Neil, I would suggest that her credentials exceed your
qualifications.

But, of course this is about the preventive second-opinion.

Since some people are successful with the alternative
methods, your questions are moot.

Best,

Otis

+++++++++++++++

Dr. Antonia Orfield, M.A., O.D., Fellow, COVD
Private Practice in Cambridge, MA617-868-8742
Vision Specialist, Harvard University Health Services
Masters Degree in Education

Articles

SEEING SPACE
Undergoing Brain Re-Programming to Reduce Myopia

Abstract

The author underwent myopia reduction from a spectacle prescription of
-3.87 DS and -3.37 DS to -.50 DS and -.25 DS over a period of seven
years. The essence of the program was passive adaptation to a series
of weaker glasses and better vision in a reverse of the process of
adaptation to stronger and stronger glasses and a more and more warped
space world. General health work including nutrition, exercise, yoga,
outdoor walks, postural training with the Alexander Technique, and
advanced chiropractic were also helpful. The system worked because the
practitioners and patient believed it could be done and did not
overreact to transient bouts of less than 20/20 vision during
adjustment periods. Active therapy was limited to six months of
optometric office training to reduce the last diopter. Home therapy
was monocular only and involved free space motor procedures.

Introduction

    I can still remember discussions with my brother when we first
needed glasses at age 12; long wistful talks about the survival of the
fittest and how we, with our nearsighted genes, were probably only
allowed to survive childhood because of the invention of glasses.
Otherwise, we would be run down by trucks or eaten by lions. Now,
though, with our ophthalmic crutches we myopes could all go forth and
multiply. That was evidently the reason that more and more of us
appeared every year wearing glasses. Or was it? Yet when I told my
ophthalmologist that surely God had not intended that evolution should
lead to a human race so rampantly nearsighted, he assured me that
whether God intended it or not, that was the way things were and
anyone who said otherwise was a quack. I wasn't convinced, but
gradually, as I lost more and more control of my vision, I started to
believe him.

    Many years later, when I went through a visual retraining program
that reduced my then nearly -4.00 DS, OU prescription to practically
nothing, I knew that ophthalmologist was wrong. Nevertheless, there
are an estimated 60 to 80 million myopes in this country,1,2 most of
whom go through similar experiences with no better help than I had.
The purpose of this article is to suggest that this does not have to
happen. It will address three topics: 1) the space changes that occur
as one slips into myopia when no intervention is attempted, 2) the
type of whole body and brain re-programming that can reverse the
myopic process, and 3) how an experience of learning to see space
again shapes one's approach to treating nearsighted patients. A second
article in a subsequent issue suggests a theoretical basis for
understanding why myopia reduction of this kind works. It can be found
in recent brain research on neuro-programming, plasticity, visual
pathways, visual development, visual memory, and neuro-rehabilitation.

    Functional myopia is not just an imbedded accommodative spasm3
and it is not just enlargement of eyeballs.2 It is a reflection of the
shrinking of the brain's space world by closure of the periphery,
first by stress,4 and then by errors in spatial judgment induced by
minus lenses. It is easy to observe this in children who are plunging
deeper and deeper into nearsightedness. What has happened is that
their space world has shrunk down to primarily central vision, so they
cannot judge distances. The lenses induce such warped vision in the
periphery that their brains have to screen it out. While stress and
poor visual skills, nutritional sins, and hereditary tendencies may
have been the initial cause of their reduced periphery and acuity, the
lenses deepen their dislocation in space. Lacking the periphery and
experiencing the side effects of virtual images, they can no longer
judge how far is far or where to look. So, naturally, they cannot see
the chart clearly, and they frantically accommodate and demand more
and more minus in their lenses.

On Mar 17, 8:08 pm, "otisbr...@pa.net" <otisbr...@pa.net> wrote:

Well, I guess that'd be because ... SHE isn't here pimping her theory
as science.

You, OTOH, are.

So ... why don't YOU answer them?