So, plus lens therapy.  Yet another thing floating about the Interwebs, when you search for answers about myopia.

I made a quick video a while back, about plus lens therapy.

In it I point out that I didn’t like how the implied premise might be highly misleading to most myopes.  You might want to wear plus lenses before you end up with glasses, at a point where you’re probably still largely just contending with a ciliary muscle spasm as cause of your low myopia.

Sometimes Plus Lenses Are Helpful

If you’re in higher myopia territory, wearing a plus lens might just turn your screen into blur-soup.  No benefit in that, and for those who just look at the title “plus lens therapy”, the results might be a little depressing. 

Counterpoint, yes, to prevent myopia in the first place, if you spend a lot of time up-close, plus lenses can help.  In a specific and limited set of cases, plus lenses make sense.

So there’s that.  I’m not a fan of how in that little niche of ideas, plus lens therapy is billed as some kind of grand solution to myopia.  I do tell parents to consider some amount of plus lens use to help prevent myopia for kids, I tell some people who need to wear contact lenses to use plus on top of the contact lenses for close-up.  It’s got its place, the plus lens.  Limited applications, can be very beneficial.  

But poor naming and possibly excessive hopes for an answer to all myopia isn’t the only reason I’m not a fan of the whole plus lens therapy premise.

Often There Are Other, Better Alternatives

The other reason I don’t like it, is because its effectiveness is limited in the best of cases.

Consider that you’re reading this from a guy who’s spend the last decade not only reversing his own myopia, but interacting with a very large number of people who went through the same process.  We tried it all, over the last dozen plus years.  We did plus lens experiments before the Internet was much more than dial up porn, far from today and forums discussing plus lenses.  Yes, we’re grizzled old sages, telling you how we walked 20 miles in the snow, uphill both ways.

Plus is funky stuff.  Here are some stories from the forum, so you’re not just hearing it from me.  Christian writes:

So for the past days I have almost not worn plus lenses at all, they were giving me red eye. I stopped pushing the print too far which I noticed was straining my eyes. And now, today I noticed something that I had seen before. 

If I look at my Snellen chart the last line I can read with effort is the 20/30 line. But if I only look at the 20/200 and 20/100 line and focus on those, the other lines clear up easily. 

I mean I only stare a little bit at the big 20/200 letter, and the two smaller 20/100 letters, then blink at them. Then I look under them and the other lines are clearer where I can effortlessly read the 20/25 line. Is this double vision and I hadn’t been aware of it? 

I also went on the street and noticed that if I try to focus on license plates at the distance I feel a little bit of strain and it’s hard to clear the image. But if I look at a car as a whole or if I find some big text like the STOP in a stop sign and just do almost “effortless” active blinking, then I look at the license plate it appear way more clear to where I can read it.

So I thought that the smaller the text and the further it was the better, but maybe I’m wrong? Is this active focus and double vision thing not supposed to be too hard? Maybe this sounds stupid haha but has anybody had a similar experience or at least understands what I mean??

There.  Plus can cause funky business.

Here’s the thing.  You can go to up to 50%, plus lens use, for close-up, if you know what you’re doing, and you really think you’ll benefit from that focal plane change.  It’s absolutely a tool to use, when the situation demands.  What it’s not, is a “therapy” approach all by itself.  There are lots of things far more effective to stop myopia progression and reverse myopia, than being Mr. Frog Eye at your desk 10 hours a day.

Bruno adds comments on the thread:

Yeah, I know what you mean. I actually have been limiting my plus use as well. Used to do close up only with them and that was probably overkill. Since we are on a similar level (almost there!) we have a similar experience. I think for me there’s pretty much only double vision left because I get these really clear flashes where everything lines up perfectly. 

And double vision is easier (for me) to detect at smaller distances with bigger writing. There is probably also some astigmatism but since I get these clear flashes it’s mainly double vision. Most of the time it feels like blur when it’s actually double vision, you know? I rarely get this “exemplary” double vision, where theres just 2 strong images not really aligned. It is more of a foggy, ghosty type of image where multiple parts are not quite right. So it seems like blur, but it’s really double vision. 

The technique you wrote about – just looking and analyze what you can see without feeling like it has to be perfectly clear – actually helps a lot with double vision. And it also helped me appreciate where I am now and to enjoy the process of improving – not just seeing the process as means to an end. The progress will come anyway.

And again, Christian:

Exactly, I experience the same thing. 

Yeah, and since limiting my plus, almost not wearing them at all, I’ve finally been getting more clear flashes again while outside in the sun. Sometimes they happen for a second or two, sometimes they happen for longer and what I find weird is that sometimes they don’t happen “simultaneously” in both eyes, but I get them in my left eye or in my right eye.

The thread.

Look at the whole plus lens premise another way, perhaps:

Plus Lens Therapy Is Another Quick Fix Idea

There is no alternate quick fix.  You can’t just pop on a different kind of lens, ignore the irony that you lose your distance vision because you never use it (simplifying for effect), and expect that this alternate “prescription” will fix your eye health issues.  Trying to have more other lenses do the work for you, is what the mainstream is already selling you.  They’re selling you stuff that you’ll find tempting if you’re too lazy to confront the real issues.  

Stop looking for a quick fix.  Stop adding more lenses and artificial focal planes, instead get your ass out of that chair, away from Youtube and Facebook, and go actually outside.  That, and generally and strategically reducing your dependence on artificial focal planes (not adding more new ones), is the name of the game.  

You’ve got all the many success stories with a method that lets you maintain a lifestyle that involves a lot of (for work) close-up.  You already get consistent, solid improvement.  Don’t be tempted to look for something even easier, something that’ll take your own accountability to zero (plus lens therapy somehow absolving you from any close-up penalty, is just not realistic).  

Or try it out, the plus lens, at least now you know what to look out for.  Experiment if you don’t want to take my word for it.  At least then you’ll know that stuff is no miracle fix, and get back to realistic expectations and away from being Mr. plus-lens Frog Eye.

This may have been a bit of a rant.  Apologies, if so.  ;)  Some days I feel like I’m dealing with a bunch of kids trying to come up every possible excuse not to do their homework (not Christian or Bruno, but the e-mails I get asking about these “therapies”).  

Keep up the good work!  I’ve got a pile of e-mails today that I want to put in the blog ,with excellent improvement stories.  

Cheers,

-Jake