Written by Despina
Contributing Optometrist
Last week was not great. Until Wednesday I had the most stinking cold, which was cured within minutes by some mysterious cold and flu tablets bought at my local pharmacy. Green, they were. Slightly suspicious looking. I have no idea what was in them, but I was desperate. I felt terrible. And my normalized prescription was waiting for me, in the drawer.
The fact is, they worked like magic and I lived to tell the tale. On Friday, I woke up, fully recovered, dying to get on with the program. I followed all Jake’s advice, did all the blurred bits and outdoors bits, and popped in my new -4.25 contact lenses. (my original prescription was -5.00, both eyes). With this normalized prescription, I see 20/30 indoors, and to my delight, 20/20 in bright outdoor light. I instantly started practicing active focus at every opportunity- on street-signs, shop-signs, car number-plates, tree branches..it was great! I was trying to ignore the mild, niggling ache in my right eye. Just on the nasal side. By mid-morning it was worse, but I was sure it was that pulling pain described in the program. As the day wore on, the pain became more intense, progressing to the other eye too, and I no longer felt like focusing on anything, distance or near. Two paracetamol didn’t help either.(no, I’m not normally the pill-popping type, but this was bad). No one said it was intense pain, this “pull”, not Jake, not participants in the forum, no one.
Anyway, I convinced myself a good night’s sleep would do the trick. I was wrong. The niggling pain, now a full-blown bilateral throb, woke me up at 6am. And I’m sorry to say, that was the point at which I almost conceded defeat. This program was not for me. I’d missed the boat. My presbyopia is refusing to be ignored any longer. It’s your visual cortex, Jake said. It’s confused. Maybe too much active focus. Get some rest. Try again.
Without thinking, I padded down to the kitchen with no correction on at all, (new habits working automatically), made tea, toast, and suddenly realised that I had no ache. It was gone. Just like that. Since then, I’ve been wearing my normalized and I can see really well, especially in bright sunlight, and no aches. I’m doing active focus comfortably, and I’m very relieved to be able to continue with the program. Perhaps I should have waited longer to put on my normalized prescription after my cold, I don’t know.
So if any one ever tells you that you’re stubborn, it’s a good thing. Particularly for the purposes of this program. There will be little hurdles along the way, there’s a lot going on and the human body is a complex thing, but they can be overcome. Help is at hand. Just keep being stubborn.
