdoors without glasses for at least 30 minutes every day.
Fourteen months later, according to my own measurements (i.e., far-point distance when reading) I am at L -4.75 and R -4.5.
In order to have this independently verified, I went into an optical store today and inquired about getting my vision tested. Very unpleasant experience! The employee was extremely dismissive when I mentioned I felt my eyes had improved. He had me put on the glasses I had with me (L -3.75 R -3.75) to read the Snellen chart and I read up to Line 6 (20/40) and might have also read the next one if he hadn’t made me feel so uncomfortable.
He then held -6.0 trial lenses over my eyes and asked me to read the very bottom line on the chart (20/16), which of course I did. According to him, this proves my old prescription is the right one! (My own conclusion is very different.)
This was my first attempt at getting my eyesight “officially” tested since I started my vision improvement efforts. How can I find a "vision improvement-friendly" optician? I am in the Vancouver, BC area, if anyone has any suggestions. Thank you!]]>
In my personal experiences, it's had both positive and negative effects to my eyesight, mostly minute changes. But occasionally, if I'm in the right frame of mind, it can really help with being sensitive to my body/psyche which pushes me to focus on relaxation. I then have some real glimpses into clarity and, I think, clear flashes. It sort of puts one in a slightly different state to observe the world, thus giving you another vantage point to observe and improve yourself.
I can't say I completely condone it, cause I've had that anxiety/paranoia increase after consuming that people talk about, but I'm theorizing that it is no fault of the herb.
Though I know it's complex and probably includes many harmful and beneficial effects, I'd like to reach some more solid conclusions on this substance.]]>
It's been a while since I posted but I want to share another idea I've thought about recently that seems to have helped drastically with the consistency of my eyesight throughout the day and I'm convinced it's the more long term route to recovery.
Sometimes it can be hard to explain what exactly one means when talking about an idea they use to improve eyesight because if taken the wrong way or not implemented properly, could easily worsen eyesight by improving consciousness of eyesight improvement but I'll try to explain in the simplest way I can.
So recently, I was listening to an audiobook called, "The Magic of Thinking Big" and it talked alot about the idea of belief and how it is such an underrated concept in modern society. How can we truly improve ourselves in a certain area if we lack the belief and vision of our end goal? In truth, many of us on the path to self improvement take in the ideas pretty well but fail to actually maintain sight of the end goal so as soon as things get difficult, we give up and think that there has to be an alternate easier path. What we don't realise is that because we are diverting our energy into worrying about easier ways to do whatever it is we are trying to achieve, it isn't allowing us to put in our full effort and attention to the very path we are taking to fix the problem.
Basically this kinda hit home with me, I was looking out of the bus and thought, "How can I see what is there right in front of me in 100% crystal clear vision if I don't even believe what I'm looking at is really there?". You might think from that sentence I'm a little bit mad, of course we know the objects are there but are we really giving the objects our 100% attention when looking at them? That's the only way to know for sure that they are there! Basically, STOP TAKING THINGS FOR GRANTED! Start being alot more interested in your surroundings - this doesn't mean to forcefully take in more by moving your eyes around, quite the opposite. Start paying close attention to what you see, even if it is blurry, as it will certainly become more clear if you are curiously trying to decipher what that image actually is on a poster 20 feet away. This is much better at training your brain to reconnect with your visual system as you are literally tasking your visual system for the whole day to give feedback on your surroundings that your brain can take in and decide whether it is interesting or not. Most of the time, we just assume things that we can't see are uninteresting, this is definitely not the case.
Now when there's something I can't see, I don't just give up like I normally would. I say, "well hang on a minute, is there something actually there that I could almost certainly see and be interested in if I were up close?" If the answer is yes, I allow my eyes to rest on that object for the time my subconcious tells me to, not allowing my conscious mind to interfere and move my eyes away just because I can't see it. The brain wants to know what it is, so by moving your eyes away deliberately to rest them on something you can see you are disrupting the natural synchronisation of the brain and eyes. I realise this is difficult to digest but it's a much easier concept than it sounds. It's hard for me to explain exactly what is going on because I'm not really doing anything much different other than having belief in what I'm looking at (the object REALLY is there), belief that I can see it (my eyes were designed to take in my environment, what's the point in having them if I don't use them properly) and allowing my eyes to focus on whatever they naturally rest upon. No longer do I try to look at different distances all day long, that is just interfering with the natural functioning of the eye because for 95% of the time your not really controlling your eyes with your conscious mind and I think that is when they are truly in the rest state. I have found it to be much more important to maintain interest in your environment and don't let your belief slip for one second that you can't see the object or that the object really is blurry.
I know I have came out with a few theories before but I feel like my understanding is getting better each time and this one feels better than ever. It feels like my childhood again. I'm not using my eyes for the sake of using them anymore but to actually engage my brain with my surroundings, constantly looking out for points of interest. Note: I am doing this in my mind.
So instead of moving my eyes, I say to myself things such as, "I believe in what I see is truly there, I want to understand my environment more, I want to know what that material is, is it like material x from (recall specific memory) or is it different?" I think it's important to start linking what you see to memories and other things you have seen as the more you do this, the more interesting using your eyes becomes which is only going to make them better. I've certainly been enjoying my eyesight more than ever for the past week of approaching it in this way. Also, remember, blurriness never matters as long as you can see what is there. Don't think, I can see that but there is still some blur, that is only going to reinforce the fact your eyes aren't the way they should be. Instead think, what is that object, constantly reinforce that thought in your head and don't let any thoughts of blur come into it. Become so curious about the object that it becomes impossible for you to think about your eyes with your conscious mind anymore because your brain has now taken over to decipher what the object is.
Anyway, as always, I hope this helps. Feel free to add anything else that you guys think is important!
David]]>
I'm looking for someone who has experience using the burning glass or similar tool, preferably in Europe.
Kind regards,
Mart]]>
I have presbyopia with 1.5 Right and 1.75 left.My left eye is weaker than the right one.
I started for a while now.,Bates eye improvement exercises like palming,sunning long swing ,reading small print(check for white space between the lines) every day.
I think I have some improvements. My biggest problem that I cannot get rid off , is double, triple(and more) vision.
This practice so far enabled me to read with the eyes half open and a lot of blinking. Ass soon as I open them fully the vision of letters come double or triple overlapping making the letters very difficult to distinguish. SO my concern is this an improvement or not? Or I'm squinting?
I\m not sure because After I relax my eyes by closing them or by palming If I open them half way like flashing I can see quite good.On the other hand this is similar with pinhole glasses effect.The fact is idk how to get rid of multiple visions.On the other hand Bates use this method of relaxing eyes and flashing eyes for a fraction of second which is also similar with pinhole effect.
I need an opinion I'm doing something right or I have to stop and deal differently with multiple visions. I'm writing this without glasses on bigger font and plenty blinking to see the letters better so I may confuse some letters.
Thanks for any support you may offer.]]>
I ended up going to LCrafter at the mall.
The young eye dr. recommended:
OD -7 C -0.5 Axis 025
OS -6 C 0.00 Axis 00 0
I went back for a second fitting with another eye dr. in the same office knowing it was a stronger eye prescription than needed.
The second eye dr. said he had about the same result but I know it is 2, 3x stronger than needed.
2nd new prescription:
OD -6.50 C -0.75 Axis 065
OS -5.50 C -0.25 Axis 100
Reading prescription
OD -5.50 C -0.75 A065
OS -4.50 C-0.25 A100
With the new eyeglasses, vision seems to be off when I look left.
I found glasses had taken off when I was reading bottle labels at the pharmacy.
Didn't know whether I should get a new pair of eyeglasses with the new reading prescription as I am comfortable with the old reading prescription.
There was a post about someone going thru the 1.5hr eye exam and ended up with a reduced prescription.
I am looking for a natural vision optometrist in Boston area who won't overcharged as it will have to be out of pocket.
ClarkNights Bates method on to do list.
Thank you]]>
I didn't even want to come inside from my walk. I feel very relaxed now. This is going to be a great season for my eyes!
Anyone wants to share ideas about their winter practice?]]>
Easily Erase Astigmatism Program
And here goes my question. Does anybody know or tried this program ?]]>
Although many people understand this they still get caught up in trying to see things clearly right away when looking far away. If you have been looking at things close up all day with great clarity then your ciliary muscle expects to remain that way to allow you to see your "optimum distance" of clarity. Therefore, the ciliary muscle becomes sort of frozen which, in turn, means that there is really only a very small range of distances your eye looks at with comfort. So instead of looking into the distance you'll look at things nearer to you and even if you do look into the distance, much of the time the ciliary muscle remains in that frozen state so you're not really seeing beyond a particular distance. Things take time and the way in which we use our eyes is something that has developed over the entirety of our lives. Therefore, by simply changing our habits on one occasion we can't expect to make any lasting improvement in terms of clarity. This can be frustrating as we don't want to have to live our lives constantly thinking about vision improvement.
The major turning point for me was recognising that regardless of clarity when I'm looking at distant objects, my ciliary muscle is starting to relax. I've become obsessed with the idea that looking around my environment and into the distance it prevents my ciliary muscle reaching that frozen state. This means that the lens becomes more flexible and I'm more comfortable with looking at a range of distances. So I want to reiterate my point, I think that if you make a conscious effort to shift your thinking towards, "looking at distant objects relaxes my eyes" then it will be true. However, as long as you think that clarity is the sole factor that determines the eyes being in a relaxed state, then you will stick to your old habits and ways of seeing that you've being doing for years in order to optimise your eyesight for modern day usage (computers, smart phones etc).
Furthermore, next time you look into the distance be aware, beforehand, that the very action of looking far away is relaxing your eyes even if the image is not immediately clear. Even if it doesn't clear up just looking far away is good for the muscles of the eyes and will reduce strain as long as you let go of the notion that everything has to be seen with perfect clarity. Become more obsessed about the idea of keeping your eyes relaxed throughout the day and it will do more for you in terms of improving your eyesight than obsessing over the idea of clarity. Realise how different it feels when the eyes are relaxed, how the whole face and body also feel relaxed, you may even start to associate this relaxing feeling with looking far away. Recognise the feelings of strain in your eyes when you are at the computer for 3-4 hours at a time and do something about it. Take a break, look around the room for a little while. Little actions like these throughout the day will do wonders for your eyes. Remember that the eyes weren't meant to function looking at things less than 1m away from ourselves all day long.]]>