Want some advice on corrective measures for Myopia

[Cody Hahn]

Hey everybody,

I would like some advice over corrective measures for Myopia. If anyone has had personal experience or success with this that would be excellent, but anyone is welcome to put in their opinion.

I would like to start with explaining that I have Myopia to some degree (trouble seeing in the distance but I am fine up close) but I have not always had it. I am twenty going on twenty-one years old. Until I was sixteen years old, I had 20/16 vision; and I had my vision checked several times throughout the years up to that time and it was always around 20/16. But, at around that age I started doing much more near or up-close work. I started reading a lot, studying much more for school, reading everything I could on the internet to educate myself on career paths and things related to those paths. The result, and I DO think it is related, is that I now have trouble seeing clearly in the distance. I started noticing this diminished distance vision at around the age of eighteen or nineteen.

Also, I don't want anyone to misunderstand, I CAN see in the distance, I just can't see with the clarity that I used to. I can see trees in the distance, but I can't make out all of the details of the leaves or bark or pine needles anymore. I can see people and recognize their profile, but I can't see their faces with as much clarity as I would like; it's kind of fuzzy when the distance gets past ten feet or so.

Now I know that the majority of people will say that this is just how it is and that there is nothing to be done about it. I don't believe that. These same people will probably tell everyone that there is nothing to be done about a person's movement, or posture, or health, or spine. We know ( as members in this forum are proving all of the time, gradually albeit) that these things CAN be reversed, corrected, or improved. So why not vision. Especially something like simply not being able to focus well, or maybe it's relaxing well, to see clearly in the distance. If the person, like me, could see well before, wouldn't there be a way for that ability to be restored? I realize that something like this is probably a lot like correcting movement and posture, something that takes a lot of time and effort and gradual progression long-term, but couldn't it be done? Maybe it isn't done more often because people don't yet understand a worthwhile method, or they simply don't want to put in the work and be patient and seek long-term results. It, like poor posture and faulty movement patterns, takes a long time, in my case two or three years, to reach the state that I or others am in, so no doubt it will take a long time to correct (at least I think). I also don't know how I could reasonably balance my up-close work, living, and reading with a suitable amount of distance work and vision with being in college and needing to study to make good grades.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Any books, educational materials, methods, etc. I should take a look at?

Sorry for a long post, but this is a topic that really bugs me, interests me, and irritates me. I also have a feeling, regardless of what others think, that this really IS something that can be corrected if one gives it enough time. Thanks everyone.

Cody H

[Graham Smith]

Hi Cody, It's an interesting question.

I probably won't be able to give you the answer that you want, but here's what I know. I am also Myopic, it has worsened with age, I didn't start needing glasses until my early twenties. At the time I was doing a lot of microscopy work, and i wondered if this perhaps caused it, however My family also wear glasses, and have done from a similar age, so it could just be genetic timing. Blurred vision can be caused by myopia, or astygmatism. With astygmatism, the lens itself is just a poor shape to focus images in multiple planes, thus your muscles are doing constant work to adjust the lens on a regular basis. This is why some people get headaches without glasses, as the muscles just get darned tired. My wife didn't start needing glasses until her first pregnancy, when her body was flooded with the relaxin hormone, she went to an optometrist and was diagnosed with astygmatism related myopia, her body was just too tired to keep working the eye muscles. Sadly, this is genetic, and if you're born that way, then the only thing you can do is where glasses or lenses or laser therapy.

Most people have a dominant, and a lazy eye to varying degrees. My right eye, is considerably weaker than the left. As a result, the left eye does the majority of the work and I pretty much could never see out of my right eye at all. I have trained my right eye over time, by blindfolding the left eye, and wearing a lens on the right eye for short periods each day. This has strengthened my right eye considerably, not to the point where the vision has improved, but to the point where i can accommodate a greater prescription lens on the right eye without it getting muscle fatigue soreness. This has improved my vision to the point that for the first time in my life, I can wear a full corrective contact lens on the right eye and actually see 3D for the first time since childhood. So I have clearly strengthened the endurance of the muscles, and improved the neurological connection, however it has done nothing to remove the myopia.

The Moken people of South East Asia can focus their eyes underwater. Numerous studies have shown that this is the result of training rather than genetics, so it must be possible, however there is very little literature about methods by which to achieve this. Most eye improvement exercises you read about are derivatives of the "Bates" method, named after its founder William Bates who formulated a method of relaxation exercises in the late 19th Century. Unfortunately, this is pure pseudoscience and has been thoroughly debunked by rigorous trials and observation.

For me, I wear contact lenses now which has strengthened the endurance of my eye muscles so that with the corrective lenses I can see just as well out of both eyes, and both eyes transmit an equal signal to the brain (plus they don't fly off my face at gymnastics!). When I think that they have stabilised sufficiently, I will get laser correction, which is very very successful these days.

As an aside, medical technology these days is amazing. My mother just had eye surgery for cataracts recently, she had her original biological lenses removed from her eyes, and prosthetic ones inserted into the eyeball, and now she has perfect vision.

Sorry, a bit rambling and doesn't really answer your question. Short answer, don't get sucked into the Bates method, it doesn't work, or try it if you want, no harm done. The Moken people suggest that what you ask may be possible, but I've not encountered anyone who can reliably tell you how.

[Craig Mallett]

Cody,

Take this with a grain of salt as I have little experience in the matter, however:

As I understand it, the human body is an extremely adaptable machine. It adapts to what it does most, and is very good at it. So for people who run a lot, the body increases the size of the heart, the strength of the pump, the capacity of the lungs and so on. The systems that are used the most will be strong and those that are used the least will be given lower priority and as a result be weak.

I see no reason why this would not apply to the eyes as well. We are essentially practising focussing on objects close to us for many hours per day (using electronic devices, computers, tv etc). As a result we are also practising not focussing on objects in the distance very often. My guess would be that to bring it back into balance you would need to spend equal time "practising" focussing on objects far away as you do "practising" focussing on objects close to you. This is a bit of a problem if you're spending 8 hours in an office or something equivalent, it could be very difficult to make up a further 8 hours of distance focussing to bring it back into balance.

Given what I know about the rest of the body, I would also assume that you would need to practice this in a relaxed manner. Forcing the focus through squinting etc may provide some immediate ease, but in my opinion you would be better off trying to bring the object into focus with a relaxed face and eyes.

Like I said it's all just a guess, but generally speaking we get better at the things we practice doing and I really don't see any reason why this wouldn't apply to the eyes. You might need some serious (2 hours per day?) practice to make a noticeable difference though.

[Cody Hahn]

@ Primate and Craig,

 

Thanks guys for your input and ideas. It's neat to hear each of your perspectives and opinions and I really do appreciate the thoughts.

 

Primate that's great about you obtaining a better balance of vision between your eyes. I hope you can eventually get something done that will allow you even greater vision!

 

Craig, that is pretty much my perspective on retraining the eyes to focus well in the distance. I also understand about needing to spend an equal (or at least a great amount) of time using one's eyes for distance work and close work. The problem is actually getting in enough time of the distance! Pretty much everything that I do now that I have been in college for a little while is study, read, write, research, use computer, etc. Pretty much all up close and not much in the distance. Kind of sad. But I don't know what to do about it.

 

Also, I have noticed something interesting. I don't know how to explain this, but now that I see less well in the distance, I look at things in the distance less. Period. It's kind of like my brain/eyes have gotten lazy and would only prefer to do what they are good at; up close work. I noticed this this year when some days I would be eating my lunch out in the parking lot at the college, and I would be looking at my food or at things in the car. I would intentionally make myself look out at a distant tree or building, but before I knew it I was back to staring at something up close in the car again! Interesting to me.

[Aaron Griffin]

Myopia is a developmental issue. You can't fix it because your eyes are no longer developing. This has been studied to death. There is no grand conspiracy here like people seem to believe.