Last Post… April 10, 2009

Dear Readers,

I’ve been mulling over a difficult decision this past month and have finally made a decision.  I am going to quit posting as I just don’t have the time anymore.  Know that I will continue to do the Bates Method forever (even after my eyes are healed).  It is an amazing method and I only wish that the scientific and optometric community would give it serious consideration.  I hope that in the time I have posted I have given sufficient personal evidence of what it has done for my eyes and how I went about getting started.  It’s really a very simple method and continues to be a great lesson in patience for me.  I would rather spend time palming, swinging, etc than on the internet (sorry guys!), and with dial-up internet there is A LOT of time lost in being on the internet (I guess there was probably more when I had high-speed, I just wasted more time more efficiently) J  After I get done using the internet for things I HAVE to get done, I’m simply too antsy  (impatient… more Bates Method maybe?) to continue using it. 

Thank you sincerely to those of you who have been giving me encouragement and posting about your own progress.  I have learned so much from you and appreciate the time you’ve spent on my blog.  I guess sometimes in life our priorities change drastically and as a result (like now, for me) I’ve had to cut some things out of my life so that I have more time for the things that have become much more important. 

sassy

Read the following and be blessed~

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23)

“for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:23)

“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom 10:9)

May God bless each and everyone of you and touch your lives deeply with the lasting peace and joy that is only found in our living Lord Jesus Christ.

Find out for yourself what He’s really all about!  It will change your life forever, literally 🙂

Feb 13 2009 February 13, 2009

I’m back!  Had family visiting for three weeks, moved to the country, and finally feeling settled! 

I wore my glasses much more than I would have liked for about a month and a half.  In Dec. and Jan. I had to drive a lot (wore -6’s frequently due to bad roads or driving at night), got in the habit of wearing them and it turned into me wearing my glasses (-5’s or -6’s) almost all day!! Agh, it was frustrating.  But that’s not a problem anymore because — YESTERDAY I THREW AWAY ALL OF MY GLASSES!!!   Every pair I’ve been using for the last year.

I still haven’t put up my Snellen chart at my new home, but am seeing well enough to type and read my text on the computer from at least a foot away — I think this indicates that my eyes are getting back to the improvement I had before I fell into the glasses trap in Dec/Jan.  I’ve been having tons of clear flashes since I threw away my glasses.   It’s been quite an interesting feeling already just this last 24 hours… sometimes I’m doing something and think “oh, I need my glasses” then I realize, “oh right, I threw them away” — and you know what?  I make do just fine.  I’m sure there will be hardships along the way, but I can’t have my glasses around anymore — they’re driving me nuts.  I won’t be able to drive so I still haven’t figured out how that will work, but I’ll figure it out.  Maybe I’ll start being more creative about my transportation.  Would be good exercise as I now live about 15 miles out of town…  Yikes!  Sometimes I wonder what the heck I’m doing, but I just KNOW it’s going to work out OK.  What can it hurt right?   

So literally, I am without any sort of visual aid.  It’s just me and my eyeballs now…   I think this will be interesting.  If my vision doesn’t heal quickly all I can gaurantee is that I will have many stories of what it’s like to navigate through my life without my “crutches” anymore.   I will no longer have my “emergency” glasses to bail me out.  I’m sure there will be many inconvenient and strange situations.  How do I explain to normal people why I can’t see something?  In this day people all can see, you just assume that unless someone is blind they can see — oh well. 

Thanks to everyone who has continued to post comments while I’ve been away.  I will be trying to get caught up, though it may take me a little while.  I hope everyone is doing well,  those who comment on my blog regularly have remained in my thoughts and have been the motivation for coming back to continue blogging about my vision improvement.

A busy month December 15, 2008

Hello all!  I apologize that I’ve been away for a week~  I will be incredibly busy for the next month, so I won’t be able to post as often — maybe not at all, we’ll see.  I will make an effort to respond to comments every week, even if I don’t have time to post.  Once things slow down in January though I will definitely be back to my regular posting to continue documenting my vision improvement.

Comparison December 9, 2008

I was looking back at my old tests and since using the focometer last February my vision has improved a documented 1 diopter!!!  To me this is very encouraging because I have been very diligent about testing in similar conditions and the focometer measurement indicates the worst refractive state I have.  So at the very worst I’m now 1 diopter better than last year!!!  It is still amazing to me though, how my vision fluctuates on the Snellen chart, and that even though my worst case refractive state is about -5.5 diopters now sometimes I can see 20/20.  I think this is incredible evidence that wearing glasses at all times is incredibly damaging to the eyes.  Even 1 diopter of lens power is quite significant and to think that if I hadn’t learned about the Bates Method from my sister I would still be wearing -8 diopter lenses AT ALL TIMES!!!  What I’ve learned over the last year about my own eyes has continued to blow my mind — to think that this is even possible was so overwhelming the first time I was able to read 20/20 and every time my vision clears I still am about ready to cry because it is so incredible to be able to see this well without glasses after wearing them every single day for over 20 YEARS!!!  Praise be to God that our eyes and bodies can heal themselves so well if we only give them a chance and believe.  I just had to write a second post because this whole visual journey over the last year has been incredibly hard… I can’t even express how difficult it has been.  I’ve basically spent the whole last year mostly seeing a blur and feeling handicapped actually.  There have been down times for me when I felt like it wasn’t working, or I would get so discouraged at not being able to see crisply that I would actually consider putting my old glasses back on (thankfully I didn’t succumb to this).  But now that my vision is stabilizing at approximately 20/40 on average I’m really starting to notice that I’m seeing better than I thought I was and realizing that the time to *permanent WOG* is in the near future and it’s so incredibly exciting and liberating 🙂

Dec 9th Visual acuity tests

I have taken a bunch of measurements today for the sake of marking my progress.  I just felt like digging out the focometer today. 

Outdoors, 12:45pm, sunny

With focometer (requires testing one eye at a time):

• Left eye: -5.5 diopter
• Right eye: -5.75 diopter
• For reference I started at left -7.25D and right -8D as measured by the eye doctor.  if you click on the category “focometer results” you will be able to compare my progress as measured by me with my focometer since last february

Snellen chart, both eyes, outdoors, sunny

• I could immediately read 20/50 and within seconds I was able to see 20/40.   After only a minute or so I was able to see 20/20!  My vision has been clearing so much faster!  Now that my vision is improving so much I don’t think to read the chart as muhc because I’m always marvelling at everything around me because the colors and dimensions are so amazing.  I keep the chart out only mainly so I can post here so people can get an idea of my visual acuity (and to document my progress for those interested for scientific purposes, myself included) and because I know it’s a good habit to have for my whole life.  I’m seeing so well I don’t even worry about if I have my glasses with me anymore.  Sometimes I leave the house and completely forget them and I don’t panic when I realize! 

Snellen chart indoors, curtains open, natural light coming through the windows, no other lights on:

• Immediately seeing 20/100, cleared within seconds to 20/40 and have maintained that since I did my reading (am typing and seeing the text from over a foot away). 

Again, there is a discrepency between how well I’m seeing as measured by my Snellen chart and from the focometer measurements.  But I think the focometer is a more accurate measure of my prescription requirements for driving at night.  This is about the prescription I wear when I drive at night, so it seems to be correlating well.  I had hoped my focometer measurements would show my refractive state had dropped  below -5d, but not yet!  Wishful thinking.  Also, I don’t wait for my vision to clear or anything when I do the focometer.  I just use it as indicated and adjust it until the chart clears up crystal clear and I’m seeing 20/20 with the focometer. 

The great thing is that I’m seeing well enough now, less than a year from when I started, to do pretty much everything without glasses.  I don’t drive that much, especially at night, so I’m almost to the point where I would say I’m free from glasses! 

I’m still playing racquetball weekly without glasses, I just don’t post about it anymore.  But today we played a doubles game (me without glasses) and again, just have so much fun!  My partner actually told me that she thinks I play better without glasses than I did when I wore them.  I don’t even consider wearing them for racquetball and do many other things without glasses too, including cooking, watching TV, some painting, all reading, most computer work, cleaning, laundry, snow shovelling, cleaning up the yard, gettign to school via the bus, walking across campus, running errands for work/school, all conversations with people, eating meals, etc.  As you can see, even though my refractive state as shown by the focometer has dropped only to ~-5.5 D (which is still significant to me, as it PROVES that my myopia can be reversed) I’m able to almost completely function without glasses because my eyes are learning to see without them.  It’s been a wonderful last week and everyday I’m more and more delighted at the new things I can see from distance.

VIP for Dec 4th December 5, 2008

I took a break today and didn’t do any specific vision improvement or chart work.  I did keep my awareness at the top of my head though and have noticed that my visual acuity is definitely (subjectively) better than normal — though I don’t have any measurements to quantify this.

VIP for Dec 3 December 4, 2008

I was reading through Nancy’s blog the morning of the 3rd, and something *clicked* (her blog can be found from the Outlook Insight link on the blogroll under ‘Vision Blogs” and then ‘Nancy’, most recent posts are on pg 12).  She was describing her experience from her latest Alexander Technique lesson.  Later in the day I was doing some Snellen work indoors and my attnetion simply shifted to the top of my head (the “attic” as described by Missy Vineyard, see Nancy’s blog for more info), and then my vision cleared to 10/20, and almost 10/15.  I was able to keep doing this throuout the day as long as I would simply keep my attention at the top of my head.  As a reference, before my attention shifted, I was only able to read 10/100 very clearly, sometimes 10/70.  I’ve tried forcing this attention shift many times in the past with Eyebody and Open Focus, etc, but finally today I was able to feel a difference in having my true attention shift, without effort of course!  I wasn’t doing anything else, the only thing that changed when my vision cleared was the location of my awareness.  Mark825 has some recent posts about using Open Focus as well and has been able to clear quite significantly as well.  Fascinating stuff!

The other thing I wanted to report is that today I saw a true universal swing for the first time!  It was so dramatic!  I thought I had experienced it before, until I saw what I did today.  At the very least this was the strongest universal swing I’ve ever seen.  My husband and I were watching a show (and I never wear glasses if I watch TV), and then my attnetion shifted like I described above.  I wasn’t really paying attention to the shift in awareness but then I noticed that the TV image, the whole thing was moving side to side.  It was so dramatic I actually thought it was the TV.  So I turned to my husband and I asked him if he saw that, and he said no!  But then I was “looking” for it when I turned back to the TV, and it was gone…  but it was pretty cool, and I hope that I am able to see it again sometime.

VIP for Dec 2 December 3, 2008

Completed:

• 100 long swings
• Nose-paintbrush technique on Snellen
• Frequent palming and resting of eyes
• Snellen work outdoors: (approx 2pm, sun was low and there were many shadows from the trees on my chart):  started out immediately reading 20/40 which was pretty encouraging and cleared to 20/30.  I kept “trying” to see the 20 line or better and I think this was preventing me from improving any further.  When I would relax and look around at the trees my vision would improve, then I would look to the chart to classify what I was seeing, and then my vision would degrade 🙂 
• Snellen work indoors (semi-dim light), mostly just letting my eyes experiment with seeing without trying (e.g., just experiencing whatever my eyes were seeing without trying to improve them or do anything special): fluctuated from 10/50 to 10/20.

We’re under a winter storm advisory for Wednesday so I can say for certain I won’t be doing outdoor Snellen work on the 3rd!

No posting Nov 25-Dec 1 November 25, 2008

I will be busy over this Thanksgiving Holiday and as a result will not be posting about any vision improvement.  I can say that for the last couple of days I’m still experiencing improved vision and am getting better about practicing my good vision habits all day rather than just in front of the chart.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate and I’ll be back in a week!

VIP for Nov 20-23 November 24, 2008

I had a good friend in town for a few days and as a result have not been posting regularly.  I’ve been continuing the same techniques I just oulined though with similar success.  I’m starting to notice that my dim light acuity is improving pretty quickly.  With only one lamp on in my living room, in the evening (pretty dim), I have been able to read 20/100 and sometimes during the day I will walk by my chart and notice that I’m seeing 10/20 without any effort!  Of course my vision does fluctuate, but as I mentioned in a comment, the trend has had more “ups” than “downs” and so my vision is improving noticeably over time even though sometimes my vision is not as good.  I’m getting clear flashes more and more often, lasting longer and longer during the days, to the point that now I don’t think it abnormal to have good vision!

One thing I wanted to note that I keep forgetting to mention is that at night lately I will be looking in the mirror from at least two feet away and my vision will clear up so well that I can see individual strands of hair, the creases where my eyelids are, and the dark outline where my iris’s are (including still being able to see my pupils!). 

In keeping with my promise to accurately post about my vision improvement journey, I must publicly post that I have recently become a Christian (2.5 weeks ago) and spend time every day in prayer, including praying for my vision.  Personally, I must give all of the credit to God for my improvement even though I know there will be skepticism about the validity of this.  However, I must include this here because it is now part of my life and will inevitably affect my vision improvement and I would not be at peace unless I knew I had been truthful with those who are reading my blog expecting to know the truth of my progress.