Would you like to see a by-the-book approach to curing your own astigmatism completely?  How about really high astigmatism, and in a pretty short period of time?

Behold, a brilliant status update from Cindi in the forum:

I started this process in Dec 2014. Decades ago I had done vision therapy with a behavioral ophthalmologist, and had a big improvement in my prescription. It might have been Bates method, I’m not sure, but I did use biofeedback to learn how to relax my focus and that really helped. I tended to overfocus, so at the end of the work day on the computer all day, I couldn’t see far away to drive home. The vision therapy did help me with that, to learn how it felt to relax focus. But over the years (I am 51), I got lazy, and my vision got worse. Fortunately I didn’t go to the eye doctor often though so the damage was limited :-)

I started here in December.
R: -2.0 sphere with -2.75 cylinder at 170
L: -1.0 sphere with -2.50 cylinder at 165
What I really didn’t like was the high astigmatism; I need a solution for skiing and ski goggles didn’t work with this much astigmatism.

Over the past 8 months, by using plus lenses, I got to (with 20/15 vision):
R: -1.5 sphere with -1.5 cylinder at 170
L: -.075 sphere with -1.25 cylinder at 165
I’m not sure if it’s the right way to go about it, but I first get rid of a lot of spherical correction, then jump it back up when I drop the astigmatism down. That worked for me. I also had to keep cylinder correction in my reading glasses or I couldn’t find the blur point, but I kept it at less than the distance prescriptions.

I bought a set of trial lenses from China for about $150, and that has been extremely valuable. I’m not sure how I would have figured all this out without them. I also use Zenni $6.95 glasses, which is good because I’ve been through almost a dozen pairs.

Now I have found with my trial lenses that I can eliminate the cylinder entirely if I increase the sphere again. So I just ordered:
R: -2.25 sphere with 0 cylinder
L: -1.25 sphere with 0 cylinder
And also +3.5 plus lenses (over the distance) with no cylinder.

I read with plus lenses a lot, every night before I go to bed. But during the day if I’m just reading a little, I don’t use any glasses anymore. I sometimes don’t wear any around the house now, or when I’m on the computer. This is pretty amazing to me, but I suspect that by the middle of next year I won’t need glasses at all, except the plus lenses I will wear for heavy reading and computer use.

One thing I am not sure on is how to get the eyes even, whether to do patching now or wait until one eye is 0 and then patch until the other eye becomes 0.

Cindi

And that’s how it’s done.

It’s entirely doable to “wing it” with prescription reductions if you’re dealing with just spherical correction.  Especially with average levels of myopia and not too much difference between left and right eye, you can get away with just a measuring tape and an eye chart.

But whenever things get more involved than that, a test lens kit can get very handy.

That and the concerted effort, plus well organized record of your progress, always yields results.

You can cure your own astigmatism as easily as reversing spherical myopia.

And “cure” is really a silly word.

Of course your eye isn’t ill.  It doesn’t need to be cured.  It just needs the right kind of stimulus, and an organized, structured approach to resetting the problematic changes created by previous lens prescriptions.

Very nicely done, and a big thumbs up to Cindi for taking the time to share.

Speaking of astigmatism, there is also a post from Shannon in the forum, following up on the previous discussion of contact lens thickness.  Also very much read-worthy:

@johnny Before I hit rock bottom, and started myopia rehab, I was prescribed astigmatism contacts, and they are so uncomfortable, I couldn’t wear them. It really freaked me out that I had been given oval contacts and that my eyes were literally warping. I tried them once, and couldn’t even wear them. I had found the high myopia contacts to be so uncomfortable, I stopped wearing them for an entire year. Going from astigmatism 8+ lenses to the 6-7.5 range to the 4-5.75 range is so much comfier that I am full of joy. I think Jake is so right about more oxygen going through because I can definitely feel the difference. I see now how bad the contacts are, but at least they are getting thinner. Hindsight is 20/20 literally ha.

Congrats on getting out of that uncomfortable astigmatism zone! Good luck on moving down another diopter. I want to hear all about it! Keep up the good work my friend!

Shannon

Several other pieces of really interesting discoveries in the forum today, head on over if you’ve got full access.

Reto also found an amazing optometrist, willing to work with you on reduced prescriptions.  If you happen to be in Switzerland, or ready for a little holiday trip that way, that might be well worth the trip.  I’ll post that whole story and contact info next.

And for a bit of housekeeping, three things:

Career-ish opportunities:  If you happen to be into health communities and PR, are into eyesight health, like to connect with people, and also happen to be looking for work …. check out the employment link at the bottom of the page (or, here).

Range can be anywhere from resourceful Intern looking to earn his/her way through the BackTo20/20 program, to throw-money-at-me-Jake accomplished veteran journalists.   I’m open to compelling pitches at any level.  

A bit of the backstory:  I’m doing zero outreach, I’m more shy about talking to strangers than a stray feral kitten is about a gang of gardeners with gas powered leaf blowers.  But I keep being told that this needs to happen.  As far as I’m concerned we could forever just be us, you reading the blog and me writing.  I don’t care if it’s five people or 5,000.  Some of my students though, are the high powered CEO types, and they won’t quit bugging me about “realizing the potential of the message”.  So this, mostly to placate the high energy types insistent calls and e-mails.  (thank you, I do always appreciate the push)

Podcasts:  Check the latest forum post announcement on the subject.  One of you is hopefully going to be a willing participant in a first foray into talking about your experience, vs. just sticking with writing.  Let’s try it!   You’ll really make my day letting me know that you might volunteer.

New payment options:  This has been in the works for several months now.  For those of you who don’t want Paypal, can’t use Paypal, don’t like credit cards via Paypal … the wait is about to be over.  We partnered up with a big merchant services provider bank, and the technical minions have been busy integrating their end with our student portal.  All up to the latest standards and security and everything.  Things are nearing the end of the testing phase, it looks like that’ll be live as soon as later next week.

And yes, meanwhile sign-up will continue to be as relatively inaccessible as usual.  I’m not looking for more people to sign up on a whim.  This rather is for those who wanted in before, got the invite, but then didn’t really get along with the (somewhat limited) payment options.

Let me know if you might do a little podcast chat with me via the forum!  ;-)

Cheers,

-Jake