<snipped huge rambling post>

My God aceman you really do have verbal diarrhoea don't you! No wonder
your poor, long-suffering sister "became rude" when you started
preaching to her.

You are a young man with your whole adult life ahead of you and there's
a world out there to explore - why do you waste so much of your time
babbling through your computer keyboard - get out and do something
constructive with your life! Set yourself a goal! Do a course! Get a
job! Take up a sport! Travel overseas! Anything!

I know you mean well but really your posts are worse than useless and
only serve to frustrate the genuine optometrists, doctors and 'patients'
(for want of a better term) who contribute this group. You will gain
much more respect if you better yourself in other areas of your life.

Dom

Wearing minus for near causes excessive
accomodation and in response, the dynamic eyeball will enlongate to
increase axial myopia in an adaptive response to allievate the stress
of near work.

When you say excessive, what exactly do you mean Ace, do you mean a greater
accomodative effort when compared to an emetropic eye

Roland Izaac

Wearing minus for near causes excessive

So what do you mean by "excessive accommodation"?  With her glasses on,
your sister accommodates at near just a little less than non myopes who
don't wear glasses.  If accommodation causes myopia, then why aren't we
all myopic?  Why do hyperopes who accommodate 100% of the time, far and
near,  exist?

Can you cite any scienc-based evidence that "stair case myopia" exists?

Your post does not belong on a science news group, kindly take your
ravings to a alt.vision type group.

Dr Judy

Dear Ace,

Dr. David Guyton (previously published) stated that he ALWAYS
TAKES THE MINUS OFF unless absolutly necessary.

I thiink your sister is shooting herself in the foot -- with
all due respect.

A lot of people have this "bad habit" -- and there is nothing
you can do about it.

But at least you "got the idea".

That is a start -- for the preventive second-opinion.

When you place a -3 diopter lens on a population of
natural primates, the refractive STATE will "follow" the
applied minus.

To wit, the refractive state of the -3 diopter will
chanbe by greter-than -2 diopters in 12 months.

This is a natural or fundamental process -- not
a "defective" process.

Who among us is going to insist that the natural
eye is not a dynamic system -- and the
above WILL NOT HAPPEN?

Best,

Otis

I have a sneaking suspicion that your sister has caught YOU doing far
worse.

Dear AceMan,

I enjoyed your accurate write-up.

You got a lot of things "right".  It is just a
matter respecting the fundamental eye as
"dynamic" to get the more complete
SCIENTIFIC truth of the behavior
of all natural eye.

Takes time and effort to do it -- though, and
the effort is profoundly NOT MEDICAL.

Best,

Otis

snip

=============

why don't you spend some of the time you take writing such long droning
posts to review some of the research thats been done.  studies have
compared groups of myopes who take their glasses off to do near work
versus those who leave them on.  the results show no difference in
myopia progression.  thus your suggestion to your sister is without
merit.  but you can believe whatever you want.

for someone with such a huge IQ you aren't too bright.

Ace,

Good post.  I'm a strong believer in "you develop what you use" theory.   The human body is very adaptive especially when young.  Its just common sense if you use your eyes for close work for extended periods of time,  the natural state of the eye is "tuned" for close up vision.   Throw in minus lenses and close work, it just makes it that many times worse.   As a child, I spent many hours reading.  My eye doc gave me negative lenses and told me to always wear them.  I became dependant and it was down hill from there.      I wasn't in a family financially not able to afford new glasses every year,  and it became very apparent my eyes changed at the same rate as I could afford new lenses.  Classic stair step myopia.   A few  closed minded individuals in this group may claim this is anecdotal evidence,  but when it happens to millions it  has substantial evidence.

I consider myself very lucky that I had a near perfect outcome from lasik.   As my lasik surgeon put it, "lasik can counteract the damage caused by improper use of negative lenses".   He even stated,  "I got out of the business of ruining eyes,  if it wasn't for years of minus lenses you probably would not be here today for lasik".    He also stressed natural vision techniques to use after lasik.   After talking with him,  I really felt like a total idiot for letting "mainstream optometrists" ruin my eyes in the first place.  

Resistance is futile... your eyes shall be transformed into myopic orbs from evil minus lenses!   ( only if you let them )

<  disclaimer:  I'm not a doctor,  just a victim >

 I caught my sister wearing her -2.5 glasses for near work! She was
 making some crafts and her -3 eyes should be in perfect focus at 13
 inches. Yet she was wearing glasses and looking at her craft from 10-12
 inches! She did occasionally look at the sewing machine which stood
 about 26 inches away, but that was irrevelent as dad was doing the
 sewing. She also left her glasses on when eating! I was supprised since
 she really hates glasses and did NOT wear them when we went shopping,
 she would rather go in a 20/250 blur and be vain! Why would she then
 wear glasses for close work when she can see perfectly fine without
 them and not wear the glasses she hates?

 They are worse than useless for near work because when someone is
 myopic, they see especially well from near as they eyes are adapted to
 be in focus from near. Wearing minus for near causes excessive
 accomodation and in response, the dynamic eyeball will enlongate to
 increase axial myopia in an adaptive response to allievate the stress
 of near work. She became myopic in the first place because of all the
 near work she did. Now shes inducing more myopia and when I pointed
 this out, my sister became rude and didnt care that shes making her
 eyes worse.

 Guess she will need stronger contacts and glasses pretty soon! Shes 19
 so hopefully her eyes arent going to go "down" rapidly into stair-case
 myopia. They can still inch down gradually, a quarter diopter here and
 there then stronger correction to repeat the cycle. I bought her -2.5
 glasses which was the right power last year. I also let her try my
 -3.25 computer glasses and she said they were too strong. Guess what?
 Her -2.5 glasses are a little weak(but still corrects well) and she
 said my -3.25 glasses were great! Several months ago she was measured
 with a spherical equivalent of -3(-2.5 -.75 and -2.75 -.75 to be exact)
 I read that the human eye easily gets worse in childhood and early
 teens. It tends to slow down at age 18 to 21 but can still worsen some.
 In your 20s, your eye should be fairly stable but can worsen with the
 stress of near work, espeically if you leave your minus lens on to
 induce more myopia. Its common for college students to become half to
 one diopter more myopic in their four year term. My sister could make
 herself a -4 to -4.5 thruout her college years with bad vision habits.

 My brother became a little myopic then it stopped worsening because he
 never wears glasses except to drive or on other rare occasions. He does
 lots of near work which is why he became myopic but without the
 wretched evil minus lens to keep the cycle, he has stabalized at -1.25
 in the better eye, -1.75 in the worse. This is not bad enough to need
 glasses except for driving due to legal restrictions. I was not told
 about the evil minus lens and vision improvement so I went down till I
 was a high myope at -6 when I was 21. My vision held steady and has
 improved in the last year and a half and is now -4.75 or -5 in the
 worse eye and a bit better in the other, thanks to natural vision
 improvement. I think I can ultimately get to about -3.5 or whatever
 amount of my myopia is axial. When epithelial thinning gets discovered,
 ill get it to reduce to -2 and this will nearly end my dependancy on
 glasses! Even if there is nothing that can be done(lasik is too risky
 to be an option) ill just live at -3.5 and be content in the fact I
 dont need readers ever. -3.5 will be a huge improvement from -6. My
 sister was warned and she doesnt care, probably because shes a contact
 wearer so the problems are downplayed. She will be in trouble once she
 loses tolerance to contacts and be faced with strong glasses(about -4),
 going with 20/400 uncorrected vision or getting lasik or whatever
 surgury is out by then.

 http://www.chinamyopia.org/stopmyopiaenglish.htm

 If you have been wearing glasses for several years and over
 -3.00 D, you probably have a case of axial-length myopia.  It is
 impossible to shorten the elongated eyeball with the fogging-method
 (plus lens) to reverse this myopia.  However, the lens is significant
 to prevent further myopic development as well as to reduce some part of
 your myopia over a period of time.

      Acquired myopia appears in school children of 7 to 9 and
 progresses with age.  Almost every myope has gone through the agony of
 changing minus-lens glasses yearly during the course of elementary and
 secondary school.

      The reason behind this threshold-myopia is that the eye at
 this young age is still developing.  The layers of eyeball coating
 are relatively fragile compared with adult eye.  Minus-lens glasses are
 given to children on the threshold of nearsighted and they are
 encouraged to wear them all the time.

      Near point stress is significantly increased when the minus
 lens are worn at near work -- causing rapid vision deterioration,
 that is then followed by eyeball elongation.

      Generally, myopia stabilizes after reaching maturity by age
 20.

      In order to avoid getting into high myopia (over -6.00 D),
 myopes should adopt preventative measures (how to prevent
 nearsightedness) designed to relieve near point stress.

      Myopia is a natural (physiological) process that the eye uses to
 adapt to the excessive near focal environment.  It develops because of
 the way you use your eyes, and is much more prominent in young people.

      The simplest way to avoid near focal environment is to give
 up all reading or any close work.  This is impracticable in our
 modern world requiring literate and educated citizens.

      Fogging with plus lens is an alternate method that allows the
 near focal environment to be moved "into the distance".  This
 process "relaxes" the and removes the stress of prolonged close work.
 The method is simple, easy and economic.
      Method should be implemented with incipient Myopes below -3.00 D.
 These children should take off their (minus-lens) glasses for any near
 work.

      Why?  The glasses are provided for use at distance 20 feet
 and greater.  You can figure out how tired the eye becomes if you use
 the minus-lens glasses at any distance shorter than 20 feet
 --especially at 1 to 2 feet when doing near work.  It is the major
 reason accounting for your you vision shows rapid vision
 deterioration when wearing these glasses.  This is especially true in
 young children.

      Myopes over -3.00 D should consider two pairs of glasses. One for
 far and the other for near.  The full power one is for emergency or
 driving.  The other one should be reduced by 1 to 2 diopter for
 comfortable near work.  You will not experience too
 much tiredness and fatigue with the use of the reduced prescription
 glasses -- after your whole-day work in front of a
 computer.

      It is simpler for contact lens wearers to put on a pair of
 plus-lens (+1.00 to +2.00 depends on situation) glasses any time you
 are doing near-work.  Such glasses have a magnifying effect and you
 will see will everything larger.  The stress caused by the intensive
 near-work is greatly reduced by the use of the plus in this manner.