For Carey! :-)
Take a moment today, to appreciate your eyesight. Some facts to help:
The light from the world around you, focused onto the retina of your eye, is received by 126 million rod and cone cells. 126 million receptors, right now, to take in the light to form the image you can see.
The retina is actually an outgrowth of the brain. In the brain itself, neurons devoted to visual processing number in the hundreds of millions and take up about 30 percent of the cortex, as compared with 8 percent for touch and just 3 percent for hearing. Each of the two optic nerves, which carry signals from the retina to the brain, consists of a million fibers; each auditory nerve carries a mere 30,000.
30 percent of the cortex of your brain, to allow you to see. 150 million cell receptors. A million fibers to carry the light signal to your brain.
Not astonishing enough? How about this: 50% of all of your neural tissue deals with your vision.
Close your eyes for a moment, and try to contemplate these staggering numbers. Realize that with your eyes closed, the world around you, as expressed by light, ceases to exist.
Here are some other figures you should know:
Myopia, the most common illness affecting eyesight, has doubled in the U.S., between 1970 and 2000, to now affect close to 50% of the country’s population (source). Chances are about 50/50 that you reading this, are yourself myopic (ie. need glasses, are nearsighted).
It is even worse in Asia, where as much as 90% of school children are myopic (source).
Myopia is a vast epidemic, destroying the healthy eyesight of more and more people all over the world. The cause? Unknown.
Or so the optometrist will tell you, at your local optic shop. If you know a bit about vision sciences, and bring up topics like NITM (near induced transient myopia) or lens-induced myopia, it’s almost certainly that you will get nothing more than a blank stare.
If you do a quick search on scholar.google.c0m for either of those topics (near induced transient myopia and lens-induced myopia) , you’ll find a shocking amount of research. Anywhere from 11,000 to 17,000 search results, just in scientific research.
What does all this mean?
Well, in short, there is a vast rift between retail optometry (the practice of selling you prescriptions that just hide a symptom), and medical science (which is keenly aware of the real cause of myopia).
Not convinced? Type “optometrist office” into Google. Here’s what you’ll get:
Does that look like a) a doctor’s office or b) a retail sales shop?
Those eye exams have preciously little to do with your health.
Here are some more facts:
Myopia starts out as a focusing muscle (the ciliary) spasm (NITM). This point, most often in children today, could easily be taken to correct the vision deficiency. No child actually needs to be wearing glasses to see clearly!
NITM is usually equal to no more than -1.00 to -1.50 in a first glasses prescription. If you choose to wear it, your eyesight will almost certainly get worse.
That phenomenon, when the supposed “treatment” makes the condition worse, is called lens-induced myopia.
All of these things you will never hear about. Why?
There is no money in prevention. Most any doctor’s visit for any sort of symptom today results in what? A sale. You will be given a pill, and off you go. Outside of acute problems (broken legs, gushing wounds, heart attacks), most chronic symptoms are just medicated. There is money in selling prescriptions. There isn’t any money in rehab and prevention.
To stay healthy, educate yourself about your eyes. Here are the basics:
1. Avoid excessive close-up, all day in artificial light. You really do need breaks from staring at your computer! Remember NITM? That focusing muscle strain from close-up eventually will cause the muscle to spasm and give you “pseudo myopia”.
2. Never wear those prescriptions meant for distance use, while looking at your computer screen. If you are already myopic and can’t see clearly up-close without glasses, consider a reduced prescription for close-up.
Just like you don’t eat bags of morphine for a headache, you don’t need a pair of 20/10 glasses to look at a screen that’s just inches from your face. Remember lens-induced myopia, that’s where it starts.
Feel free to comment if you’d like more on the subject here, on Carey’s most excellent blog!
Om Shanti,
– Neha
Neha Gupta is a holistic ophthalmology practitioner in India, in private practice for the past 14 years. Her speciality is myopia prevention and rehabilitation, and light therapy for vision related illness.
