Anne writes in the forum:
Hi everyone,
I took my youngest son to see the ophthalmologist today and I am feeling so disappointed, frustrated and angry ….
Let me first give you some background history:
I joined the #endmyopia project program on March, 24th 2014 after my 2 youngest children (Robin,7 and Eline, 10) had been diagnosed with myopia. This made me really worry (it kept me awake at night) about their future eyesight. From my own childhood, I can clearly remember that, once I started wearing glasses (around the age of 10-11), my eyesight only got worse. It made me really sad and at one point (age 31-32), my right eye was at -8 and my left eye at -9 and I could not live without my glasses. I have been wearing contact lenses for most of the time and they were always less strong then my glasses.As I grew older, I made a little progress in both eyes (R: 7.5 and L:6.5).
When, I took Robin and Eline to an ophthalmologist she pointed out that our children “inherited” our myopia (my husband is also myopic) and she prescribed minus lenses (-2 for Robin and -1 for Eline).
As I have always been convinced that there must be other ways to help them, I started looking around for other solutions to prevent their eyes from getting any worse. One of the things I came across was the use of reading glasses.
It all made a lot of sense to me so I decided to talk to my optician about it. He had never heard about it and looked at me as if I was some crazy woman who wanted to try something out that could be harmful and advised us to use -1.75 lenses for Robin (they measured his eyes again) and -1 lenses for Eline. I felt so disappointed when we left because he didn’t even bother listening to me.
A couple of days after our visit to the optician, I came across the #endmyopia clinic site and decided to subscribe.I decided to try the program myself (hoping this would enable me to demonstrate some improvements to the ophthalmologist so this would then convince her to help my kids) and for the last couple of weeks I have been focusing on improving my own vision.
I ordered my first close-up prescription R: -6 and L: -5 (based on the results of the Myopia calculator. This is -1.5 diopters lower than my distance prescription.I received my glasses on April 14th. Before this time, I’d been doing the morning focus differential awareness and stress reduction exercise; the 2×30′ outdoor activity and peripheral awareness exercise.
Since it felt so comfortable, I have been wearing my reduced prescription for most of the time. They offer me excellent vision for close-up work. I can work on my pc and read without any problems (taking into account the blur zone). The distance between my pc and my eyes is about 55cm (best vision is at 50cm).As I was in between jobs for about a month and the weather was nice, I spent a lot of time outside.Already, after a couple of days, I could notice some difference in my vision: in the morning I could read my alarm clock without glasses, could watch tv (most of the times only with some blurriness) and go for walks with my reduced prescription, could read sign posts, license plates…
When I went back to work, I didn’t experience any real problems with close-up work or walking around the office. I only experienced some blurred vision when I had to look at a presentation on a screen at a distance from me. After wearing my glasses for about 3 weeks I could also use them to drive to school and work.
Just for professional purposes, I decided to order reduced contact lenses (L: -5 and R: -6) and combine these with an additional pair of minus glasses (-0.75) to use for distance vision when needed. It would not be very practical to switch between glasses when I’m working at a client’s side.
I received my contact lenses today and decided to try them out. I was surprised how much more they improved my vision and decided to do a Snellen test. I was surprised that I could read the 20/13 line at a distance of about 5.20 m (didn’t try if I could read it from >5m). With my reduced glasses, I can read the 20/25 line (with active focusing) at a distance of about 5m.
My neighbours recommended me to take my kids to their ophthalmologist. I had to wait for more than 2 months before I could take my son to his appointment, which was today. In the meantime, I encouraged my children to play as much outside as possible, I watched the time they spend working up close, watching tv, playing games, reading, etc …
So this afternoon, we went to see the ophthalmologist. I was glad I’d already made some progress with my own vision. I very carefully (knowing how upset some professionals get when you ask them too many questions) asked her if my son’s vision could be improved (or if we could at least try to just stop the progression at this point) by using reading glasses for close-up work. I also told her about my own experience. Her first question was: “are there any other relatives in your family with myopia?” She then said that the main cause of myopia is that it’s hereditary (so not caused by cramped eye muscles) and that she had never heard of the stuff I was talking about.
She said that due to his young age (7), Robin’s myopia was (probably) due to the elongation of his eyeballs and that this was something genetic (so we couldn’t do anything about it). If he would have -2 than she would recommend him to wear his glasses all the time (this really shocked me).
To find out his true myopia (the genetic one) she could put some drops in his eyes to paralyse the eye muscles so they wouldn’t be cramped anymore. She also mentioned she didn’t expect this measurement to be any different from the one she did today and that this would then prove that his myopia was not caused by cramped eye muscles but by genetic elongation of the eyeballs.
With respect to my own progress, she explained this was due to my age as your vision can get better as you grow older (I’m 44 years and I don’t think that such improvement in vision over a period of 5 weeks can be linked to me getting 5 weeks older). She said my true myopia (the genetic one) might be less f.i. -4. Then why did I end up with -8 and -9 at age 32 ?
When she measured Robin’s vision, she came up with the following results: right eye: -1.75 and left eye: -1.25. At the time of the measurements, Robin was feeling tired as he’d been on a school camp for 3 days and had only been back home for about an hour. He also had a light infection in one of his eyes (at least that’s what the ophthalmologist said). She recommended us to come back to see her on an annual basis as his eyes would get worse every year.
So this is why I feel frustrated, disappointed, sad and even angry! How can I encourage my children to use reading glasses for up-close work if I can’t find an ophthalmologist who wants to give us a prescription? As an adult, I can order my own glasses over the Internet without needing any prescription.
Over a period of about 4 months, my son has been given 3 different prescriptions:
– Feb-March: -2 in both eyes
– End of March: -1.75 both eyes
– May, 14th: -1.75 right eye and -1.25 left eye → how come there is a difference in both eyes? There wasn’t one in the previous 2 measurements.
To be honest, right now I don’t really now what to do next.
Which prescription is the right one?
I live in Belgium and I just think that I will never be able to find a professional who will be willing to help me as this is still a very conservative country when it concerns eye care, medicine, etc
Has anyone of you been in the same situation as me or has anyone some advice for me?
Best regards to all of you,
Anne”
***
That is quite frustrating, of course.
My first thought is that at least Anne doesn’t get sued for trying to help people with an alternative for glasses – as I have been on several occasions in the past (not by clients of course, but by special interest groups representing you-know-who).
But then Anne is clearly more fortunate than most parents.
Anne found the site, Anne overcame the (perfectly natural) skepticism of my Internet claims about myopia, and Anne figured out that she can improve her vision – first hand.
Very little of the credit there goes to me. Quite a bit of it is luck, some of it is Google’s graces in showing the site in search results (even though I might be paying for some inclusion), and a whole lot of it is personal initiative in trying on my claims, and verify whether the #endmyopia Method is actually effective.
See the full thread of the subject, including my comments, here.
Enjoy!
