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Comment by eof | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat related:

http://www.visionsofjoy.org/pdfs/BatesPerfectSightWG.pdf http://www.i-see.org/perfect_sight/

William Horatio Bates (1860-1931) first published his treatise, The Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses (title page), also known as Perfect Sight Without Glasses (cover), in 1920.

This guy has some kind of crazy ideas; but the general thing I learned from him is that the shape of the lens of the eye is a function of three sets of muscles that can be trained/relaxed to help vision come back to 'normal'.

A great read. The HN worthy title would be "hacking your crappy vision"

View on HN

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method

“Despite continued anecdotal reports of successful results, Bates’ techniques have not been shown to objectively improve eyesight, and his main physiological proposition – that the eyeball changes shape to maintain focus – has consistently been contradicted by observation. In 1952, optometry professor Elwin Marg wrote of Bates, ‘Most of his claims and almost all of his theories have been considered false by practically all visual scientists.’ Marg concluded that the Bates method owed its popularity largely to ‘flashes of clear vision’ experienced by many who followed it. Such occurrences have since been determined to most likely be a contact lens-like effect of moisture on the eye.”

Does it actually work?

The cornea, not the lens, supplies the majority of the eye's refraction, so I would be surprised if this worked for people with any substantial amount of refractive error.

from what I understand (which is admittedly not much) it's actually both the cornea and and lens which are manipulated together by these 3 sets of muscles.

My understanding is that the cornea is essentially fixed and non-adjustable, with all of the tuning done by the lens. I am not an ophthalmologist, however.

Some googling will show you evidence that it does indeed work. For my part, I corrected a slight astigmatism;

This guy claims to have been clinically blind and recovered using similar techniques

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJS2LTsQde4

>shape of the lens of the eye is a function of three sets of muscles that can be trained/relaxed to help vision come back to 'normal'.

Didn't read your link but could this explain why programmers get poor eyesite as they frequently focus on close objects (monitors) and thus the three sets of muscles become accustom to focusing on close objects?

My eye doctor certainly thinks that's a contributing factor. His recommendation (for me) was that after every hour (or 55 minutes) of PC work, I should spend five minutes looking at things at distance (buildings, trees, etc). It's probably frowned upon by my employers (as I don't have a window office), but it's helped reduce my eye strain quite a bit.

> It's probably frowned upon by my employers

Too bad for them. Your eyes are more important.

I agree. Which is why I'm not overly concerned with what they think about the subject. ;) My supervisor seemed content with "doctor's recommendation" once when I mentioned it to him.

I was recently diagnosed with a condition called Keratoconus... from wikipedia:

Keratoconus (from Greek: kerato- horn, cornea; and konos cone), is a degenerative disorder of the eye in which structural changes within the cornea cause it to thin and change to a more conical shape than its normal gradual curve.

Although my doctor said it was not caused by 10+hrs/day in front of a computer, i suspect otherwise. Its a relatively rare condition, and at my current office there are three of us (out of 25) with the condition.

I would like to know, dear HN readers, do you have this condition?

Definitely. Intact the most important paper on eyesight (IMHO) concludes that the way to guard against myopia is to spend more time outdoors where most objects in your vision will be far away. I'll find the link when I'm not on this stupid iPad!

i think the biggest problem with screens is that the eyes get dehydrated because we blink less often. certainly, the lens muscles may get overused as well though.

the extraocular muscles you refer to control the position of the eye, not the lens. maybe he attempts to change the shape of the cornea (something like squinting)

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