Sorry to arrive so late on the eyesight thread ... I got behind with the
list for awhile.

Someone mentioned not wearing glasses, and a book about improving vision
by not wearing glasses.

When I was a child in the 50's, we had a paperback book which I remember
being called "Sight Without Glasses." These are memories about 40 years
old, so they may be vague. The book talked about not wearing glasses,
and gave exercises in focusing near and far, and in moving the eyes
through the whole visual field. I took it all to heart ....

I just checked for this book at Amazon.com, and found several titles
that included "sight without glasses." I'm not sure which was the one
I read.

I was mildly myopic when I was 10, and was stuck into glasses, and by
wearing them most of the time my myopia got much worse, and my two eyes
matched less well, until by the 8th grade I was using bifocals. Then I
got vain and perhaps became aware that the glasses were making matters
worse, and took them off. By this time I had mild astigmatism, and my
right eye was far more myopic than my left. I ascribe this now to reading
too much, propped on an elbow, and to reading under the covers late at
night.

I carried glasses with me, and used them only when I had to, like at the
movies or when looking at the blackboard, and my vision gradually improved.
I came to realize that by putting drops in the eyes during the exam the
optometrist always corrected for the very worst conditions, and the glasses
were too strong for most of the rest of the time.

I believe that vision is flexible, and that eyes gradually adjust to the
conditions they are given. By catering (and overcatering) to their
weaknesses,

we make them move the wrong way, becoming even worse. When suffering with
eyestrain from playing cello in an orchestra, I found, for the first time,
an optometrist who would listen. He made me a pair of glasses that allowed
me to focus at exactly the length of my arm away, just where the stand was,
and he made the lenses so they darkened under bright light. It was only then
that I realize how much too strong my glasses had always been. He was willing
to test my eyes without the drops, which made all the difference.

As I've aged (now 53) I've started needing reading glasses, and by using
them,
my distance vision has improved a great deal, since I've not made my eyes
focus at the close distance. If I tried for a long time they could see close
objects, but the conversion from distance to close vision and back takes
longer
and longer. I'd like to think that a Paleo diet would help me regain the
flexibility of young eyes, but I'm not expecting it to.

I'm glad to use the generic reading glasses from the drugstore, so that
the two eyes use the same correction. I think it helps them to match each
other better.

By now, my distance vision is excellent, and my eyes are practically the
same. The big breakthrough came when I entered school to become a piano
tuner,
and didn't have to read music or books as much. My eyes improved over a
diopter
in just six weeks. It seemed to me, more than ever, that eyesight is
flexible,
and that eyes adjust to the demands made on them. If we make the wrong
demands, and saddle them with lenses which distort their view of the world,
they'll change in bad ways.

If I were stuck with severe myopia, and with eyes which were not myopic to
the same degree, I think I'd try to find an understanding eye doctor, and ask
him or her for glasses which were just slightly too weak, and I'd ask that
the lens for the bad eye be a little bit further from ideal correction than
the other lens, so that the eyes might gradually accommodate in the right
direction. Not a lot too weak, but just a little ... and then check in six
months or a year, and if they had improved, do the same thing again, and see
if the eyes could be led back to where some the glasses could be eliminated,
at least some of the time.

I've also heard that bilberries and blueberries are excellent for eyesight,
for the same reason that carrots are, a good antioxidant. I eat lots and lots
of berries of all kinds, but especially blueberries. Thank heavens they grow
here.

Sorry for the length.

Susan Kline