Matthew started at out a -4.00, two years ago.  He since managed to reverse most of his myopia (to -1.25), with persistence and good habits.  

If there’s one thing I’ll teach my child, it’ll be to set yourself a goal, and then surround yourself with people who already accomplished what you’re just setting out to do.  There’s no sense going at it alone, or listening to anyone other than those who are already where you’re trying to go.  

Cut out the noise, focus on success.

If you’re trying to get big muscles, spend time around guys who have big muscles.  If you want to make money doing FOREX, get insights from guys who make a ton of it on FOREX.  And of course, if you’re looking for better eyesight, you always want to look at the experiences of those who have made real progress on this front.

The forum, for this, a great place to start.  Matthew writes:

Time for another update. I’m exactly 30 days in to a new normalized of L -1.25 / R -1.75 (down from L -1.50 / R -2.00). Just yesterday, this prescription “clicked” for me. It doesn’t take too much concentration now to get good clarity in bright sunlight at most distances. 

For about the first three weeks, there was a lot of double vision of a sense of dullness about the images I was seeing. I didn’t perceive any of this as a problem because of my experiences on adjusting to reductions and the accounts I have read on the forum. The main point has been for me to WITHOLD judgments about how I’m doing or whether or not it is “working” for at least 30 days (as long as I have no headaches or other adverse symptoms). I’ve also seen that my vision tends to improve throughout the day and peak just before dusk. I could be seeing really well at 6:00 or 7:00 PM, to the point where I think I could easily move to a new normalized. Here’s an example: 

Morning cm R: 52cm, L: 70cm (before the sun rises, so under artificial light)
Evening R: 62cm, L: 80cm (in my kitchen, with lots of good, natural light)

Psychologically, if I didn’t withhold judgment for 30 days, there’d be more than a few mornings that I let the frustration at having to work very hard in the morning to align images and get rid of blur that I would want to give up. With the observations of prior experiences, this doesn’t concern me one bit and is kind of fun to watch. I look at a poster across my office first thing in the morning, and it takes me a couple minutes to see it clearly. Then, after lunch and a break from close up work, I look at it again and the thing is clear – no blur, no double vision.

Only AFTER 30 days do I get to make a decision.

I’m happy with how this normalized is working. There’s still some work involved, which I would best describe as a feeling of minor instability. Sometimes I need to blink to get images to center, sometimes I just need to stare for a few moments for everything to align.

This is almost exactly what happened with my last normalized. About every 30 days, it felt like I had just upped the prescription. One day, everything was just a bit clearer and a bit easier. I’m sure that the coming of spring time has been a help. Right now, in Virginia, we get daylight from about 6:15 AM to a little after 8:00 PM. Consequently, I’m getting MUCH more outdoor time and quality stimulus. As we all know, the light matters for how well we see. Outside, on a sunny day, I have to look to find blur and images to clear. By comparison, indoors, in fluorescent light, I work to relax and concentrate deeply to clear the 20/40 and 20/30 lines. 

I’m getting some very lovely moments of clear”ish” vision without glasses. At dinner time, because it’s still light outside, I’m starting to take off my glasses. Looking at my wife and daughter a few feet away from me with my distance prescription just doesn’t feel natural to me and is starting to feel uncomfortable. This is still a long way from being glasses free, but I think that some of the eventual switch will come naturally, in moments like these. It’ll just occur that there’s no reason for glasses in a situation and it will feel better to take them off. 

One other observation on my process: don’t discount the benefits of mid-distance stimulus. Outside focus pulling is best, but it’s hard to get a lot during the winter months, and many of us work indoors. If I can clear text or resolve double vision that’s 8 or 10 feet away, it might not be as good as true distance vision, but it’s substantially better than staring at a screen and has seemed to help me.

Jake tells me to focus on equalizing now, so I’ve started the 15 minutes of patching. Once I get to the 3 -4 month mark on this normalized and it is time to reduce again, then I’ll go down to L -1.25 / R -1.50. 

As a last bit of recap, I started this journey just about two years ago with L -4.00 *-1.00 / R – 5.00 *-0.75. Looking back, I am amazed at how well my eyes and brain have responded to this stimulus. Back then, I thought I that I couldn’t see a thing without my glasses, and I wouldn’t have dreamed that I could find a way to improve this much. Overall, it has been easy for me because I have been able to follow a well worn path laid out by Alex and Jake. Maybe I’m just fortunate that I have responded well. I just know that there is no stopping now. I could never go back to wearing overprescribed lenses, and I won’t quit until I get to 20/20.
I admire those of you on here that start with -7 and -8 prescriptions! I see some people laying out 6, 7, and 8 year plans to get back to 20/20. Please keep at it and post updates so we can cheer for every bit of improvement that everyone gets!

full thread

That’s the lesson to take away from Matthew’s experience – withhold judgment for a while, on lens reductions (as long as you know what you’re doing, of course).  

Housekippin’:  For those among you who are wise and fortunate participants in BackTo20/20, I’ve got good news:  Session group 16 (#73-75), now in the process of getting all the goodie updates.  Finally.  

This brings us that much closer to everyone being able to get the full year (past the promised 60 days of sessions in the regular program) of bonus sessions.  Since the system has been a little sketch prior to the recent big updates, a lot of you aren’t getting the bonus sessions yet.  I love those for the weekly tips, motivation, and reminders.  It’s a great pace past the regular program, just once a week, get a little nudge.  Coming soon if you don’t get them yet, just session group 17-19 to finish updating, first.

Cheers,

-Jake