Ausdoc, how the eye exercises work, I don't know. When I do the ones with the distant focus I can feel my eye muscles moving. I have an awareness of this that I didn't have before.
Before I started the exercises and had just regular soft contacts I never thought about distant focus. I just knew that when I had to see something far away and I couldn't see too clearly that it was time for a stronger prescription.
For about 10 years prior to ortho-K the eye doctors just used to say that I would keep getting worse. Nobody had any solutions, just pessimism and thicker glasses. The surgeons wanted to operate but that was too risky for my career.
Ortho-K worked for me. I got the waiver cleared and now have a Class 1 medical. I fly DC-10s for a major airline.
You are right about the temporary improvement. I do have to keep wearing the hard lenses for 14 hours a day, everyday. The cornea does thin but would with any hard lenses as my current doctor tells me.
If there is a better way then I want to know. The hard lenses are a pain in the ass when it is windy and dusty out. I used to fly to Las Vegas a lot and I was always putting in eye drops.
The eye doctors that do the Radial Keratotomy all wear eye glasses. I asked them why they don't get the procedure done on themselves and they don't feel it is worth the risk to their careers. That was all I needed to hear.
I hope that in a few years there will be a safe solution for myopia. In the meantime good luck to those who want to improve their eyesight and their careers.
MS