Heads-Up: Somewhat misleading post title. We here at endmyopia don’t believe that presbyopia is an illness, and therefore don’t actually suggest that there is (or needs to be) a cure (but you can “fix” presbyopia, possibly). This is also a myopia focused site, so everything you read here about presbyopia, is based on much more limited insights.
Can you “cure” your presbyopia? I don’t know. Maybe. What I can tell you is that there might not be another person out there, who has met more people who eliminated their own presbyopia.
I’ve met a lot of people who should have had presbyopia, considering their age (and what the mainstream says about presbyopia). I’ve met quite a lot of people who started out with presbyopia, then reduced their myopia, and no longer had presbyopia symptoms after successful myopia reduction or reversal.
Let’s look at Ruth Ann’s comments, in a recent forum thread:
Above is what I keep hearing from people.
Despina, our resident contributing optometrist, currently has presbyopia. Maybe she’ll have things to say about it too, before long. I’m especially curious about her.
I can give you lots of advice about myopia, but not about presbyopia. What I can tell you is pretty simple and closely related to what you probably already know about myopia. Unlike myopia reversal, this is really just a bit of idle musings:
1. Plus lenses (reading glasses) create more presbyopia.
And they can do it quickly. So resist the urge to get more plus than you need.
If you start with a +1, and it seems strong, you’re off to a bad start already. You can easily tell if it’s strong by the fact that you don’t have a “reverse” blur horizon (ie. things are crazy pin sharp no matter how close you get to the page or screen). You wan’t “just enough” correction, meaning seeing clearly up-close, but ideally with just a little bit of blur challenge.
(If you don’t know what blur challenge is, well worth reading about active focus).
2. Cheap reading glasses are the devil.
You’re going to stick the cheapest possible three-dollar, Chinese-made, no-name brand, plastic lenses in front of your eyes, creating an artificial focal plane in front of several million rods and cones that is your retina, to feed an image to your visual cortex, which is the largest and most sophisticated part of your brain’s cortex?
Hey, go ahead, by my guest. Also, say hello to more presbyopia. Your brain isn’t going to exactly take kindly to a poorly chosen, probably overprescription plus lens of the poorest possible optical quality.
3. Use it or loose it.
What part of your biology has ever improved, by coddling it?
Like mentioned above, focus challenge is what you need. Not so much that you’re getting headaches and are tearing up while reading, but enough to where you can’t still read the book even though the lights are off and you actually have your eyes closed.
4. Got myopia? Get rid of it.
This site is all about myopia reduction. Also no “cure” there, but also no illness. If you’re myopic and don’t know what that prescription even means, definitely that’s the place to start working on your vision health.
Myopes who get rid of their myopia, have a high success rate at finding themselves no longer having presbyopia either. No guarantees here, but if you don’t like looking like a blind ape, staring through those dusty multi-focals, myopia is the start of the thread.
5. Don’t listen to the nay-sayers.
Yours truly started with -5 diopter myopia, and is currently writing you this guide without glasses, and 20/20 vision. It got old pretty quick, all the times I was told that what I was trying was impossible, that I was wasting my time, that it simply couldn’t be done.
There’s absolutely no point listing to anyone who is just going to tell you all the things you can’t do.
If reducing your reading glass prescriptions and practicing active focus (and eliminating your myopia first, really) isn’t going to reduce your presbyopia, then what did you really loose? That’s right, nothing. On the other hand if you reduce or “cure” your presbyopia, will this little experiment have been entirely worth your time.
Never listen to the can’t-be-done crowd. On anything.
That’s it for the presbyopia topic. Actually there is also this PDF on curing presbyopia, which I don’t endorse in any way. Still if you want to check it out, by all means (though really, above list is where I’d suggest you start).
Enjoy some healthy eyesight!
Cheers,
-Jake
