Let’s check in on Val’s latest progress report in the support forum, and some interesting details:

It’s been a while, but I just made another reduction. Actually, in late August I went down to -6.5 (half diopter drop), and have been there through sept, oct, and half of november. This morning, I decided it was time for a quarter diopter drop. I probably picked a bad day (gray rainy), but I was happy with how well I could see. I also further reduced my differential to -5.25, but that one is less awesome, though I will work with it.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of no glasses active focus, and I think I can see about 20/40 (in bright sunshine, with active focus and tons of double vision and what I can only describe as cloudy film artifacting. But I can read the text, just barely. This is an improvement from the 20/85 vision I had in spring time, and when I put on my new normalized with -6.25, everything looks amazing, even with gray skies above. The no glasses activity has become a habit. I do it while on the bike trail and taking walks. Biking in traffic I usually have my glasses on, but in bright light I can see well enough to avoid cars and potholes (I always have my glasses sitting on top of my head so I can slide them down quickly if needed). I also took up river surfing, which I do without any corrective vision. I’d probably be learning faster with contacts, but they don’t agree with my eyes, and I don’t have a prescription.

Now that wintry weather is approaching, I’m a bit concerned about the early darkness and getting enough outdoor time. It’ll get better once the snow flies and I can start skiing. I’m hoping I can make another reduction in early 2017, but I’ll let my eyes tell me what they need. I’ve got a couple years of reduced glasses available for my normalized, and my differential-strength glasses will probably last me until 2018 or longer (I think I ordered down to -4.75). 

So I’ve got a lot of reductions ahead of me, hopefully I can stay ahead of schedule. And maybe my wife will see the value of my effort and join me. My motivation was stronger at almost -9, but -4 on her side isn’t exactly low myopia…

For reference, here is where Val started out back in January:

Hi Everyone, 

I just got back from the optometrist, and my eyes are still dilated, but here’s some good news.

My prescription for distance vision, corrected to 20/15, no longer has any astigmatism, and the difference in the eyes is down to only -0.25 diopters. I knew that from my cm reading, but my snellen suggested my normalized of -8.00L -7.75R was pretty damn equal in each eye. It turns out that my Zenni normalized was actually more like a -8.25L -7.75R, according to her measurements. Oh well. The close up differential was measured to be exactly right at -5.75 in each eye. 

She then had me try to read 20/20 and 20/15 in my normalized, and apparently I got enough right at the 20/20 line to pass. In my old driving pair, I could easily see 20/15. 

after doing 1 and 2 or 3 or 4 about 10 times, she said I don’t have any astigmatism, and every time she put it in, I rejected it and preferred the straight spherical. Woot! Her final prescription, that she would give any one else is:
-8.50L -8.25R

This compares to my normalized -8.25L -7.75R (as she measured on her machine). Not bad. Maybe it’s time to weaken my normalized 0.25…

She also prescribed me a computer pair, just 0.75 weaker in each eye: -7.75L -7.50R. I’m obviously not gonna use that one as my differential, but probably halfway between that and my existing pair

I’m excited that I’m officially back to where I was in 2009 or 2010. I kinda cheated by fasting, and pull focusing a lot before stepping into the office, but it’s all good.

One more question, do I have my normalized and differential mislabeled in my signature?

2016-01-25 Differential: L: -5.75 R: -5.75
2016-01-25 Normalized: L: -8.00 R: -7.75
2016-03-02 Normalized: L: -7.75 R: -7.75
2016-03-20 Normalized: L: -7.00 R: -7.00
2016-08-29 Normalized: L: -6.50 R: -6.50
2016-10-19 Differential: L: -5.50 R: -5.50
2016-11-14 Norm: L: -6.25 R: -6.25
2016-11-14 Diff: L: -5.25 R: -5.25

2011-08-24 Original prescription: L: -8.50 -0.50 180 R: -8.00 – –

That was notably higher myopia, a L/R diopter ratio, and also astigmatism correction.  

Val has sorted out all correction complexity since January.  No more astigmatism, no more difference between left and right eye diopters, and a notable drop in spherical reduction.

Full thread, with lots more reports, is here.

This is how you do it, kittehs.  Habits are your friend.

yvonne-habits-fb

Cheers,

-Jake