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The Bates method of perfect vision.

RogerBlack

Senior Member
Messages
902
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method - was just wandering around wikipedia and found this:
The Bates method is an alternative therapy aimed at improving eyesight. Eye-care physician William Horatio Bates, M.D. (1860–1931) attributed nearly all sight problems to habitual strain of the eyes, and felt that glasses were harmful and never necessary. Bates self-published a book, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, as well as a magazine, Better Eyesight Magazine, (and earlier collaborated with Bernarr MacFadden on a correspondence course) detailing his approach to helping people relax such "strain", and thus, he claimed, improve their sight. His techniques centered on visualization and movement. He placed particular emphasis on imagining black letters and marks, and the movement of such. He also felt that exposing the eyes to sunlight would help alleviate the "strain".[1]
...
The Bates method has been criticized not only because there is no good evidence it works, but also because it can have negative consequences for those who attempt to follow it: they might damage their eyes through overexposure of their eyes to sunlight, put themselves and others at risk by not wearing their corrective lenses while driving, or neglect conventional eye care, possibly allowing serious conditions to develop

Certain parallels came to me.
 

Countrygirl

Senior Member
Messages
5,431
Location
UK
Och boy, look in the sun when the pupilreflex does not work.

My optician has told me that being in sunlight makes the cataracts grow at a faster rate. So doesn't sound a good idea for many of us.

I also came across the 'don't wear your glasses' idea 40 years ago. I have progressive myopia and I removed my specs and felt my way cautiously round my then flat for weeks.

When I returned to the optician for the first and only time in my life I required a weaker prescription. So it may have helped.

Now I would just break my neck if I tried it again.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
There is good evidence from chick experiments that wearing positive (+) lenses (as found in reading glasses) can reduce the degree of myopia.

So just before I developed ME/CFS, when my myopia was -5.50 in each eye, I started experimenting with wearing +2 lens reading spectacles to read a book, for around 45 minutes each day. Reading glasses will actually make your myopia worse, so that you have to hold the book just inches from your nose for the text to be in focus, but this relatively comfortable to do if you read in bed.

After around 6 months doing this daily, I found that my ophthalmic prescription had decreased in magnitude for the first time in my life (it usually got worse on each eye test): both eyes improved by 0.25 dioptre, with my prescription going from -5.50 in each eye, to -5.25.


Sadly since developing ME/CFS, my prescription has shot up to -8.00 in one eye, and -7.25 in the other. I think this is likely due to the fact that I spend almost the entire day glued to the computer; excessive nearwork like this has been implicated as a factor in the development and progression of myopia. But I also wonder whether the blurred vision of ME/CFS acts to worsen the myopia.
 

valentinelynx

Senior Member
Messages
1,310
Location
Tucson
There is good evidence from chick experiments that wearing positive (+) lenses (as found in reading glasses) can reduce the degree of myopia.

So just before I developed ME/CFS, when my myopia was -5.50 in each eye, I started experimenting with wearing +2 lens reading spectacles to read a book, for around 45 minutes each day. Reading glasses will actually make your myopia worse, so that you have to hold the book just inches from your nose for the text to be in focus, but this relatively comfortable to do if you read in bed.

After around 6 months doing this daily, I found that my ophthalmic prescription had decreased in magnitude for the first time in my life (it usually got worse on each eye test): both eyes improved by 0.25 dioptre, with my prescription going from -5.50 in each eye, to -5.25.

Wow, thanks, you may have just explained what's going on with my vision! It's been perplexing me why my distance vision has gotten better in the past couple of years. Even the glasses I bought a year ago are now too strong. Well, I now have to rely on reading glasses to read, having reached that age at which my arms are too short...

BTW, I had Lasik years ago. It was fantastic to go from -6.5 to near 0 diopter correction (to be able to see the clock at the bedside without my glasses!). My husband was -10 in both eyes (had barely enough cornea for successful Lasik), unable to recognize a person standing in front of him without corrective lenses, and was corrected to near 20/20. He still has both good distance and near vision 16 years after Lasik. My eyes "slipped" a bit over the years, until I needed -1 diopter correction. But that seems to have changed again for the better, although my near vision is getting worse with age.