new glasses!

If I hadn’t mentioned it before, I’ve been doing vision exercises using The Program for Better Vision as well as other books to improve my nearsightedness. I actually came across these concepts back in college, when I saw a class in the Learning Annex catalog which said that vision is 90% mental and 10% physical, and you can learn how to improve your vision by taking this class. I was a bit skeptical, since I’d never heard of anything like this, but for 35 bucks it was too promising not to check it out. The class was taught by a woman named Gloria Ginn who teaches a program called the School for Better Eyesight in LA, and it’s based on the Bates Method developed by Dr. Bates in the 1920’s but never was accepted in mainstream optometry (for obvious reasons – why cure people of myopia or presbyopia or astigmatism when you can sell them glasses the rest of their lives?). The Learning Annex class I attended was more of an introduction for her own classes and private sessions, but I came away with some useful exercises and a new paradigm about vision. The classes themselves were too expensive for me to afford at the time though.

So after that class I did the eye exercises for a while, but not having a structured program I soon gave up it for the time being. I never forgot about the concepts though, it was just on the back burner. Last June I started a vision program from a book I got online (one of many if you do a search on Amazon). I saw a slight improvement, but after 2 months I didn’t improve any further. Since Rocky and I were leaving for India in August, I stopped doing the exercises shortly before we left since I was so busy with preparations. Now that I think about it, I may have stopped improving because I was close to seeing 20/20 on my contacts and didn’t realize it. After we came back from India, my vision was noticeably worse. I don’t know if it was all the reading and gaming I did on my GBA (half the time Rocky was busy catching up with his family and had to leave me sitting alone in the living room), but I didn’t continue doing the eye exercises again.

I started this most recent program around late February, after I got my last eye exam and had to increase my glasses prescription to about -5.50 in one eye and -6.00 in the other. At that time I switched from wearing contacts full time to wearing glasses full time, remembering that all the vision books I’ve read recommended wearing glasses instead of contacts, since they’re easier to take off. The reasoning is that many of the exercises need to be done without glasses or contacts, and it’s good to keep them off whenever you don’t need them so your eyes can adjust to your natural vision. I also started wearing my older pair of glasses (which had the same strength as my contacts) so that my eyes have room to improve. Since I wear glasses all day, my eyes would not improve past the point where I’m seeing 20/20 in my glasses.

This program has a basic 8-week program with an advanced section for continuing the program past the 8 weeks. So here I was thinking I would see significant improvement in 8 weeks – which I didn’t. Or rather thought I didn’t. It did improve a little perhaps the first month or so, and then held pretty steady. I emailed the author’s office, which provides free email support, and they said that it may take a while since I have such a strong prescription. They couldn’t tell me how long it would take, since everyone is different.

At this point I was pretty disappointed, but I kept going because I couldn’t let my vision get worse and worse, because I was sick of my lack of commitment to myself, and because I hated my glasses. To keep myself doing the program, I wrote affirmation on an index card, which basically said I would do vision exercises 6 days a week (Mon-Sat), and how I would feel about doing it. This I read out loud everyday. I did my exercises every morning after I woke up, even when I didn’t feel like it. Sometimes I missed a Saturday every other week, but it wasn’t a big deal. Even though I didn’t feel like I was still improving, I kept it up for another month past the 8-week program.

My “breakthrough” came when I got a new book on vision improvement called Take Off Your Glasses and See by Jacob Liberman. It had great reviews on Amazon, so I decided to check it out. It included an eye chart, which for kicks I photocopied out of the book and taped together. I taped it up in my room and measured ten feet, which is where you can see the smallest letters if your vision is 20/20. I couldn’t see even the larges letter at that distance, so I had to step forward until I could. Supposedly I could roughly measure my sight by calculating my distance from the chart in order to see the largest letter, but I was too lazy to bother. Instead I put on my glasses and stood at the ten-foot distance to see how much I can see. To my surprise, I was seeing the 20/25 line very clearly and can make out a few of the letters at 20/20. That was my first clue that maybe my vision stopped improving because I was seeing nearly 20/20 in my glasses.

Before I talk about the results of my eye exam this past Saturday, I just have to mention how awesome this new book was. It’s different from my previous programs because it has a much more holistic approach. Rather than give me more eye exercises (which it did a little), the book taught about relaxing your eyes, using your peripheral vision in an “open focus” (as opposed to narrow focus or staring), and releasing pent-up emotions. It emphasizes that most people first start needing glasses a year or so after an upsetting childhood (or even adulthood) experience which causes them not want to see what is happening. It could be something traumatic or even relatively insignificant like having to move and change schools. This book also emphasized the importance of keeping your glasses off unless you really needed it. The weekend after I started reading this book, we took a weekend trip to Yosemite. Since I didn’t have to drive, I was able to keep my glasses off for most of the weekend, putting it on only in short spurts when eating or when I needed to see a sign or the scenery or something. I’m sure it also helped that I was in the midst of nature all weekend long. When I came home, I checked my eyesight that very night, and on the same chart I was able to see the 20/20 line quite easily, as well as most of the letters on the 20/15 line.

So, last Saturday I had my eyes checked with a behavioral optometrist in my area. Unlike regular optometrists, behavioral optometrists know how to use vision exercises to correct vision problems, and I went to one because they’re more willing to prescribe under-corrected lenses (which are needed to give my eyes room for more improvement) than regular optometrists. I had never been so excited about getting an eye exam! She determined that I was seeing 20/20 in my left eye and 20/30 in my right, and prescribed new glasses so that I can see at 20/40, which is the legal limit for driving (don’t tell anyone, but I’ve driven to and from work with my glasses off almost the entire way a few times. Under bright sunlight and in a traffic jam, I can drive fine even with my bad eyesight). So my new glasses which I’ll pick up this weekend are -5.25 in the right eye and -5.00 in the left, and I’m getting another pair of weaker glasses for reading/computer work at -4.25 right eye and -4.00 left eye. The exam and two new pairs of glasses burned a giant hole in my pocket, since my insurance doesn’t cover it. It’s worth it though, and a few months down the road I’ll only need to check on my progress and get new lenses for the frames I already have. I’m picking up my new glasses tomorrow, and I’ve never been more committed to doing the exercises. It is absolutely exciting to see results from something you’ve worked on for months. You bet I’m keeping it up until I get back to 20/20 again.