Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Corrective Eye Excercises

Sparked by discussions with Turner, I have finally gone out and investigated. And I am now just as undecided as before, except with more facts.

Basically we have a bunch of anecdotal evidence (real or faked?), academic skepticism, one or two people trying to make money off of the techniques, and a few information sites which oftentimes state in disclaimers that there is no hard evidence to back up either side of the debate.

It all seems to have started with the work of Dr. William Bates around the turn of the 20th century. Bates was a qualified physician [1] who in the course of his work observed day-today variations in the observed refractive errors. Based on these observations, experiments and a healthy dose of mysticism, Bates wrote The Cure of Imperfect Eyesight by Treatment Without Glasses, (online here) published in 1920.

The Vision Improvement Site is a valuable resource offering all you need to know to see more clearly in your quest for perfect eyesight.

The library at the International Society for the Enhancement of Eyesight (I-SEE) is well-stocked although it tends to house only items which support the argument for non-conventional treatment. An open assault from the "Center for Quackery Control, Inc." on the validity of Bates' methods can be found in the article Can Eye Exercises Improve Vision?.

For a summary of the eye excercises and eye-care techniques available, see this page on the "Vision Improvement Site"; also worth checking out is The Computer Health Nut's Guide to Vision Improvement.

I also stumbled across Corneal Refractive Therapy (CRT) as sold by Paragon CRT. CRT is FDA approved and generally accepted, althought its efficacy is often brought into question. The article Corneal Refractive Therapy: Inside the Trials and Beyond presents the results of trials upon which the author's private practice began offering CRT.

Wanton marketing of eye exercises can be observed on the "Vision for life" site; the nice people there will also take great pleasure in promulgating "newsletters" stuffed with testimonials and other advertorial matter if you choose to subscribe. The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices has an amusing copy of an advert for "The Natural Eye Normalizer".

So, yeah, my jury is still out, but I think this may well be woth investigation, especially if you are myopic. And if you have (or gain in future) experience with this form of therapy, please drop me a line.

7 Comments:

At 7:57 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A simple one is only low keyed for "beginners or lazies"

http://www.findyoga.com.au/asanas.asp?asanasID=11


Am writing a lesson today on corrective eye-motions as my vision is nearly surpassed normal and passed it in some areas such as neaar sight etc.

http://earthyspirit.livejournal.com

 
At 9:01 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, and glad to comment.
I am 83+ years young, and for the most do not require glasses.
Appr. 1970 realized I needed glasses, and ordered them. My business partner gave me Dr Bate's book "Seeing better without glasses." I followed those exercises morning and night (very simple) for 2-3 weeks and do not for the most require glasses even today. Need 0nly over the counter reading glasses when light is poor.
Have now ordered much superior exercises as I feel I would like to compare.
Trust me, eye exercises do work. The eye is operated by means of muscles. Our body operates by muscles. We get older, lazier and begin to feel sorry for ourselves, and in that we are truly fools.
Eat right, think right, exercise and eventually they will have to club us to death.

 
At 1:53 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am a man 33 years of age. I am far sighted and have astigmatism in both eyes. I started to need glasses in the 2nd grade but never really liked wearing them. Out of my stubbornness I started doing eye exercises around the age 19. I completely stopped wearing glasses by age 21 and even passed the vision test on my drivers license without glasses. My vision has not declined since. Eye exercises do work.

 
At 5:40 pm, Blogger iSeeU said...

Eye exercises work very well in fully restoring ones vision (or serve as a means of preventative maintenance), and there are a tonn of different eye exercises out there to help your eyesight. However, there's another, very important, point to know, understand and remeber, which is that although vison-corrective eye exercises work by themselves, the biggest problem is that they may take longer (which is making way too many people to give up on it, altogether!), when done alone. In order to throw away your glasses forever, one needs to understand the principles of mind work - i.e. that what we think affects how we see, and know how to apply them in the most efficient way, then that really starts doing wonders! It's really crucial to success, as THAT is what sets the boundary between success and failure for people - the time that the restoration process will take. We need to look after our eyes, just as we look after any other part of our body.

For me, finding out about visio-corrective eye exercises and doing them was like a miracle, because I've actually managed to fully restore my eyesight that way! I've followed a russian course myself, which is a course for general self-healing, and that helped me restore my eyesight fairly quickly!

Very pewerful stuff!!

I've even created a step-by-step guide, detailing the steps I took. And the best thing is that they are so simple, and take only 30 mins a day, 4 days a week! E.g. when you work with a pc, read a book, or when you are doing anything else that requires you to stare at it for a long time, especially close up, you need look around the room, look into the distance now and again. If you do that, your eyesight will NOT get worse. Otherwise, it WILL - it's only normal, only common sense. It took me a great amount of time to learn and understand all this (because I wanted to understand more), but now that I know this, I'll never let my eyesight deteriorate ever again. As soon as it deteriorating (now probably not earlier than when I'm well over 40 - I hope time won't go too quickly!!), I know *exactly* what to do.

If you do start noticing your eyesight worsening, then you can start doing more exercises - move your eyes up, down, left, right, look onto your nose etc - do this for a couple of mins once every hour or so, then close your eyes and relax. If you put your hands over your face, so that your eyes are right in the middle of your palms, with no light getting through, and stay like this for a minimum of 3 mins, then your eyes will relax and you'll see a huge improvement for a moment - every day you'll notice a slight improvement in your vision, right until the moment when you fully restore it.

 
At 5:40 am, Blogger Shaune said...

Corneal Refractive Therapy or orthokeratology is a very viable option for correcting vision. There are a number of studies that show that it may even slow myopic progression. It is non-surgical and fairly convenient.

 
At 10:53 am, Anonymous generic cialis 20mg said...

Interesting article, added his blog to Favorites

 
At 7:58 am, Anonymous Techbee said...

Need 0nly over the counter reading glasses when light is poor....
Thanks..
Big Eyes Contact Lens

 

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