March 13, 2018 - Farsightedness (Presbyopia)
Hey folks, it’s Dr. Sam and I received the question on how to improve farsightedness.
What Causes Farsightedness in Adults?
So this is a condition where you have difficulty focusing up close. You’re losing your ability to accommodate the eye muscles and the lens in a way for you to see the print clearly. So you start wearing magnification glasses up close. And what tends to happen is this disconnects you from the focusing muscles and you need more and more magnification. Then eventually you start wearing a bifocal and then you need your farsighted glasses all the time.
So again, we want to blame faulty vision on the deteriorating eyeball or aging. But in farsightedness, the programming behind the eyes has to do with pushing the world away from us, where our arms aren’t long enough. By pushing the world away we are asking for the world to be bigger and seeing a broader picture.
The problem with far-sighted glasses is when you start wearing them, it eliminates the practice of being able to focus on detail while seeing the whole picture because the magnification glasses tend to distort the size of how you see things by making them much bigger than they really are.
In my eye therapy programs, there are exercises that I am recommending that can improve eye circulation, and more importantly the eye flexibility so that you can maintain and train your visual focusing skills as you get older now.
Recommended: What’s the Difference Between Vision and Eyesight?
What about farsightedness in children?
When children are born, they show a slight amount of farsightedness. This is a normal response. As they go through movement, development, exploration, and inquiry, their visual system begins to engage with the world – so they’re engaging their focusing system with their body. Over time the farsightedness will usually reduce. I find that prescribing far-sighted glasses for infants, toddlers, and children actually interferes with the normal and organic visual development.
One of the practices that I learned, and many doctors do, is to dilate the eyes where they paralyze the focusing muscles and then they prescribe glasses based on the maximum measurement in the eye. I disagree with this way to measure refraction in the eyes because when you paralyze the focusing muscles you’re only going to prescribe the maximum correction, which is going to be too strong for a person to wear. It’s too distorting and it also suppresses the normal visual function and visual development that an infant or toddler or a child goes through.
How do You Improve Farsightedness?
So if you’re going to prescribe any farsighted glasses I would only correct a small percentage, around 10-20% depending on how clearly a child can see. Often at my practice when a child comes in with a very strong farsighted prescription, I have them take it off. Invariably, most of the time, they’re able to read the 20/20 eye chart without those lenses. That tells me that they actually don’t need that strength of prescription in order to see clearly.
So in terms of farsighted lenses, these are called plus lenses. There are many vision therapy techniques that I’ve developed that can help people reverse or reduce the need to wear farsighted glasses.
So remember, you don’t have to live out your diagnosis! Many eye conditions, including farsightedness, can be improved through vision therapy.
I want to thank you again for tuning in. And until next time take good care.