Blog de Humpty

That's funny about your head exploding. :) But yeah, minus lenses are bad for the eyes, I feel. The main thing to keep in mind about pinholes is that your peripheral vision will go down the drain because of all the black plastic blocking your vision. And if you need your parents' permission to get them I'm assuming you're in school. If you decide to wear pinholes in school be prepared to be laughed at at first! And after the ridicule, lots of questions.

I didn't mean to scare you about the peripheral vision. It's only bad while you have the glasses on, once you take them off every thing's copacetic again -- love that word.

I actually bought both kinds of pinholes that site sells and I much prefer the dorky kind. They may not look as good as the sunglass style but you can see so much better with them. Well I can, someone else said they preferred the sunglass style since there are fewer holes in them. I don't have both glasses with me at the moment, but the holes seem to be closer together or smaller with the sunglass style, either way they seem more jarring. Like when I look at the power light on my TV with the regular pinholes I can often see 2 or 3 images of it, this is the light diffraction the myopia.org site mentions. With the sunglass style I can see 4 or 5 images of the light at the same time. Basically, I see images jumping around more with the sunglass style.

About reading glasses. I'm definitely going to start wearing them in place of pinholes once I can see the monitor well enough on my own. I think reading glasses are the best way to protect your vision from getting worse. But right now I need to improve my eyesight, not just protect what I have.

Thanks for posting the links, I haven't tried the breathing test yet though. Have your pinhole glasses come in yet?

You know, I've actually experienced something similar to what you're experiencing. I blogged about this a month ago, http://blog.timothyhumphrey.name/archive/2007/07/10/Vision-Improvement-Latest.aspx, and basically I just said that I was noticing an improvement in my naked eye vision but no improvement to a deterioration of vision with my glasses on. I wrote that post a month ago, and I still largely experience that. While composing this response though I decided to test that out and I put on my -2.25 lenses, I'm prescribed -3.00, and I could make out the 20/20 line on a vision chart I have hanging on a wall. I couldn't make out everything on the chart, like the instructions, as clearly as I could in my -3.00 lenses but it wasn't as bad as I remembered a month ago. Your vision does fluctuate throughout the day so maybe my trying this in the morning makes a difference.

If I had to venture a guess as to the cause of what you're experiencing I would say bad vision habits are the cause, more so than pinholes or even you being young and having developing eyes. Habits become ingrained such that they can affect you even when you're not really aware of it. I think wearing pinholes for an extended period of time helps you to notice the times you strain your eyes to see. Since from wearing pinholes your eyes can get used to not straining to see clearly far away. So when you take them off it becomes easier to spot when you fall back into the habit of straining. Even though your prescription may have gone up have you noticed improvement in your naked eye vision over the months you've been wearing pinholes?

Ultimately I consider what I'm doing with pinhole glasses to be an experiment. I just find it baffling that the eye care industry has no means to enable eyesight to recover. The only solutions they offer are basically crutches for the eyes in various forms: glasses, contact lenses, and laser surgery. So while it could very much be possible pinholes are responsible for your increased prescription, me personally, I'm willing to take the chance to try something new because I see no real alternatives offered by the eye care industry.

Well that's good you're experiencing clear flashes, that's definitely a sign of improvement in your eyes. As for pinholes working or not working. I can't say exactly in your case whether they are or not, in my case it's not that I see better immediately after taking them off but it's the environment they provide, i.e. my eyes can get acquainted to distance vision without straining. They're also hugely beneficial for me since they allow me to do my computer work, 8+ hours a day, without my prescription glasses. My frequency of clear flashes, and even their duration, has increased at a more rapid pace since I've been wearing pinholes.

The thing with vision improvement I'm noticing is that it's subtle and takes a while. When you put on corrective lenses you see better immediately but the improvement requires you to wear the lenses, meaning your eyes haven't really improved. Laser surgery isn't any different in this regard since it etches your prescription into your cornea; whatever underlying reason that caused your vision to deteriorate in the first place is still there.

I'll also add there's more to vision improvement than just visual acuity. I started this back in August 2002 and I had neovascularization, extra blood vessels, in the white part of my eye which I'm pretty sure was caused by me wearing contact lenses pretty much 24/7. I also had a lot of light sensitivity when I would look about with my naked eyes. It's been 5 years now but my eyes feel a lot healthier: no light sensitivity and no neovascularization. My lens prescription then was -4.50 left eye and -4.00 right, and now it's -2.75 left and -3.00 right. Also, in terms of health, in 2000 my optometrist started watching for glaucoma in my eyes because he saw the signs for it. In 2005 he noticed enough change in my peripheral vision to declare that I had it. I've done some reading on this and I think my many years of being nearsighted -- well even now since I still am nearsighted -- had some affect in me developing glaucoma. Natural vision improvement for me now isn't just about increasing my visual acuity but also the health of my eyes. So hopefully it will lead to me not having glaucoma. My optometrist says no one ever recovers from it but what have I got to lose by trying, a lifetime of medication to control glaucoma? No thanks, heh.

I haven't really paid much attention to any specific methods to be honest. The primary thing I've done is just listening to my body. For instance, I started back in 2002 because when I was driving along a certain section of the road the sun would shine brightly into my car. For some reason one day my eyes just craved to be "touched" by the sun instead of having contact lenses in the way. So I took them off and just went outside without any lenses covering my eyes. What I did was probably equivalent to sunning.

Liking the feeling of the sun and the wind directly touching my eyes I stopped wearing my contacts altogether and started wearing glasses, just so I could take them off quicker. For a long time taking walks outside with nothing on my eyes is what I did and that's when I experienced the biggest drop in my prescription. After a while of doing nothing but this I actually felt the tension in my eyes which made me think nearsightedness was caused by tension in the eyes.

I experimented with eye exercises some but never really stuck to it. I'm much more of a believer in doing what's best for your particular body and eye exercises just didn't feel right to me. I still don't do them even now. The only major change to my "routine" is when I started wearing pinholes in March. There probably are techniques that could've sped up my improvement time, given that I've been at this for 5 years, but this is just the path I've taken.

Oh, and not to scare you with eye health horror stories. But when I was reading about glaucoma and links to nearsightedness I also read that retinal detachment is much more common among nearsighted people, versus the non-nearsighted. I think it really is worth your while to try to cure your nearsightedness, not just so you can see better far away without corrective lenses, but for the overall health of your eyes.

My short answer is neither of your choices. But I just want to make clear I'm no doctor or anything, so don't take anything I say as gospel.

With that said, I would say the more important question is why your vision deteriorated in the first place. Do you do a lot of close-up tasks, such as reading or using the computer? If you don't do a lot of close work can you think of the point in your life where you didn't need glasses but then noticed blurriness. Like for me I first noticed blurriness when I was 14, and now that I think about it I started programming on the computer a lot a year or so before I first started noticing blurriness. Unless you were born with poor vision then something you did for a prolonged period of time caused your vision to deteriorate, so scrutinizing the period of time immediately before you first noticed blurriness is beneficial.

I actually wrote a blog entry on why I think glasses weaken your eyes, http://blog.timothyhumphrey.name/archive/2007/04/18/Glasses-weaken-your-eyes.aspx. If you use them as they're prescribed, for faraway tasks, then they're not so bad but using them for close tasks is just killer for your eyes. It's kind of hard to say in your case what I would recommend since I have to wait to hear how much close work you do, what you think may have caused your vision to deteriorate. But in general I would highly not recommend you wear your glasses all the time. Glasses only mask the symptom of poor vision, whenever you take them off your vision is still poor, if you want to effect a cure addressing the cause is key.

I kind of figured you did do a lot of close work. My personal theory on your deteriorating vision would be the close work you do. Did you ever read my post about glasses weakening your eyes? It helps explain why I think what I do about your vision as well. Basically your eyes have muscles in them, looking at something that's close to your eyes works your muscles, overwork them and bad things happen. It's the same for any other part of the body really.

To answer your earlier question about which eye glass prescription to choose. If I had no other option I would choose the weaker prescription, ideally however I would find a way to limit the strain on my eye muscles. You can wear pinholes, reading glasses, take a break and look at something far away, do eye exercises, the choice is really up to you. I think as long as you're aware of the cause of your vision problem you can decide for yourself what's the best course of action to take.

No, I don't feel any strain while wearing them. I wear mine at work and when people come in to talk to me I flip them up and my eye's feel fine when I stop using pinholes. Do you strain to see things while you wear pinholes? Your prescription is higher than mine and the benefits of pinholes decrease as your prescription gets higher, around -6.00 you pretty much can't use them.

From my experience with pinholes in and of themselves they don't improve your eyes. Rather they provide an opportunity for your eyes, an environment where you can see better far away without straining your eyes. If you actually try to see better far away while wearing them in my opinion you're defeating the purpose of wearing them. It may seem or feel counterintuitive that relaxing your eyes will help you to see better far away but it's true.

As an example, I inline skate a lot and I've learned that the lighter I am on my feet the more maneuverable I am and the more control I have. Trying to have "heavy feet" and maintain excessive control over my feet makes it harder to respond to changing road conditions and execute maneuvers rapidly. The idea of excessive control over my feet equates to excess tension in your eyes and trying to see far away. When I wear pinholes a lot of times it feels like my eyes are spreading out, I don't fight the feeling and just let it happen; I still see clearly when I feel this.

The main thing with pinholes is to be mindful of tension. They are kind of tough to look out of and get used to, I'll admit that. :) But the harder you try, so to speak, the worse you'll do. Go with the flow, be light on your eyes are general maxims. If you have to lean in more to see something clearly with them then do so, don't fight it or think you shouldn't have to do this or that while wearing pinholes.