The forum, ever the goldmine of participant insights, most recently with Cadence posting about her unfortunate experience at the optometrist:
I went down to the optometrist today where it was a really bad experience. The first shop that I went to is the one that prescribe me my glasses 1 year ago. When I went in, the regular optometrist is no longer there and was replaced by an unfriendly lady. For measurements of my eye she did not offer to do the chart testing for me and direct me to the autorefractor machine. These are my results from that,
L – 12.5, R- -9
For my glasses, she did an analysis on the prescription
L – -10 -0.50 x 1 , R – -7.00 -0.50 x1
I think the trip to the optometrists make me feel anxious and depressed as I get a heavy feeling that it will be hard to reverse my severe myopia as both of them did not give any advice and just want to get things over with.”
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There is no money in checkups, especially with the large optic shop chains giving them away in order to drive frame and lens sales business. How much time are you willing to spend on something in your business, that doesn’t make any money?
It’s too bad we are talking about Cadence’ future eye health here, and not some car brake job.
What is a bit shocking here is that two optometrists would do autorefractor only, and not even bother with a proper test lens and Snellen chart. That’s taking even the standard optic shop attitude a bit far. Best not to patronize those kinds of establishments!
Though then Steve was incredibly kind to take the time to post a response to Cadence’s thread, with some meaningful and encouraging numbers:
Hi Cadence,
Sorry to hear about your negative experiences at the optometrist! I can personally relate to how you feel as I also get very anxious when I visit my optometrist. After years or increasing prescriptions, a subconscious fear of another increase just weighs on our shoulders.
The ironic thing about it is, that when we’re anxious, acuity tends to be a bit less overall. This, in turn, leads to a slightly higher prescription than if you are relaxed. This has to do with the fight-or-flight mechanism that is activated during times of stress. I’m sure Alex or someone else could explain it more scientifically though.
Honestly, if you feel like you can see “good enough” (20/25 to 20/40) and don’t wear your full prescription for up-close, you don’t really need to dwell on those numbers too much.
Reduce the close up strain, take breaks and do as much distance active focus/focus pulling as you can. Build the habits, track your CM and snellen results fairly regularly to start off. At the very least, you will stop progression and (hopefully) you will begin to slowly regain some of the acuity that *most* optometrists claim is impossible.
Here is a break down of my normalized glasses I have used in the ~10 months I have been working to improve my vision.
- Start
(Late February 2014)
(OS) -7.50D, -1c | (OD) -6D, -1.25c
- March
(~20/40)
- to July
(20/20)
(OS) -6.75D, -.5c | (OD) -5.50D, -.75c
July (20/40) to December (20/25)
(OS) -6.25D, -.25c | (OD) -5D, -.5c
- December
(20/40)
- to present
(20/30)
(OS) -5.75D | (OD) -4.50D <–Spherical
I’ll wear the previous normalized in non-ideal lighting (night, cloudy, artificial lighting). If I try to wear the previous normalized outside during the day, I get headaches within 1 hour due to strain/overprescription.
I go to an optometrist every 3-6 months or so and the results don’t show the progress my eyes are (quite obviously) making. Poor lighting and my anxiety cause the results to vary a bit.
Learning to trust your eyes and push them a bit is key. You’ll find that certain amounts of blur isn’t necessarily a bad thing once your eyes become used to active focus. You will start having clear flashes here and there, then becoming more frequent. This builds confidence to keep you on the right path.
-Steve F
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That’s dramatically impactful, as a real-life example goes of what is possible, outside of the optic shops tyranny of prescription dogma.
Late February, (OS) -7.50D, -1c | (OD) -6D, -1.25c. That’s -7.50 diopters, and a whole diopter of astigmatism correction on top. Fast forward ten months, and Steve has 20/30 with (OS) -5.75D | (OD) -4.50D <–Spherical.
That’s a -1.75 diopter reduction in ten months, and a full diopter of astigmatism, entirely eliminated.
And he can see 20/30. Ten months later. I wish I could put billboards and full page ads everywhere, with experiences like Steve’s. Of course many people will still take the quick fix, but just being given a choice in the matter would be reasonable.
Unfortunately that isn’t the case. This site exists in a tiny gap between the billion dollar muscle of the lens industry, and the online scams for all sorts of health schemes. Most people are unlikely to ever discover this small niche of myopia prevention and rehab.
Thanks though to Steve for taking the time to post, and to Cadence for bringing her experiences here for many others not to feel alone in their troubles with the optic shops.
