October 24, 2022 - EyeClarity Podcast
Sixth Nerve Palsy affects the lateral rectus eye muscle and can affect the person’s ability to track their eyes horizontally. This can cause issues with reading, copying content, and double vision. So today, we will walk through what Sixth Nerve Palsy is and how it might be treated holistically. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com.
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
restriction, eye, homeopath, cranial sacral therapy, prism, called, fluid, cranial nerve, vision, muscle, impinging, therapy, classical homeopathy, cranial, work, reflex, body, question, visual, type
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, I’d like to welcome you to another EyeClarity Podcast. I’m gonna take a question today. But before I do that, I wanted to let you know about a new way to send me your questions. This is through texting, so you can text me your questions, I’ll give you the phone number. It’s 1-844-932-1291. This is valid for the United States and Canada. So listeners there if you want to text me your question, I’ll be happy to answer it. Alright, let’s get to today’s show, we’re going to take a question from a concerned mom. And she’s got a child that’s been diagnosed with something called a sixth nerve palsy. And there is a syrinx placed pressure on this nerve, this cranial nerve. And I’ll define what that is in a moment. And she’s asking, is there anything that can be done from a more holistic integrative approach, the neurosurgeon wants to do a very risky surgery. So in this particular case, when you have a six nerve palsy, it’s affecting the specific eye muscle we call the lateral rectus muscle. So this is affecting a person’s ability to track their eyes horizontally, so like for reading, copying from the board. And when you have a sixth nerve palsy, one of the symptoms is double vision.
Another symptom is that there can be a restriction and the eye muscle itself, so that when you’re tracking horizontally from side to side, one of the eyes will have a restriction and won’t be able to track as well as the other eye. Now, syrinx is a type of sack that contains fluid, we usually see it in terms of the cerebral spinal fluid, and how it surrounds and cushions the brain and the spinal cord. But when this capsule starts impinging, so it’s forming and impinging on the sixth nerve, it’s actually sending signals to the lateral rectus muscle of the eye, but it creates this restriction. Now before surgery, there are some things that you could do before you went ahead and did this type of surgery, number one, would be looking for cranial sacral therapy.
Now, this is a type of bodywork. I was actually trained in this over 25 years ago, and I found the connection between the bones of the head, the bones that surround the face and into the eye socket. And how that relates to the eyes and vision. So cranial sacral therapy, just as an overview is a type of body work that can help relieve compression in the bones of the head around the eyes. It can also help relieve pressure in the head. And in the sacrum spinal column. It’s a non invasive procedure, you keep your clothes on, you’re lying on the massage table. And the therapists will gently feel the what we call the movement, the cranial rhythm of different parts of your body, you know, sometimes I’ll start at the feet. And I’ll actually be able to feel the cranial rhythm up in the head. Or I might start up in the head area. And I can actually feel the cranial rhythm down into the pelvis, maybe the femur bones and the feet and the many different types of professionals that have been trained to do cranial therapy New psychotherapy.
05:01
I remember when I was in my training, we had physical therapists, occupational therapists, massage therapists, chiropractors, osteopaths. So depending on the type of training you’ve had. They’re deaf, definitely different professionals are focusing on different aspects, being an optometrist. And that was clearly unusual because there weren’t many optometrists who were in my class. In fact, I think I was probably the only one, that there’s a very strong connection between the cerebral spinal fluid in the brain, and our eye circulation, the health of the cranial nerves that go into the eyes, and the actual eye muscles themselves. One of the aspects of cranial sacral, that I found to be very helpful is that it improves the oxygenation and the hydration in the area, that may be where there’s a restriction.
Now, in some other trainings that I did, there’s a form of cranial sacral therapy called Bio dynamic cranial sacral therapy. And this takes even more skill, because you’re listening to the body’s fluid system, you know, we’re made of 70% fluid, you know, there’s fluid in our fascia or connective tissue, obviously, our blood or lymph system, so we have a lot of fluidity in our body. But when there’s a restriction in movement, this begins to either shut down the fluid body, or in this particular case, there’s an over consolidation of fluid that has found itself impinging on the cranial nerve six. And it’s very simple, but it’s also very effective, where the practitioner begins to tune in, on the body tissues in the in the fluid level. And because of where this, this consolidation of the fluid is right on the cranial nerve, doing some cranial sacral therapy could begin to relieve the restriction. And, you know, if you do it over, say, a three month period, you might be able to actually reduce the obstacle and restriction that this capsulated fluid is causing.
So that would be my number one choice, my number two choice would be to find a classical homeopath. Now, you know, there are a lot of people that dabble in homeopathy, you know, they go to the store, they’ve got a trauma. And so they’re using, say the homeopathic remedy Arnica as an example. Nothing wrong with that. But in this particular case, when you’re working with Classical Homeopathy, one of the first laws of homeopathy is something called the law of similars. That like cures like, and a classical homeopath, who has been trained over many, many years, has learned to take a very detailed history. And in collecting that data, the homeopath then can, and this is where there’s the intuitive part, and then there’s also the you know, the knowledge part where you’re combining both of those. And he or she can then prescribe something on a homeopathic level and decide on the the dilution, you know how strong it is. The dosage, and Classical Homeopathy because it works vibrationally the homeopath could zero in on the actual remedy that could release this syrinx
09:45
from the nerve and the body could rebalance itself. It’s a very powerful, but very specific, practice, holistic practice. that I have found to be quite amazing. Now the third thing that I would do in this scenario is I would look for an optometrist like myself, who does vision therapy. Now this is a school aged child. And there’s some double vision going on. You know, in my practice, we use something called yoked prisms. So these are special prisms that expand the spatial awareness, the peripheral vision. And when there’s a horizontal restriction in the movement, sometimes using something like a base down your prism or base left or base, right, your Prism would give the child more visual field. And it could reduce and sometimes even eliminate the double vision without weakening the eyes. Now, there are two ways to prescribe prisms one way is the way that I’m talking about, which are both prisms are the same in each eye, because we’re increasing the spatial connection. The other way is much more in a compensatory where the doctor says, well, the I has a certain eye turn. So let’s give a prism in that eye. To see if we can straighten it, that’s a very mechanical approach doesn’t work very well.
Usually, if it does work, it’s a very restricted solution. And the visual system absorbs that amount of prism. So then the person has to come back and get a stronger prism. So it’s a symptom approach. I don’t recommend it. Also, there’s some physical ie therapy exercises that include the brain and the body that could support the visual system better. And this could be things like, you know, primitive reflexes, you know, the, the lateral restriction represents what we call the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex. The primitive reflexes are infant reflexes, but they can emerge even as adults. And these reflexes are controlled by the brainstem, the survival brain, and if you do certain movement patterns, it releases the primitive reflex, hold on the visual development. So that would be something to do, there could be some vestibular stimulation, things that could be helpful, some perceptual things that you could do in vision therapy. And so there could be a lot of possibilities because you know, 50% of vision is in the brain. And vision therapy is one of the best ways to help these kinds of policies, fourth nerve palsy, six nerve palsy, double vision, and so on.
So I would definitely include that. And then my kind of, maybe icing on the cake would be to support the biochemistry better. This could be, you know, things like Omega three could be making sure you’re getting a good B vitamin, making sure that God is working well. Adding magnesium, magnesium is very supportive for muscle health. So perhaps, there could be a magnesium deficiency. So that could be again, explored with a functional medicine doctor and naturopathic doctor. I’d even look at some toxicity levels that could have occurred, you know, being receiving things like mercury or arsenic or lead or who knows, you know, but heavy metal toxicities could also be another thing that I would look at. So I would do those things. First, I think that you certainly, if you’re able to put the surgery off, because it is a risky surgery, and you know, there’s no guarantee that it’s going to hold it’s going to work and may create some other side effects, scar tissue and so on. So thank you so much for the question, and I wish you the very best. So that’s our show for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, take care.
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