Reversing Lens-Induced Myopia (2018)

Ophthalmologist here. The myopia epidemic is real thing. The advice given in this post is not a dangerous thing to try. However, I doubt that the theory is true, and I doubt that following this method will really help myopic patients. Let's try to justify this point :

"The long-term use of over-correcting glasses induces myopia" This is quite true. But it induces a myopia which is reversible. Overcorrection (which we try to avoid) leads to ciliary spasm. When the patient gets older, the lens gets less flexible (for everyone, this is what leads to presbyopia) and the myopia, if it was overcorrected, diminishes. It is common to reduce the correction for patients around 40.

We have a good, natural model in nature for over-corrected myopic eyes: hyperopic patients. They don't become myopic with time. Around 40-45 years, their hyperopia becomes clinically significant (they didn't need glasses before and they progressively need to have their hyperopia corrected at 45, or a little bit later if the hyperopia is slight).

"Repair is fast at first as you clear the ciliary spasm, and then slows down as you work on shortening the eyeball itself." No. Clearing the ciliary spasm (which is not present in every myopic patient, only the overcorrected ones) will indeed reduce the amount of myopia (the eye will return to its normal state: less myopia). However, we happen to have a very precise way to mesure the axial length of the eyeball (interferometry). While we commonly observe a lengthening of the eyeball in high, pathological myopia, I've never heard of an eyeball which shortened, nor read any paper which related this phenomenon. We don't know why the eyeball elongates in high myopia. But, as far as I know, eyeball never shorten.

"If you are considering laser eye surgery, please skim Lasik Complications." Yes, please do. You must be informed and your surgeon must inform you. However, you could also look at the number of refractive surgeons who underwent themselves this surgery, or operated their family. It is a common thing to operate our residents at the end of their internship because they saw the outcomes and want the procedure. Please note that any serious refractive surgeon will perform a refraction after cycloplegia, to remove any ciliary spasm and correct only the "real" myopia.

https://theophthalmologist.com/business-profession/do-ophtha...

We recently obtained Ortho-K lens for our 11-year-old as his myopia was progressing faster than normal. These are hard contact lens worn during sleep, they work by basically flattening the cornea. Next day morning when they wake up, vision is perfect, and glasses are not needed for the next day. Ortho-K contacts must be worn every night. If not, kid simply has to use his glasses. https://www.visioncenter.org/contacts/orthokeratology/

One has to wear the contacts every night. They do not reverse myopia but are the most effective in stopping further progression of myopia. As per our eye doctor, ortho-K lens is the most effective (~80%) and is a non-destructive method unlike LASIK which basically burns the cornea to the right shape.

There is also a team at Univ. of Washington who designed glasses to slow down the progression of myopia (approved in Canada, not yet in the USA). https://newsroom.uw.edu/news/glasses-stop-myopia-are-success...

I had something very strange occur to me. I realized one of my eyes was weaker than the other; specifically my right eye (I’m right handed, right footed I suppose). I would every so often close one eye, then the other, just to compare and to see if I can help strengthen the weaker eye. I was aware of EndMyopia, Hormesis theory etc.

I went in to get an endoscopy done one day. They put me under for it for about 15 minutes or so. Not sure which sedative they used. Did the usual “count to three” trick where you’re out in less than a second.

After I woke up, some hours later I noticed that my weak eye had cleared up and the other one was now the weak one.

This effect went away some hours thereafter. Since then, I’ve often wondered what in the world could have caused that reversal.

When I use something like “active focus” (consciously and voluntarily shifting the focal plane) I can get the weak eye to clear up a bit. Sunlight helps immensely as well.

I have been working on doing this since the start of 2020. I purchased glasses for almost all the diopters from .5 to -4.25 (where I started) cheaply on Zenni, by going with minimal add-ons, it makes the total cost per glasses pair between $10 and $30 each. I have customized text on each of the frames that says their correction, since some of my frames are duplicates with different lenses. I am down to about -2.75 so far for normal stuff. I spend most of my day in front of computers so I end up using much lower correction between -1 and -2 diopters for the various screens I sit in front of to maintain the edge of just-in-focus depending on distance. You just have to remember that progress is slow, it took years get this way and will take years to go back. I wish you luck and patience if you try it yourself.

A randomized controlled trial in children found that undercorrection accelerated the progression of myopia. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12445849/.

This trial had a similar but not statistically significant result: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16907670/

(There are conflicting observational studies, but these two were controlled trials).

This works for some people, not all. Reasons are unknown. Nevertheless, the EndMyopia "eye hacking" community has a wealth of empirical information about vision therapy, otherwise only available from very expensive vision therapists and specialist ophthalmologists. It requires an order of magnitude more effort/time than blindly following the guidance of random local optometrists. Even if you don't apply the methods directly, you can become a better educated consumer of professional eye-health services.

While the market for myopia is large and growing, the market for presbyopia is almost 100% of the HackerNews community. Similar techniques apply, in the face of sizable economic incentives to promote expensive progressive lenses. The advent of online glasses offers more options, e.g. dedicated computer glasses for a fixed focal plane, ChemistriE magnetic clip-ons.

In an industry which spends many hours daily using eyes for closeup work, "eye fitness" offers observable returns on vision literacy.

Very interesting reading. I have also been reading about insulin resistance and how one philosophy was to give more insulin, and another philosophy is to reduce insulin + add fasting so that your body corrects towards the new life [ maybe I am paraphrasing too much ]. From the little I have heard on this, reducing insulin and making body adapt sounds more reasonable.

This seems to be going in a similar direction. Get your body to adjust than help it with strong prescription glasses.

Not sure if it will work for people who are in a transition phase with their eyes worsening every year, but it may help people with relatively stable eyes.

Having loved photography since an early age I have always been hyper observant about my own visual mechanics, and to preserve my 25/20 acuity.

At worst in my late teens my prescription was -1.25, at which point I started wearing glasses only for distance vision, never for reading and computer work. I am certain this diligent habit stopped the myopia progressing. Now that I’m 10 years out of uni my prescription has reversed to -0.25. I don’t wear distance glasses anymore and am careful with computer positioning to minimise eye strain. Hope my 25/20 lasts!

I do think vision habits matter for near sightedness. The human eye, like all mammal eyes, seems adapted for far vision. To bring the focal point in, the ciliary muscle must contract to change the shape of the eye. When it relaxes, the focal point goes back out far away.

In the environment for which we are adapted, most time was spent focusing far away. In the modern world, a person may spend all day, every day, for years on end, focusing on things close up like books and screens. If the ciliary muscle is always contracted, it can get stuck; over time, even change the shape of the eyeball from constant pressure such that the cornea focuses too far in front of the retina, making the image blurry.

Perhaps I was too quick to get glasses when things first started looking blurry. If I had known, I would have tried to get the ciliary muscle to relax by focusing on things far away for at least a time every day. Instead, I went right to the minus lenses but kept my lifestyle of close up work all the time. This led to hyperopic defocus, meaning my ciliary muscle had to continue to contract to focus on near objects through the minus lens.

About 7 years ago I had the thought of improving my vision habits. I will spare HN the details, but my vision (optometrist confirmed) has improved from about -3.5 diopters to -2.25 diopters. I can now do things without glasses including working on the computer, cooking, and reading, for which I am grateful.

I have a hard time buying this theory. I'm working behind a screen a lot, and my vision was mostly ok, but about 6-7 years ago I discovered I am no longer comfortable watching TV. I got glasses, which I wore only when watching TV (no more than an hour or two per day, and not every day - on average, would be around an hour a day or less). Recently, I had to take a vision test for driving, and I discovered that while I can still subjectively see OK, I can no longer legally drive without glasses. I went for an eye check and got a prescription which is slightly stronger than my old glasses, though not significantly: I can drive - and pass the eye exam - both with my old and new glasses. Clearly, I have some myopia, and clearly, it got worse with time, though not drastically so. Also it sounds very unlikely that it was caused by short period I have been wearing glasses to watch TV. Moreover, since I've been going around for a while with no glasses, while my vision was somewhat myopic (I didn't have vision test for years and didn't feel the need to have one) - I have essentially been following the instructions in the article, without knowing it, as I understand. Yet, my vision didn't become better - in fact, it became worse, albeit slightly (which I totally expected with age, so I am not surprised here).

I can focus my eyes without glasses (20/15), and with glasses too. I can try on the glasses of a myopic person and still bring everything into focus, although it's an eye strain like I'm trying to focus on something 2 inches from my face. Astigmatism is tough though- either the horizontal is in focus, or the vertical, but not both at the same time.

One aspect of this that I haven't heard anyone talk about is the fact that you can get your eyes to focus more precisely if you practice. You can make out really fine details in something if you have bright enough light and you concentrate on one specific point and try really hard to make it as sharp as possible. You can focus on one ridge of the fingerprints on your hand and then look at the little imperfections on those. Or the individual fibers in a sweater. Likewise you can defocus your eyes just by relaxing them. Focusing is a skill and a muscle you can train. I wonder if many people habitually don't focus on things precisely, just leaving them a bit fuzzy, and this contributes to the problem?

I don't have a lot of myopia (max -1.5 on both eyes) but I also have astigmatism (around 1.75 for both). I find I can work fine on my computer distance-focus wise but the astigmatism means text are slightly blurry. Do any of you have this problem too? Do you have another set of glasses that are just correcting the astigmatism?

I got LASIK last year, after a lifetime of being basically legally blind without glasses.

It was absolutely worth it and I regret nothing.

Anecdotally, I had regular eye exams (once every two years) for several years since they were free under insurance, and was prescribed progressively stronger glasses each time. I wound up somewhere around -7.5. For the past ~10 years I’ve just stuck with a single prescription out of sheer laziness + having no optical insurance in the US. Recently, having gotten a proper job with real insurance, I visited an optometrist and was surprised to learn that my prescription had gone down to -7 - and the new glasses really aren’t much different than the old ones visually.

A fairly significant part of this is likely due to my eyes not growing anymore (the regular eye exams were during high school + undergrad), but I do like to think that some part of it is not feeling like I always had to update my prescription constantly.

A very low-tech tip: I keep a glasses cleaning cloth on my desk. It improves my eyesight instantly!

My mother did not want me to have glasses as kid, because glasses damage your eyes. It is a scam of the optometrists. They sell you glasses to damage your eyes, so they can sell you even more glasses later.

So when I became nearsighted, I did not wear glasses until I was almost an adult.

The myopia remained rather stable with -1 to -1.5 D. Which fits the distance of the computer screen. It was very unhealthy that I spend 12 h a day programming thinking I was a professional teenage software engineer.

But I got really bad astigmatism with -3.4 D according to an aberrometer.

Perhaps myopia turns into astigmatism if you squint too much?

Meta: I quickly mis-read this as "A Human-Friendly PRINTER" and was almost comically relieved there, for a while.

Obviously, helping people with vision issues is kind of more important, I just have a complicated relationship with printers.

There's also interesting theories about bright light exposure preventing myopia in children. Send your kids outside at recess every day :)

i was thinking if it wss reversible. so buy some cheap glasses online zenni. reduce the prescription. buy an eink reader to prevent flicker. stare out the window every 20 minutes for 20 seconds

It has been studied that myopia progression can be almost stopped via daily administration of Berberine. However i have learnt this fact when it was too late for me and I have failed to find a pharmacological reversal. Although retinalamin might have some potential. It would be interesting to see wether Berberine potentiate the presented method. Although i have been without glasses for a whole year and I was nearly blind after a few meters, this has not reversed my myopia so??

>I am not a medical professional

And that's where I stopped reading