Fascinating thread on Astromart eyepiece forum

[casstony]

In part of the thread titled 'Planetary eyepieces', subsection 'Rolando: help me understand what you just wrote', Roland Christen writes about how to preserve your distance vision and avoid the need for glasses by wearing strong reading glasses. http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=535043&poll_id=&news_id=&page=

[ballaratdragons]

I can't get in coz I'm not a member, but that sounds like a pretty wierd statement!

[matt]

Here ya go, Ken. Here's the general thrust of it:

"If you have mild myopia (nearsightedness) you can pull your eyes toward normal farsightedness just by wearing strong reading glasses. I was able to pull my eyes from 2 diopter nearsighted to almost perfect distance vision in about 1 year's time. Before, I could only see fuzzy blobs at night, but now I can see stars as pinpoints without glasses. Before, I could not pass my driver's eye test without glasses, now I do not need them at all.

This method of natural adjustment to your eyes is widely known to pilots who must pass eye tests, and it is far better than any sort of surgery."

Rolando

[iceman]

I guess it makes sense. The eye and its lens adjustments are just muscles and so I guess they can be trained.

Where's our resident optomitrist (okiscopey) when we need him?

[casstony]

Roland also goes on to say that if you use 1.5 diopter reading glasses you are allowing your eye to be in a similar position as it is when looking at distant objects, thus preserving distance vision.(I guess this is assuming your distance vision is currently ok)

[okiscopey]

What? Er ... um ... I'm not an optometrist, more of a short-sighted alcoholic.

But I can get the latest from my Hospital's ophthalmology Prof. if absolutely necessary, Well, if those damn pink elephants give me a moment's peace.

[bizarro]

Sounds like this is along the lines of Ophthalmology so he'd be the one to ask. They have all sorts of weird and wonderful techniques to train eyes.

[Starkler]

From what I have heard about the eye, this doesn't make sense.

In distance vision, the muscles for focusing are relaxed, and the muscles come into play for near vision. How do you get more relaxed than fully relaxed?

Heres a link (http://artsci.shu.edu/biology/Student%20Pages/Kyle%20Keenan/eye/lensmovementnrve.html) explaining how the eye focuses

[casstony]

Geoff, my understanding from reading Roland's posts is that by keeping the incoming rays of light parallel as they enter the eye you allow the lens to maintain the shape necessary for distance vision. At infinity focus the rays are parallel, and by using 1.5 diopter reading glasses the rays entering the eye are roughly parallel for close vision. Like Mike said we need an expert on board.

I tend to have faith in Ronland's posts since he's been building refractors for a long time.

[Solanum]

I suspect this is wrong. Relatively recently the prescriptions given to children have been changed because this principle (use a dioptre slightly off what is required to encourage growth in the right direction) was used to try and help childrens' eyes (that are still changing), but it has been found that it has the reverse effect.

I'm no expert and might be wrong, but I'd say definitely get the advice of a practising ophthalmologist before trying this as you don't want to screw up your eyesight, especially if it is already poor.

[Miaplacidus]

A contentious question in optometry, this. The observation that the old practice of undercorrecting for juvenile myopia has now been superceded by the practice of correctly matching the degree of myopia is generally correct. At least, I think so. The interesting point about all this is that the number of studies is minuscule, and the ones that have been performed have been conducted on laughably small numbers. (Be honest, would you want your child to be a guinea pig?)

As far as I understand it, the issue is sort of about "accommodation spasm" (of the ciliary muscle that controls the degree of deformation of the lens) and whether this leads to enduring short-sightedness in later life and will then demand permanent treatment with standard corrective lenses, or in fact whether this can be "trained out" of children by using different ("opposite") lenses that will temporarily exacerbate the problem. Behavioural optometry. I think the profession is pretty much divided. There is a majority of skeptical optometrists who don't believe in it, who point out that most myopes simply have relatively elongated eyeballs and not much of a problem with the lens per se. Being by nature skeptical they don't make much effort to become familiar with the nitty gritty of the opposing theory. On the other side is a minority of practitioners who obviously know the details about how their theory is meant to work and who specialize in this area. They also have cultivated a clientele base that they don't want to jeopardize.

No one is unbiased, facts are few, vested interests muddy the waters.

Now, who out there believes in homeopathy?

Cheers,

Brian.

PS Not me, some other Brian. Throw your tomatoes at him.

[Solanum]

Ah, well there are now some fairly large studies of homoeopathy that show no benefit. I used to have an open mind on the matter for a biologist (well botanist), but evidence is evidence and I'm afraid I don't go for the argument that the reason for that is because homoeopathy needs the personal touch of the practician and therefore can't be tested. Plus of course, there is nothing in the homoeopathic tablets!

[Miaplacidus]

Well said. (I just didn't want to be the one to say it.)

[KG8]

I'd believe it off hand as I'm into these alternate techniques. A while ago I began using Epsom salts to flush out liver stones and have seen the evidence in the bowl myself. Also no more of those terrible stomach cramps as stones work their way down. Both the neighbor's wife and a mate's daughter went to the hospital with stones recently and they cut their gall bladders out! There is no money to be made from advocating Epsom salts I am afraid LOL' I was a bit concerned about the salts at first and did a search on-line about them. It turns out doctors regularly inject them into patients as a relaxant so it can't be that bad to take orally.