I was told that he knew about an optician who trained his eyesight from -5 to 0, but that he had to constantly train his eyes from reverting back to their “natural”(his words) myopic state.
‘He’ in this case, being an optician himself. A guy who one would think might be curious about his colleague eliminating his myopia. Excerpt from original post in the forum here.
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Most optic shops are no different from a fast food restaurant. You go to a fast food restaurant to get an immediate result: Hunger, gone. If you go to such an establishment, you likely know that you are getting the fast result at a compromise of health. Fast food is rarely healthy food.
The person in the white lab coat and the consult room with the Snellen chart, is like the order taker at McDonalds. If you expect diet and nutrition advice, you will of course be sorely disappointed.
Likewise, the optic shop ‘vision test’ is just a matter of prescribing the fastest result to deal with the symptom. This place has nothing whatsoever to do with healthy eyesight, there are most likely no doctors here who contemplate the nature of myopia, its’ impact on your life, and how they may help you to reverse it.
These guys, like the fast food cashier, create a prescription order.
Interesting is the forum observation above, as it restates this fact quite well. Even if you present the optician with a fellow optician, who fully resolved a -5 diopter myopia (impressive!), the reaction is entirely uninspired. These guys aren’t in business to understand the myopia epidemic, or to prevent you from becoming a victim. They sell glasses, and frames. That is what they are trained to do, that is what the retail location is designed to do, and that is what you will get.
Going to a place like this, trying to talk about eyesight health, is like going to talk to the McDonalds manager about advising patrons to eat less fries, and not drink coke products.
See this post, looking at the interesting similarities between an Apple store and an optic shop.
There are of course exceptions. Also, some optic shops will be glad to work with your goals, as long as it is clear that you are a good customer. Some forum posts discuss this, where clients end up having a very good relationship with the shop, being allowed to use their equipment to self test, and getting good prices on new lenses. You can be the optic shops best customer after all, since you might be buying new, reduced lenses every few months!
It is hard to resist the lure of the fast food restaurant. After all, when you are hungry, they have exactly the ideal solution. Years of refinements, hundreds of millions of customers, you can walk into a McDonalds anywhere on earth, and know exactly what you will get.
This site, and my specialization (and behavioral ophthalmology) will likely never be more than a niche. Those of us who care about our eyesight health will find these resources (hopefully). The fact that it does take effort, planning, and persistence, will always limit this kind of resource to those among us, who are willing to put in the work, for a greater end result.
Wait a few more years, and we might even see eyeglass vending machines. Look through the slot, get your diopter prescription, machine spits out glasses for you (Japan, if anywhere, would be an unsurprising candidate for this one).
Gloomy, perhaps. At the same time though, I see traffic to this site increasing every month, and your feedback on improvement is inspiring me to continue adding content and program installments.
I do hope you find time to get outside and enjoy some good eyesight today!
And of course, just a few more days until ….
