Eye excerises

[Krallu]

Anyone tried eye ecerises to train your eyes out of farsightedness or nearsightedness and pass a class 1 exam?

Anyone would like to share me.

[GazDeLuxe]

I just read a short text of a Japanese student /pilot who after every hour of study focussed for 3 minutes on a distance object. It was not mentioned if he had bad eyes or not, and I don´t know if it has helped him or not.. give it a try, could do no harm at all:ok:

[Krallu]

Thanks for that technique!

Actually I am currently involved in training my eyes with a plus lens and it works very fine. I do use computers a lot so the plus lens also reduces stress in front of the computer.

I tought about if someone else had done anything like this and their experience.

But thanks a lot for that technique it seems to be good when studying and reading a lot of text at theory lessons.

[Beethoven]

Do a search on "Bates Method".You will get loads of info.Good luck.
Beet

[MidnightSpecial]

I did a combination of orthokeratology and eye exercises about 10 years ago. My eyes improved dramatically.

I still do the eye exercises, though not daily anymore. I can tell the difference when I slack off.

MS

[Krallu]

What is orthokeratology?

What eye excerises did you use? Palming, Sunning, Bathing?

The most interesting question, what did the AME say?

[typhoonpilot]

Orthokeratology ( Ortho K for short ) is the progressive use of hard contact lenses to re-shape the cornea. This is an effective and undetectable treatment for farsightedness. It does nothing for nearsightedness or astigmatism. I know someone who got into the U.S. Air Force using this technique.

With so many people now using the laser eye surgery Ortho K has dropped in popularity but there are still some practitioners.

Hope that helps,


Typhoonpilot

[Krallu]

Oh, I see.

I've read about it somewhere. But didn't remember the name. Thanks for the explaination.

[Kaptin M]

Has anyone had any long term (say 3 years or more) experience with pin hole glasses?
I saw a guy in SQ using them some years back - he said that he had decided to give them a try, as he had been told it was time to start using lens for close-up and night time reading.
Subsequently I bought a pair and was quite surprised at how they appeared to help my elderly Father's eyesight, and a near sighted Japanese neighbour. At that time they were new to the market, and selling for about USD 30 a pair.
You can pick them up for about 2 bucks now.
Anyone?

[Krallu]

Hi there!

Yes, I have tried pinhole glasses. It helps your eyes to relax and train them to see.

But I haven't used them as a primary training tool. So I don't have any results over a longer period of time.

I currently use plus lenses for improvment. And it works very fine.
http://www.geocities.com/otisbrown17268/

[MidnightSpecial]

Krally, Typhoonpilot is wrong. Orthokeratology is for nearsightnedness otherwise known as mypoia. That is what I had.

I was 20/700 and improved to 20/70 uncorrected. I was 20/20 while corrected. I was an unusual patient in that I improved so much. My doctor wrote an article on me and other patients of his and gave a lecture on us at UC San Francisco.

Radial keratotomy is more popular than ortho-K but has an inherant risk of destroying your flying career if the surgeon screws up. The flight surgeon for my airline does not recommend radial keratotomy for this reason.

Try the eye exercises. Your eye muscles are just like the other muscles in your body. Conditioning helps.

I don't know the names of these exercises but I use a 'flipper' for 3 minutes while I read. I look through one set of lenses for a sentence then flip over to lenses of a different strengh and the eyes have to adjust. Then I look through 2 smiley faces drawn on clear plastic for 1 minute with a near focus and 1 minute with a distant focus.

The initial exercises were more involved. They took longer and were a bit of work but the payoff had been wonderful.

I like greasing landings in my DC-10.

MS

[hungry_flygal]

Midnight special, I have pretty bad eyesight as well and am currently using contacts ....

I was told by my optometrist that Ortho-K only works for kids and for someone who's finished growing (even me-I'm 19), it would only correct my sight if i wear the ortho-K lens at night ...

Was he incorrect ?

Also, would you be able to post, email or PM me on any techniques that you may have used to help improve your sight ? I was thinking laser surgery but the risk are significant enought that i've had second thoughts about it ....

Thanks

Hungry_flygal

PS - was just surfing the net and found this website ....
www.rebuildyourvision.com

Has anyone heard of this before and / or know of the pilots they use in their testimonials ?
Doug Stacey, Commercial Airline Pilot and
Orlin G. Sorensen, Commercial Airline Pilot ?

[Onan the Clumsy]

Your eye muscles are just like the other muscles in your body. I had my eyes checked the other day and I asked the doctor about an exersize I had heard of. Hold your finger up in front of your face and continually switch between focussing on the finger and the far distance. The idea was that the eye was a muscle and this would help it just as sit ups (should I ever manage to do any) would help [reduce] my growing gut.

He said it was a good theory, but the muscle in your eyes was 'soft muscle' (I think that was the term) and the difference was that soft muscle wouldn't respond to exersize the way regular muscle would.

As for the Bates method...I'll look it up, but perhaps Onan the Clumsy is already a master of this techniqe. :rolleyes:

[MidnightSpecial]

Hungry, I was 28 when I started ortho-K and eye exercises. They worked for me. I still have the hard lenses that have to be taken out at night. There are some that you can wear at night to correct your vision but I don't know anything about them.

Onan, I went to flight school, not medical school, but the eye exercises do work.

What your posts have in common is that unless the eye doctor specializes in ortho-K and eye exercises he will not recommend these techniques. When I saw eye doctors who were surgeons they pushed surgery and pooh-poohed ortho-K. Unless your doctor went for the extra training he doesn't know enough about how well this works.

The hard part is finding a good doctor. I went through a couple who treated people with ortho-K but hadn't undergone the extra training to help them know how to treat the difficult cases like me. The doctor I finally found who helped me knew of these guys and highly disaproved of them.

MS

[ausdoc]

I've done a bit of research into Ortho-K. It certainly does produce short-term improvements in myopia, but at the expense of thinning of the central cornea. I haven't found what the implications of this thinning are. There haven't been too many proper scientific trials of Ortho-K, but the ones I found are:

The Berkeley Orthokeratology Study in the American Journal of Optometry & Physiological Optics. It's findings were that the refractive error fluctuated considerably during the period of follow-up and these fluctuations tended to be larger in those subjects who had shown greater changes in refractive error.
They concluded that it is possible to reduce myopia about 1D; however, the change is not permanent. Results indicate that the level of vision during periods of nonlens wear would be unstable, making it difficult to predict what the quality of vision would be under a retainer lens wear program. They concluded that orthokeratology produces modest reductions in myopia; however, the effect will not persist without continued lens wear and therefore is of limited clinical value in permanently reducing myopia.

An evaluation of orthokeratology in Ophthalmology, Vol 87, 729-744, Copyright © 1980 by American Academy of Ophthalmology found that analysis of the information in this study demonstrates that an OK procedure utilizes techniques of fitting that differ from standard contact lens techniques. The responses to OK are unpredictable and uncontrollable. The quality of uncorrected vision is worse than with contacts or glasses, and the chances of attaining 6/12 (20/40) uncorrected vision are small. Once lenses are removed, the corneal parameters return toward prefit levels.

Pinhole glasses have been used for a long time to evaluate eyes. Next time you are at the doctor, have a look at the black disc that they use to cover your eye while they test the other one. It usually has one or more pinholes in the other end. Looking through a pinhole will negate the effect of just about any refractive error, and therefore allow the doctor to determine whether a reduction in visual acuity is due to a refractive error or to some other eye pathology. It doesn't relax the eyes, it just allows relatively parallel light rays to reach the eye, and therefore removes the need for the eye to focus. It's the same as the greatly increased depth of focus that you get with an SLR camera when you use a small aperture setting(i.e. a large f number). So a pinhole will allow you to focus on objects, but obviously has no practical use because of the reduction in field of view, and the reduction of the amount of light reaching the eye.

If anyone can explain to me how the eye exercises work, I would love to know. The muscles which operate the lens of the eye, and therefore change the focal length of the system, are relaxed when looking at distant objects, and contract to focus on near objects. I can see how exercising these muscles may potentially improve near vision, but not distant vision. Myopia, or problems with distant vision, is usually a function of the shape of the cornea, or of the shape of the eyeball itself. That's how Ortho-K and laser refractive surgery works, by changing the shape of the cornea.

I'm very interested in this, so would welcome any feedback.

Cheers,

ausdoc

[MidnightSpecial]

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

[Krallu]

Somone having used eye excerises (except Ortho-K that I now realized works) to get out of myopia and then obtaining a class 1 medical without glasses and it works fine??

Someone?

What method did you use?

[MidnightSpecial]

Krallu, if you meant me, then the eye exercises are called 'Flipper Therapy' involving the lens flipper that you flip over while reading. This takes 3 minutes. Then the 'Accomadation Therapy' with the clear plastic for the near and far focusing. Those are 1 minute each.

Those are the maintenance exercises. There are other ones to start out with. I don't know the names of those.

Good luck with your eyes and your career.

MS

[Otis Brown]

Preserving you FAA 1st. I am private pilot, but I have had long-term interest in nearsighedness prevention. If you are interested check my site at www.myopiafree.com.

The goal is to document pilots who have cleared their vision from 20/50 to 20/20 by use of the "preventive" plus lens, and
work with pilots entering a four year college.

I have seen friends lose their distant vision, and believe that it could be completely prevented.

Sincerely,

Otis Brown
Engineer

[hungry_flygal]

After looking around on the net, I've found heaps of alternative vision treatment sites ...

but I'm still wondering if anyone has heard of
www.rebuildyourvision.com and / or know of the pilots they use in their testimonials ?
Doug Stacey, Commercial Airline Pilot and
Orlin G. Sorensen, Commercial Airline Pilot ?

Otis Brown, in your long-term interest in nearsighedness prevention, have you come across these people ?

Or this http://www.improve-vision.com/index.html site which talks about fixing vision with some computer program ?