July 12, 2022 - EyeClarity Podcast
Atropine is what we call an anticholinergic drug, which means that it blocks acetylcholine. And when you block acetylcholine, it can cause temporary paralysis in the focusing system of the eye and it also dilates the pupil. So this particular technique is used by some eye doctors in low doses, to see if you can slow down school-aged myopia. My feeling is that Atropine therapy is really another symptomatic approach. It’s not really getting to the cause of what myopia really is. So let’s talk about the cause of myopia. And then I can offer some protocols that maybe go a little deeper than just treating the symptom. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
myopia, eyes, reflexes, lens, give, child, primitive reflexes, response, development, nearsighted, flight freeze, cerebellum, simple carbohydrates, reinforces, prescription, therapy, distance, person, call, movement patterns
Hello, everyone, it’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberene.com. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode.
Hey everybody, its Dr. Sam and I’d like to welcome you to another EyeClarity podcast. So today I’m going to take a question from a mom, she’s got a five year old daughter who’s been diagnosed with myopia. And for the past two years, the myopia has increased. And now the child is in minus four lenses full time. And so the doctor is recommending a type of therapy called after pain therapy. And she wants to know what I think about that. So after pain is an eyedropper, an eyedropper that dilates the pupil and temporarily paralyzes the focusing system of the eyeball. Now, atropine is what we call an anti cholinergic drug, which means that it blocks acetylcholine. And when you block acetylcholine, it can cause a temporary paralysis in the focusing system of the eye. And it also dilates the pupil. So this particular technique is used by some eye doctors in low doses, to see if you can slow down school aged myopia. Well, in my case, my feeling is is that the Atropine therapy is really another symptomatic approach. It’s not really getting to the cause of what myopia really is. So let’s talk about the cause of myopia. And then I can offer some protocols that maybe go a little deeper than just treating the symptom. Now, obviously, one sip symptom approach is continually giving stronger and stronger glasses. It’s important to note that myopia is one of the fastest growing visual conditions today, mainly because we are in a visually constricted spatial experience, where either on our phone or tablet, or our computer most of the day. And so myopia is about pulling in the space world, usually, you know, 10 inches or so. And you’re giving up the distance clarity, so that you can be more efficient up close.
Now, some other symptoms of myopia is that because it’s a pulling in, the eye muscles become tighter, there’s a lockdown. And then the person goes to the eye doctor, and gets the strong lens prescription, which really reinforces the pattern that the person is creating. So we’ve got the genetic influence, but we we also have the environmental influence that is, I think, much more profound and influential in changing a person’s vision. So it’s a restricted space we’re pulling in, we’re tightening, and then you’re getting a minus lens, which reinforces the same thing. And so just perpetuating the same pattern. And usually people that are nearsighted, they like to read they like to, you know, do most of their focusing up close. And so they’re not able to release their eyes into the distance to relax their vision. So when we talk about atropine therapy, it’s a very localized way of trying to treat myopia and yet, myopia is related to our thinking, our emotional and psychological responses. It’s related somewhat to biochemistry. And it’s basically we’re restricting our movement so that we can be really efficient at one distance, which is up close, and we give up everything else. In order to do that. It’s a big sacrifice. So in treating myopia we can look at it from especially in children a developmental perspective, what does that mean? Well, you know, one of the places I trained was the gazelle Institute. And Arnold Gazelle was a physician and researcher, and he was a child development specialist and he started this clinic in 1948.
05:00
And it was devoted to helping children who had what we call a mismatch between their chronological age and their performance age. Today, we might call that a developmental delay. We also might call it somebody who lives on the spectrum disorders from either autism to add. But back then, what Gizelle was doing is, he would say things like, when we treat the child, we treat the whole child. And a vision problem is more than in the eyeball. So you have to buy into that. Some people, they just want the quick fix, give me the lens. Let’s do LASIK surgery. And I don’t want to be bothered with doing anything beyond the surface. But in children especially, there’s so many things in so many ways that you can help a person slow down the progression of myopia beyond just giving them stronger lenses, or using this atrophying eyedrop, which really is just a symptomatic approach. So when looking at the development, there are three very important time periods early on pre verbally. For us. The first is our gestation period. What was going on in utero? Our birth experience? What happened at birth? Was there a birth trauma? Was there an interference in the birth?
You know, there’s a lot of things that can happen, which creates an obstacle in the birthing process. And then the last imprint or influence is the bonding period, how well do we bond with our mom? How, how well do we bond with our mom and dad, all of these early experiences affect our sensory motor development. And in one of the movement patterns that all children go through, is something called the primitive survival reflexes. I just posted a blog on the primitive reflexes. But basically, these are movement patterns, reflexive movement, movement patterns, that help the newborn adjust to being out of the birth canal. And there are several reflexes that children need to work through and integrate, so that they can move to a higher brain function, we start with the brainstem, that’s our basic brain function, we moved to the cerebellum, which is more of our coordination. And then finally, we moved to the frontal part of the brain called executive function. And that’s where, you know, we start learning to read, we add and subtract, we learn problem solving.
And so in order to be able to move to the cerebellum and the executive function part of the brain, we need to integrate these reflex patterns. But if we don’t integrate these reflex patterns, because there may be some interference in our development somewhere, then what happens is, and this really affects our eyes, we stay in what we call a survival response. Fight, Flight freeze. And if we stay in that, that nervous system, fight, flight freeze, but we’re being asked to use our eyes in a more complicated way. Guess what happens? We develop tension, and we start muscling our eyes. So that we can complete the task, even though developmentally, we might not be ready to do it. And so we pay a price, whereby we start to develop myopia or a stigmatism. And so this is kind of behind the scenes of the cause of myopia. Myopia is basically a survival response. I don’t know what the heck is going on. I’m kind of feeling out of control. So let me tight my eyes up, pull my world in. So I’ve got some semblance of control.
09:25
And in doing this, we blurred the world out well, what is what does the eye doctor do? He doesn’t know these deeper things. And so he just gives a nearsighted lens, which Reve reef reinforces this fight flight freeze response. Now, the other thing that’s interesting is when we use a lens for distance, and we use it for reading, this is in the myopia side of things. Then this accelerates our muscle tension in our eyes, and we need even Stronger distance prescription. So bottom line is that whatever prescription is calculated for distance, you need to calculate a reduced prescription for reading. And that’s the one you use for reading. And that’s a way for you to slow down the progression in myopia. So besides that, doing the reflex integration, working with the reflexes, getting them tested to see if they’re still operating, I would say in this particular child, the primitive reflexes are very active. And as I found out, the birth was a breech birth, there was stress during gestation, and the bonding period had some problems as well. So all of these things accumulate, which then starts to develop the myopia, probably age to age three. And then when you go to the eye doctor at age four, and he’s measuring, you know, this, this nearsightedness, he’s going to give a lens. But what that does is it really stops the visual development growth. And so doing physical therapy, primitive reflexes, including some vestibular visual stimulation, doing some body centered, bilateral integration things with an obstacle course, and then doing some things like cranial sacral therapy, which can help release the tension in the head in the eyes, and help heal any birth trauma that’s going on. And then the last thing is our diet. So sugar is the number one enemy of the eyes.
And when when kids eat simple carbohydrates or sugar, what happens is, it starts to affect the eye muscles, and they accelerate into myopia. So you need to reduce or eliminate sugar, simple carbohydrates, make sure you’re getting enough healthy fats and oils, a lot of good antioxidants, getting out into natural sunlight, getting into spatial situations that are global. So you’re not just fixated up close on the screen, in a book, but you’re really moving in exploring way beyond your 12 to 14 inch world. So in this particular case, what I would do is I would give a second prescription that would be reduced, and we would use that for indoor and all school activities. And then I would do some pretty aggressive physical therapy, which would involve the reflexes, gross motor fine motor, include cranial sacral, and maybe do a hair analysis or see what’s happening with the biochemistry. And I think that’s a far better way of helping this child than trying to use some atrophy and eyedrops which have side effects. They don’t work. And it’s just, it’s not a, an effective approach. So I want to thank you very much for the question. It’s a good one, and I know it’ll help a lot of parents. So ladies and gentlemen, that’s our show for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, take care.
Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More