Are your glasses way too strong? How can you tell? And if they are, is that a (huge) problem?
These are questions most people don’t ask.
And yet this is exactly where mainstream optometry myopia treatment and optometry science tell completely different stories. Your average optometrist is taught to give you as much minus as possible (for the best possible symptom treatment, letting you see as clearly as possible). And yet the science shows that too much minus increases the risk of hyperopic defocus, which in turn signals to your eyeball to grow longer – creating troubling progressive myopia.
“We know better, guys!” – we want to shout at the retail optometrist. “Your own science says so, come on!”
But it is what it is. They have regulations, they have schooling, they are maintaining exactly as they’re taught. It’d be like yelling at the customer service rep about charges on your phone bill … you’re just taking it out on the guy who has no control over the process, who is just doing as he’s told.
And then there is the mysterious eye guru, possibly known to some as Jake VanderJakenhausen, living atop a swirly misted, faraway mountain.
A mythical individual, rumored to be enveloped by a long, white, flowing beard, whispers that you should measure your own myopia. You might use eye charts, test lens kits, and even tools as simple as the centimeter measurement. Measuring myopia, he conspiratorializes, doesn’t require expensive professional equipment or a lofty medical degree. Using science like some sort of digital kung fu magic, this beardly wizard is teaching you how to unravel the myopia argument and helping you to become your very own darling eye guru.
Check out Kristen, taking her first steps on that illustrious journey:
Just look at all that discussion goodness!
Marvel at it.
For maybe the first time since the advent of the modern myopia epidemic, people are able to come together, being “laymen”, making sense of what’s going on with their eyes. You even get guys like Allan, mavericks who design 21st century versions of the old timey eye chart, talking directly with myopes, creating true discovery and dialog.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge could set you free, in particular from myopia in this case.
The best part? You can use all this knowledge to even bend the optometrist assessment to your will. Knowing what their questions means, and knowing what your eyes are seeing can help you avoid getting way more minus correction than you could possibly need.
Here’s Velo, using the endmyopia kung fu:
Insurrection can take the most subtle forms.
See?
Some Jake might get ranty and combative at times, though you can just as easily use the knowledge with a positive outlook. You can be like Velo, smiling to yourself, using the tools to get what you actually need.
Cheers,
-Jake
