On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 21:51:45 -0500, A Lieberman <lieberma@myself.com> wrote:

As it turns out one of Otis' successful subjects is a member of the
newsgroup.  Here is a post that Otis made to i-see@yahoogroups.com with the
subject heading: " A Pilot's work to clear to FAA 20/20 and Military 20/20"

Dear Prevention minded friends,

Subject: Credibility of repors of "vision clearing".

While there are many reports of vision improvement,
the most credible reports are those where the
individual personally verified that he was
nearsighed by:

1.  A prescription of a minus lens (hopefully mild), and

2.  He verifies his eye chart, and say 20/70.

If he works to "clear" and passes the 20/40 line, then
the real credibility is his own.  You may not believe
him -- but he believes his own results.  This
is true if your method is Bates, or "plus" or
a combination of both.  In all instances,
you personally confirm your results.

I helped pilot-John because he was deeply
concerned with his distant vision.  He did
intense work with the plus and would see
"variation" from 20/40 (at the start) until
20/20 and 20/15 after eight months.

Here is his report for your interest.

Best,

Otis

____________

Subject:  Pilot John passes the flight physical

    I had the eye exam portion of the Army Flight Physical Class
1W/1A for Warrant Officers today.  To my surprise, I hadn't even
scheduled an appointment or I started a warrant officer
application packet, but here is what happened.

    I went to our Troop Medical Clinic and inquired about eye
exams that are given to pilot candidates, front desk didn't know
much so they sent me to the post OD's room.  I went there and
explained the situation and the assistant called the OD who is a
captain in the Army.  I explained my symptoms and my concerns in
getting to the flight school.  They decided to give me an exam
right there without the necessary paperwork, so I went ahead and
sat in front of the first machine, which there was a windmill
looking image on an orange background, coming in and out of focus.
It did that for a while for the right eye and left eye and captain
said, you are good to go, you are within the limits with -0.50
right and -0.25 left.

    No astigmatism.  I asked about if we could do cycloplegic
refraction.  He said it wouldn't change this error very much and
dilating tends to make eyes move to positive state, he said it
might help me in my case.  It was surprising to me that this state
has not changed since my first refraction eye exam 11 years ago.
He jokingly said "you don't get any taller anymore, do you?  same
sh.t..." Hope he is right.  I did the visual acuity next, first I
was not able to read the 20/20 line in the AFVT machine so I
started reading 20/30 line with my right eye, but all of a sudden,
they slowly started to come into focus one by one.  The lighting in
the machine was lower and the 20/20 was farther than I thought.

    They were not clear and sharp in focus but I was able to
guess.    Out of 16 letters, 8 on each, I didn't miss any.  I missed
2 out of 5 in my first try with the "good" eye and I told them I
needed to rest my eyes a little.  Tried it again and one blink, it
came all clearly in focus.  Near vision was a piece of cake.  Then
field of vision was tested and I was able to catch all the lights
blinking right and left.  Depth perception however was a bitch and
didn't work right, I was looking at these shapes where circles are
supposed to jump out.

    Nope nothing was happening.  Assistant gave me a pair of
glasses and showed me a card with lines of three circles each,
each one had circles jumping way out.  That was done, then color
vision testing, only those 88s or 86s, or 89s in the brown
patterns, I needed to look more carefully, they looked really
faint, I missed one and she said are you sure, looked carefully
"ah ok I see it now......" Then she did IOP test and my right eye
was 16 and left was 15.  It is the air blowing machine when you
are looking into the green light.  That was OK, too.  Don't know
what that measured.  Gotta be some sort of pressure.

    So basically, I am happy that I am within limits for flight
training and I wanted to share it with you all already know about
my situation.  Eye care and vision is one of my interest areas,
especially vision required for the military stuff.  I like to read
and learn about it.  Thanks for taking time answering my
questions, via the newsgroup or emails, it means a lot.  I will
hang around and participate more often.

John