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Exercise Your Eyes Back to Health

posted by Veronica, selected from Ode magazine Apr 1, 2009 1:05 pm

By Jacob Liberman, Ode.com

Have you been diagnosed with progressive myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), astigmatism (the asymmetric curvature of the cornea) or presbyopia (farsightedness caused by aging)? Have you been told you will have to wear glasses for the rest of your life, at least while performing certain activities? Have you been told that the body has no natural way of correcting visual defects?

If so, you’re not alone. Many people hear such definitive conclusions from their eye doctors; many believe it. But is it true? Have you ever wondered why other organs are capable of making remarkable recoveries, while the eye–our most important sensual organ–appears to be alone in lacking this power of self-correction? Why are doctors more likely to believe stories of spontaneously disappearing tumors than those of natural recovery from nearsightedness?

Eye doctors tell us that 90 percent of all people will one day have to wear glasses. Yet in my twenty years of experience as a practicing ophthalmologist I have found that eyesight improvement is within most people’s reach. I have met and spoken to thousands of people who were the cause of their own visual improvement. The question seems not to be how “bad” one’s eyesight is, or how long the patient has been suffering from a particular problem, or what the precise nature of that problem is. Natural visual improvement mostly seems to be a mental thing rather than a matter of the eyes as such.

Ophthalmology as a rule teaches that the inability to focus properly–as in nearsightedness, for example–is caused by the shape of the eyeball. That shape is said to be genetically determined, which is why visual improvement is thought to be impossible. But if the eyeball’s inherited shape really is the cause of bad eyesight, how is it that our ancestors did not suffer the same problems?

What people fail to realize is that the contemporary industrialized world is faced with an epidemic of visual defects–especially nearsightedness, which is rare in less developed countries. It appears that the number of cases of nearsightedness rises within a single generation if people are better educated and spend more time indoors. As early as 1969, researchers found that 59 percent of primary school-aged Inuit children suffered from nearsightedness, a condition that affected only 5 percent of their parents and none of their grandparents. A similar development was recorded in Japan, where the number of cases of nearsightedness nearly tripled between 1945 and 1970, in pace with the industrialization and Westernizing of Japanese society. So although hereditary factors may well contribute to the problem, there are clearly other factors which influence people’s eyesight as well.

More on General Health (249 articles available)
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3 comments

3 comments

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3 comments add your comment
Vural K.

thanks...you...
Kabin
Konteyner

Kashawn Ross

My eyes have been through a lot. It started with blurriness in my eyes then redness. I had an ulcer in my left eye which scarred my eye and permanently damaged my vision. My vision became really bad and I had to wear glasses. The letter test that I took showed that I was nearly blind. But, like many people that wear glasses, soon they will have to get stronger ones. I discontinued them and after some months my vision improved. Prior to this my left eye was the better eye and was the support for the bad vision in my right eye. Once my vision in my left eye was permanently damaged I had to rely on my right eye. After weeks of straining my right eye I noticed an improvement in vision. I was able to see fine again because my right eye wasn't being used as much as my left eye, and because my right eye was now relied on my vision gradually improved. Some years later I had some infections which made me use my glasses for a day. It gave me pain in my eyes so I took them off and my eyes felt better. A few days later after I woke up, I rubbed my right eye and it caused a hole. At this point, I couldn't see anything because now my good eye just opened. I had to now rely on my left eye while I waited for my cornea transplant surgery. I took the letter test and I couldn't get passed the first letter for my left eye. Again, after relying on my eye to see, my permanently damaged left eye gradually improved in vision. I got to the fourth part of the letter test. Message me for proven facts.

Arlie M.

I am not an optometrist, and have not studies this, but I have doubts about some of the claims. I can certainly belive that doing eye exercises can improve, vision, but some of the proof used to support her points seemed silly. I have glasses, and I certainly feel a sense of fear and anxiety when I do not wear, them, but that is because I feel deprived of one of my most essential senses. I am unable to read things in the distance, and can not tell if people are looking at me. I would love to be able to exercise my eyes back to health, but I would like better proof that it is possible.

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