May 18, 2023 - EyeClarity Podcast
I had a session with a concerned mother whose child was diagnosed with Strabismus. We work through what that means and steps she can take to help the child. Enjoy the show.
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
eye, primitive reflexes, vision, called, crawling, moving, brain, turning, muscles, husband, alternating, walking, birth, movement, other words, stimulate, learn, development, experience, holistic
00:05
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@drsamberne.com.
00:29
Now to the latest EyeClarity episode
00:48
All right, so what would be your goals and objectives today? With our with our session?
00:56
Okay, what what do you what are you thinking about? I would like to focus on my my son Alexander is 18 months old. I think you could see him right there. Can you see him say hi? Yes, I can.
01:08
He’s 18 months old. And I noticed since birth one of you I don’t know if it’s one or both or depending is looks like it’s slightly off. I don’t know if you receive the pictures I sent.
01:21
Just okay. And I attempted a golden I like an ophthalmologist but I kind of walked out politely because they just wanted to do too much dilate. I just didn’t want to do that just yet. And I’m wondering if you could help assess what the problem might be. And if there’s something natural or exercise or something holistic that could maybe be treated or
01:43
want to make sure it’s not an issue and it’s not going to get worse and you know, something I have to be ahead of.
01:50
Absolutely. So Alexandre is 18 months old. Is that Is that correct? Yes. Okay, and tell me a little bit about your gestation period, the birth process. Anything unusual there? I went through IVF for about eight years. I had him when I was 51. I actually carried him through to 37 weeks. And we were supposed to go to 40 i My pregnancy was fine. No issues. No you no nausea, no cravings, nothing. It’s just up to 37 weeks. i My blood pressure was starting to elevate so my OB wanted to to take him out and we did a C section. He was born four pounds along the weight 15 ounces. And they said he was just under five pounds. So they had to put him in a NICU and they said it’s because he had a little low blood sugar and low body temperature. We were both in the hospital for about five days. Me to regulate my blood pressure and then my son to regulate his body temp and his sugar. And then we released and since then he’s you know, he’s seeing a holistic pediatrician and he’s taking vitamin D probiotic, and DHA and NACA what? He’s been healthy hasn’t been sick.
03:05
Great. Okay.
03:08
So, after the birth, brought him home, what is his? What is his mobility? Does he move around a lot? Is he on his tummy at all? Do you know what’s kind of active mobile activities? Are you engaging with him when he was when he came home from the hospital or in general? Well, you know, after so he’s 18 months. So we’ve got you know, a little bit of track record here. Obviously, you know, is there any mobility on the floor? Is he scooting, calling? Tell me about his his mobility experience? Yes, he’s right now he’s walking. He loves to activity walks, almost runs around the house. He’s very active.
04:01
Let’s see, we take him outside and I just stay focused. But this is his baby nurse. This is MISA. She’s known him since birth.
04:09
She could chime in. He loves to be outdoors. He goes he climbs the stairs here outdoors and a little slide he has in the backyard. You know with our assistance. She taught him to walk up and down the stairs with with assistance.
04:25
Yeah, like he wrote just like seems like a healthy boy. Yeah. All right. Cool. Tell me about his, his crawling
04:36
it the the crawling stage much or? Yes, he did go through the crawling stage. Yes, very fast. People say it’s the fastest call they’ve ever seen. And he’s progressed to walking so he really he crawls from time to time. But he very fast prefers to walk.
04:55
So when you say fast, meaning he kind of went
05:00
from say, sitting to standing walking, and he was in the crawling stage, but it was kind of a quick stage. Is that? Is that what you’re saying? I’m sorry, if I missed if I heard him, he’s, he’s, he likes to call. It’s funny cuz sometimes he calls really quickly. Know he, um, he started crawling rightly so I think it was a little late, but not I think it was maybe nine or nine months between six and nine months. Right me so he started crawling. And um, yeah, he did tell me time before then he crawled I can’t for about I should have written this down. I should have had this prepared. But he crawled.
05:40
You started walking maybe 14 months? 13. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Excellent, excellent. And anything else you want to say about his developmental arc?
05:55
You know, anything. Food wise, he’s eating well, and How’s his sleep, and, you know, those kinds of things. He is eating well, um, yeah, we’re just a little challenges asleep, he’s sleeping through the night, more or less, like, I would say, five out of seven days of the week, that’s been a little bit of a challenge. But um, he wakes up very early, and, you know, subsequently put them to sleep pretty early, he wakes up around four, or five. And then we put them down around five or six. So we’re trying to stretch things out, he takes one nap a day for about two and a half hours.
06:32
And my goal is, you know, I’m an early riser, too, so I don’t mind. But my goal is maybe to push out a little like six to six. And I’m okay. And yeah, and because of his, he wakes up early, he naps early. So it kind of, we’re not able to really take them out for any activity, you know, meaning like, I wanted to bring them to like a church for a mommy and me or library. But we certainly fill his day with activities at home.
07:02
Excellent.
07:04
Okay, so let me give you a little context on where I’m coming from. And it is going to be different than say ophthalmology or regular eye care. So some of the things I’m going to share with you,
07:18
you know, we can we can talk about, and I can go into a little more elaboration. But the first thing I would say is that the eyes are the outer part of the brain, the eyes are an extension of the brain, every part of the eye tissue is brain. And we start developing our eyes, very early in utero, some say two weeks after. But in any event, we start to see the calm optical vesicles. And they start growing out from the brain, prenatally. So every tissue of the eye is brain tissue. Now, when we start developing vision, and I want to make a distinction here between vision and eye sight, seeing things clearly, seeing things clearly, like if you went for an eye exam, that would the test would be you’d look at the distance eye chart, maybe the near eye chart, and then somebody would calculate some prescription for you.
That is only one aspect of vision. So let’s define what vision is. It’s how the eyes and the brain and the body work together. And vision starts developing actually very early in utero, one of the places as examples where we start developing our peripheral vision when we’re floating in the amniotic fluid. So when Mom is, you know, moving around and walking in different positions, the the fetus is going, Wow, I’m floating. So my vestibular system, which is the inner ear is starting to get activated. And even though I’m in a dark chamber, because of the movement, that’s also stimulating my peripheral vision. And then when we come out of the birth canal, or however we’re born, that’s another very important time for sensory motor development, sensory motor beginnings. And so we’re talking about the brain in the eyes here. And one of the parts of the brain that’s very involved in vision development, is something called the brainstem. This is, we call it the reptilian brain. It’s our survival brain. We all have it. It’s a it’s a part of our brain that helps us with new experiences survival, and there are certain movement patterns that are accompany accompanying this survival response. And you may have heard of some of these it’s very big and
10:00
Occupational Therapy. It’s called the primitive reflexes, primitive survival reflexes. And one of the most famous reflex is called the Moro reflex. And another term for that would be called the startle reflex. So the primitive reflexes, and there’s several of them. And the purpose of these primitive reflexes is in part to help the newborn enter the world.
10:31
I’m sorry.
10:33
This is my this is my husband, south. He might he’s actually
10:38
even neurosurgeons. So he’s like listening on. He was. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.
10:44
Sure.
10:48
So anyway,
10:50
these primitive reflexes are important because they help in the newborns, ability to adjust to being in new situations. And so you might say, well, what are these? What are these early movement patterns have to do with straight eyes or crossed eyes?
11:10
Well, there’s a whole group of optometrists in Denmark and Sweden, who have researched this relationship between the primitive reflexes and vision visual coordination.
11:30
And I studied with them for a few years,
11:35
and learned that these primitive reflexes if they’re not fully integrated, they start to affect visual aiming visual coordination. So the hierarchy is that we start with brainstem and the primitive reflexes, and then as the infant toddler starts moving around, being mobile, these primitive reflexes begin to go away, they integrate into the brain. And so then the next set of movement patterns would be things like what you’re talking about tummy time, crawling, walking, and then eventually hopping, skipping, I mean, that’s gonna come later. And so that’s controlled by the cerebellum that’s kind of a higher center of the brain, but it’s more of the gross motor
12:30
control. And then finally, once the gross motor is foundational, then we move to the specific muscles, like the eye muscles, we call it fine motor control. oral motor would be another like speaking, having good tongue control. So there’s a hierarchy in vision development that I learned about as it relates to children’s vision. So again, when you go for traditional exam, what they’re doing is they’re they’re looking more mechanically at the eyeball as a separate entity from the brain and the body. And so when you use things like eyedrops, what you’re testing is the focusing facility, the eye muscles, and you’re also looking for eye disease, both valid and important. But when you start using eyedrops, they paralyze the focusing muscles.
13:29
And then the doctor is going to calculate a very strong farsighted prescription. And he’s going to say, where this farsighted prescription, and it will force the eyes to straighten?
13:40
Well, when you do something like that, you’re actually stunting the visual development, evolution. So but that’s what the classical eye doctor says. Either we use strong glasses to force the eyes to straighten or in some cases, we’ll let’s cut the eye muscle. So we can cosmetically make it look straight. And those are basically very mechanical, externally, kind of treat treatment modalities. And the child is going well, what what what is this about? Why are you giving me this, and they usually shut down, they usually withdraw. And when you get eye muscle surgery, it creates a lot of confusion in the brain. Because this is a key point here. It’s the brain that directs the eye muscles. And so if you change the length of the eye muscle, then the brain says, well, now what because I wasn’t in on this, you know, this decision. So what I think I’m going to end up doing is I’m just gonna revert back to what happened before the surgery. And so then the surgeon says, Well, let me do it again. And I’ll do it again. And the success rate
15:00
is very low, and it’s creating more and more scar tissue in the eye muscles. And it’s also creating more confusion in the brain. And so I’ve worked with a lot of adults who’ve had, you know, children’s eye muscle surgery. And they always second guess themselves, they’re, they’re very, they’re uncertain about
15:21
their vision because the overlay of you know, shortening the muscle has been put on them at a very young age. And it’s not an organic answer of learning how to use the eyes, and the brain and the body together. So, you know, for some people, that’s what they want. Cool, it’s in my approach isn’t for everybody, because what I’m going to suggest for you is stimulation, maybe some experiences that kind of encourage, encourage and the key word here is integration, integration between the two eyes and the body.
16:01
So in this strabismus, which is what the medical term is, when I looked at the pictures, it actually looked to me like there could be an alternating strabismus that the right eye is preferred to turn in. But I did notice in one of the pictures that the
16:22
left eye turned in, and the right eye was straight, why?
16:27
There’s so there was an alternating. And one of the advantages of the alternation is that you are reducing the risk of something called lazy eye, or amblyopia. So let me explain. If one is turned in all the time, it’s turning away from the world, it’s turning away from life. It’s either the child is either going to say I see double, because the eyes are misaligned. Now at 18 months, you know, Alexandra is not going to say that. But the other option is the brain just suppresses the eye, it just ignores the eye. So then the left eye is doing the work. So if it was just the right eye turning in over time, because that eye is in and it’s not being used, it starts to become lazy. We call it amblyopia. And so fast forward to when he’s able to read an eye chart, you’re going to notice a big discrepancy in the clarity between his left eye and right eye, because he’s using his left eye mostly in the right eyes turned in. Now when it’s an alternating situation, the good news about that is that sometimes the left eye is turning in and the right eye is working. So that’s getting the exercise that’s getting the stimulation. So the visual acuity being able to read the eye chart is more balanced. So it still comes down to there is kind of a lag here in Alexander learning how to use his two eyes together. That’s what you’re seeing. And the way I would interpret that is developmentally, his vision is younger than 18 months. Yeah, right. Because when we evaluate children, we look at their chronological age, and then we look at their performance age.
18:26
Now, this is a whole other level of evaluating vision than just putting eyedrops in and looking at eye health, prescribing strong glasses. And I can appreciate your sentiments sentiments on walking out. Because it sounds like if you’re seeking me out, you’re looking for a more holistic, integrated approach. And I’m assuming Yes, again, yes. Correct. Yep. I’m assuming in your philosophy and your lifestyle, you know, where are places that you put your holistic ideas? A medically you’re the traditionally I’ve been taking supplements at night supplements. Organic? Yes. Okay. You organic? What about what about any? Do you ever do any treatment modalities like acupuncture, massage or did acupuncture throughout my pregnancy? Yes. And prior to my pregnancy?
19:29
did acupuncture. Okay. So.
19:33
So obviously, the things I’m going to say to you resonate, and, you know, I’m hoping in some cases, you know, with your husband also, that, you know, you’re going to have to take a more global approach and a more patient approach in this because basically what Alex what I’m going to teach you is Alexander is going to now be in the School of vision.
19:58
School of vision
20:00
which is going to stimulate the potential and give him the opportunity for him to discover and learn how to use his two eyes together. That’s basically what the program is. And it’s a nonlinear
20:19
program in the sense that some days are going to be better, some days may be worse.
20:27
And if you see the eye turning in, it’s a signal that he either may be getting sick, he may be fatigued, he may need a timeout, he may be overwhelmed. So in other words, when children start turning their eyes in there some reason that their system and you know, the nerves and the muscles that go into the eyes, the eyes reflect our nervous system, our endocrine health. You know, I’ve studied acupuncture. And when I learned acupuncture, I couldn’t believe the glands and organs that affect the eyes, the liver, the gallbladder, the spleen, the pancreas, these organs know I’m talking energetically now, I’m not talking, you know, getting a regular blood test, but I’m talking energetically these all affect the eyes. The first second, I’m so sorry. I just want to make sure Oh, is there a chance um, because it kind of it kind of what you said about him. He’s behind and is a chance that since he’s preemie and like you’re saying his visual development may be a bit behind his age, his chronological age because he’s a preemie could he could it possibly get better with time number one number and number two, my quick question was, what was my quick question my husband question. Yes, it because that’s something like a get better with time. It Do you think that’s the reason why he hasn’t? And I’m not so sure my husband can we’re convinced that it actually, it turns in like I do notice it when he’s tired that it does look like it turns up, and I’m not sure my husband agrees with that, let’s let’s address those things because he’s got valid points here. So since I said to you, the, the, the eyes are the only part of the brain that sits outside the cranial vault.
22:19
The eyes have the capability of something called neuroplasticity.
22:25
Me meaning that you can both create new pathways and regenerate. And especially as a child, the level of new brain pathways that are mapping is exponential. Now, when you hit 25, H 25. It’s a little harder to access neuroplasticity, you can. Now I studied this and learn this from a group of neuroscientists. I didn’t learn this from my doctors. I mean, I get frustrated with the high doctors, because they are not open to neuroplasticity. But the neuroscientists are so
23:05
in answer to your question. Yes, yes, yes, yes, you can definitely improve this and add his age. I mean, you’ll start doing some things. And then you’ll notice that Oh, my God, you know, you’ll you’ll notice other changes. But I want to address something that your husband is picking up and let’s see if I can find it.
23:34
Hold on a minute, I’m gonna
23:37
definitely treated like cured, so to speak. Yeah, of course it can, of course. Now, I want to do a disclaimer. And the disclaimer is, this is a nonlinear process. It’s going to take some time. And as I said, there are going to be some days that you’re,
23:59
you know, you’re gonna say, Oh, he’s worse. And then there are other days where you’re gonna say, Oh, he’s better. And, you know, I think that you’re gonna have to trust the process with it. I mean, he’s so young, to be able to,
24:17
you know, to, to,
24:20
to work on this. Alright, let me see if I can get this up on do a screen share with you.
24:28
When we come back to it, it’s always a tricky thing here.
24:33
Because I’m going to show you this picture.
24:39
Yes, you definitely. So you see, my husband just walked up to hold hold on, please. One second south.
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Bow.
24:51
He’s telling us some pictures. Do you mind? Just yeah, sorry. Just. This is also also recorded. So um,
25:01
Alright, you see, you see the bridge of the nose here, this is a pretty wide bridge, and it can look like an eye is turning in. But it’s just because this bridge is so wide. We see this a lot in the Asian culture, right? Oh, and so it can look like the right eye is turning in, when it’s just this bridge is so wide, that actually, you know, the eye may not be turning me it looks in this picture. Now it depends on the distance he’s looking at. So if he’s looking more in the distance, you could take a look at his eyes, maybe take a picture, and his eyes might be more straight. Whereas if you bring him in to see your face, that’s a skill called Convergence, where the eyes actually should turn in a little bit. And it looks as though his right eye is converging a little more than the left. But it also could be this, this bridge being so wide, that makes it look like it’s turned in when you know hey Trish and actually said that he felt like it because I’m doing my husband can explain the flow, like you just said and also like the flap or the skin of his eye? Because he said that when he examined him it looked like both eyes set properly, like aligned. But I don’t I don’t? I don’t think so because I see him every day. And I think you can, based on the picture you’ve seen, I think you do agree there’s an issue? Correct?
26:28
I would say that there might be an issue and it’d be worth it to be proactive and start doing some activities. Again, there was another picture I saw where the left eye was looked like it was turned in and the right eye looked like it’s straight. But a lot of it depends on where he’s looking like, how far away is he looking? Is he looking? What happens if he looks up? What happens when he looks down. So in other words,
26:59
you know, you can observe his coordination or his fixation based on his posture, and his positioning, and where he is looking, those are all things. So another thing to test for would be if that right eye is turning in, what you would want to do is, you know, play a game where you’re feeding him from the right side and see if his peripheral vision on the right side is actually like in other words, what is his response? When you put something way off to the right, does he move his head, because the right eye actually move? That would be something for you to note. Because let’s say you move something off to the right side. And his right, I didn’t move at all, that would be a red flag. But if there was something that he was interested on that right side, and this is going to be part of your your school of vision, where I want you to start stimulating more of his peripheral vision, I want you to get him to have more awareness out here. Now how do you do that? Well, one thing is to change his position of his car seat.
So you know, maybe one day have the seat on the left side, maybe the next day, have it in the middle, and then then the next day on the right side. So in other words, what I want you to start feeding him is different experiences on making him use his vision in places where you might see a deficit, okay. And so when the eye is turned in, or there’s an alternating situation. And this may even be an intermittent situation, maybe if he’s tired. Again, what we do is we do what we call a cover test, where we have an look at something, we cover an eye, he’s looking at the object and then we cover the other eye, and you can start to see the eye moving as you take the cover away. And that would definitively tell you that there’s an alternating situation. If you pressed me on diagnosing this, I would say he’s got an intermittent alternating esotropia that would be the medical diagnosis. But I’m saying intermittent so it doesn’t happen all the time. And it’s alternating. And it’s we’re still in the early stages, where I think his visual development is lagging behind his chronological age. And I think that that is a that’s a I would say that that would be kind of a safe assessment diagnosis, where we’re acknowledging something may be going on, but it’s not like that. Yeah, and you know, I think
30:00
given anything like us are Ganic going on, like something seriously like, you know, anatomical, I think it’s just, I don’t think he got the software update yet. Yeah, right, I
30:12
got hardware, but I don’t think he knows how to use it. And so the best way, the best way to fix this is to start giving him software, so that he’s got to begin to use the hardware in a variety of different situations and conditions. That’s an important point. Because the variety, and also the interaction, where you’re not just doing it to him, but he’s got to have some effect in he’s got to have some skin in the game, because that’s how he’s going to learn it. That’s why I’m potent strong glasses, or surgery is going to make him more disconnected. I mean, it’s, it’s going to take him further away from what you’re trying to achieve. And I’m sorry to say that, but they’re trying to treat a symptom. I agree with that without the underlying, I’m sorry, not my husband started question. He wanted me to ask you if this is normal for his age, and I think it’s because he’s, I think we can and then he said he is not fully myelin myelinated. And it is very infrequent.
31:28
But both of those, this is very normal. And he’s absolutely right, he’s not fully myelinated. And so again,
31:38
if we feed the eyes with stimulation, you’re gonna grow and learn this is this is what infants do, right? I mean, just the changes of so another thing that you can do, if you’re breastfeeding, change the breast. In other words, you’re not okay. So even even if you’re not, even if you’re not, in the way that he’s getting his nutrition, I want you to change the position, and the experience on how he has to engage with it. You know, that’s interesting, because when I do feed him his bottle, it’s always on my he’s on my left arm, and he tends to look in that direction the whole time. That’s interesting. So I want to do it on the other unit. So your, your, as a vision therapist, so I’m training you as a vision therapist now. So this is like physical therapy for the eyes, is you have to be thinking about how can I create more variety
32:45
in his visual processing, sensory motor experience. So the car seat,
32:53
like if he’s on his back, I would, I would do some kind of visual stimulation out into the periphery. Like, I want to see him look up, I want to see him look behind, I want to see him look to his left, but I want you to expand his scope of visual processing, like by 100%. Like no more.
33:19
This is this is going to feed in to the crossing, if you keep me here.
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So his brain is saying give me give me it out here.
33:31
Okay, so another thing that’s related here is something called the vestibular system, we call this the inner ear and the inner ear in the eye are very related in terms of balance, orientation, and fixation. So when we see the eye turned like this, what I interpreted as is we need to create more vestibular stimulation. So rocking, spinning, rolling, so in other words, get him into more of that somatic body movement, circular, up, swinging, rolling, that’s going to help his eyes because when the vestibular gets stimulated, the eyes go from here. If you see my hands, they, they go out. So in other words, this is more.
34:36
He does it to seven, you know, there’s another complaint we had Dr.
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Is that he, especially when he’s tired, he’s very Off Balanced. Like he just
34:47
again, again, he’s, he’s in he’s in a very early stage in his sensory motor development. So we need to get him to work with his balance. How
35:00
Whatever you can do that. And another thing that’s going to help his visual coordination is getting him to do more, I want a lot more of his cross patterning crawling.
35:16
What is like he didn’t do enough that he didn’t do enough of that. So there’s a research research studies out of wreckers, we said the kids that dwelled in their crawling, were better readers than kids who crawled fast, and, you know, didn’t dwell in crawling. So whether he did or he didn’t, or he did enough, and you may think he did enough for you, he didn’t, he didn’t do enough. I’m telling you, he did. So one of the ways to improve the visual coordination, and the near focus is getting getting him to move his right arm with his left leg. I mean, that would be at simultaneously what we want him to do the crawling in the cross patterning and an obstacle course. So in other words, this may this may be he may be too young for this yet.
But with kids that I work with that are a little older, what we have them do is we have them do cross patterning movements, but they have to do it under a chair around pillows. So they bring their eyes as a GPS system, moving their body through space, going forwards, and more importantly, going backwards. So that motoring going backwards, is going to teach him about peripheral, I gotta look behind me. And he’s got to use his eyes to move his body through space. I work with a lot of OTs, I work with special needs kids over the years, the visually guided and visually directed movements are one of the best ways to get them to start using their two eyes together. Okay, and the crawling is the linchpin where they really work on the cross patterning.
Now, another thing you can do with that is have him lie out on his back on on his body. So he’s like a lot and roll him, roll him across the room, when you roll, get it stimulating the right side of the body with the left side of the body. So it’s activating the hemispheres of the brain. Remember, I said the eyes are just the outer part of the brain. So when you stimulate both hemispheres of the brain, it stimulates the two eyes to start integrating together. In other words, the way the out of this is not by trying to force his eyes to straighten is to stimulate his body and his brain. So his eyes now have a pathway on where to go. So rolling like a log. Another one is marine crawl, he got
38:09
off the typing, let’s go with the marine fall, I want him to go backwards, as well as forwards in an obstacle course. Okay, now maybe he does, maybe he’s on your husband’s back, and your husband’s doing marine crawl. And he gets the the vestibular stimulation. And also, he’s doing an obstacle course so that Alexander is experiencing, oh, he’s moving to his left, he’s moving to his right. This can also occur with his hopping. And maybe you hold his hands. He hops on two feet, or he hops on one foot. That would be another one for him to begin to get into forwards and backwards. So in other words, swinging, rolling, moving, in other words, I want you know, a lot more motor stimulation, bilateral peripheral, every which way you can
39:15
hold them upside down, hold them, either the angles, and I want the movement slow. So when you go slow, the brain has more of a chance to digest. I see a lot of kids when riding their bike, I can go fast Dr. Burn, but they can’t go slow because they’re letting their speed be the momentum that tricks them into balancing. So we’re talking about mobility, movement, bilateral integration, changing the positions as much as you can, getting him on his back and doing stimulation getting known as belly swinging. Balancing
40:02
And then I’m going to give you the primitive reflex that’s most interfering with his ability to move forward. Okay? And that reflex is going to be called the starfish. Okay? It’s a movement, okay, and it helps integrate the
40:20
Moro reflex. And so the movement, the movement is his his hands start out like this in his head his back.
40:32
And then he does this.
40:35
And he puts his one arm over the other and he brings his chin in, then he opens up again, and he does the other side. So he’s, he’s moving his head, and he’s moving his arms. And then eventually, I want him to do the same with his his ankles. So his upper body and lower body are both coming out, going out and coming in. Now one of the ways we do this Kidpower, where I work, is we have the child sit with the back there back to the mother’s front. So in other words, like that, and you’re holding his arms, and you’re actually doing it for him, making this move, this would be great for both of you as a bonding. And so you’re helping him do the Moro. But you’re, you’re directing it. So he’s sitting on you, and you’re having his arms and his legs, and you’re just moving back and forth. And you do about four or five of those, that’s a good one to do as a way to integrate that reflex.
41:40
And I think let’s just leave it there, there’s several of them that could affect his eyes. But what I would like to do in the strategy is give you some things to do for maybe six weeks, and then you meet again, and go over what are you observing? What are you seeing? What are you noticing? what’s working, what’s not? What are you concerned about, and then I can give you the next set of things to do, because he’s going to be in a physical therapy program, a school of vision, it’s going to take a little time. And, again, keep the big picture here. He’s in a very plastic state. And there are days when you’re going to say his eyes are really straight. And then they’re going to be days when you’re going to say, his eyes turning in again. And I don’t want you to get locked into that as the results because he’s in a process. We want to stimulate his development. And we want him to organically learn by giving him the software, so that now he knows how to do the hardware that makes that makes lesson and Dr. Will I be just referring to this audio? Or do you do recap? Like do you send notes or recaps of everything you said like this?
43:01
I wrote it down.
43:03
Yeah, here, I’ll send you the Moro starfish. And one of the things about this is that you’re probably going to learn it better by watching the video again and taking notes so that you do a better job at it. But I’ll send you, you know, certain handouts, and then you go for it. Yeah. And it doesn’t need to be perfect. This is not like going to the gym, and you’ve got to do a perfect lap pole. That’s not what this is. This is about giving your son brain food that’s going to help his eyes. And the way you give him the brain food is by creating variety in his sensory motor experience. I’m giving you the combination of my 40 years of working with OTS PTS, Vision therapist, you are actually doing an occupational therapy type physical therapy for the eyes, which is like the best I mean, it’s not even eye exercises. And this is exactly what he needs to grow and forget the ophthalmologists forget going to those people because you’re not lined up with it. All right, we have a few minutes. We have a few minutes left, I have one more thing I want you to consider. And I’m going to share this in the story that that I personally experienced. tell you how I got to this so many years ago, I was working with a lot of autistic kids and they had had a lot of birth trauma. And they had had a lot of I turn I turn in I turn out and the OT said to me, you know, I think you ought to go back to massage school and learn this osteopathic technique called cranial sacral therapy. Have you ever heard I think he’s heard of cranial? Yes.
45:00
And so, by the way, that’s a very
45:04
evolved pediatrician who would even say something like, yes, he’s so stuck. And by the way, because I worried about autism, but he’s done well so far.
45:12
So I don’t think I don’t think you have to worry about that. But anyway, I went back to massage school and I learned the cranial technique. And I started to do it on kids like your son. And I would say in one or two sessions, their eyes would be completely straight. Wow.
45:30
And the reason is, is because these bones in the skull and back here in the jaw, they affect how the eyes sit in the orbit.
45:41
And so when I would create more space and more movement in the skull and the bones, the eyes could sit in the sockets easier. He’s not too old for that. No, is he not too? Well, it’s the perfect age. In my training, we actually worked with moms who were delivering birth, we did cranial sacral, prenatally at birth, right at birth right after birth. You can do it in any age, it doesn’t. Now is the time. If you were in my city, I would be having my hands on his head. Like yesterday.
46:26
There are a lot there are a lot of great cranial people, this is not unique. So some places that you can look, you can ask your pediatrician, word of mouth, you’re looking for kind of more of a. Okay, so that I want you to go. It’s not like if
46:44
sorry, no, my husband just wasn’t convinced. But I’m sorry. Yeah.
46:50
Well, because it changes how the anatomy is affecting the functional positioning in the orbit. And I didn’t believe that either. I mean, yeah, I put my hands on people, and they go, I don’t feel anything. And so it was a really subtle, it’s called the cranial rhythm. It’s like the pulse, you can barely feel it, you have to get trained to do it. And it’s very subtle, but the brain is
47:18
producing or moving the cerebral spinal fluid up and into the eyes. I mean, I went to a med, I went to an ophthalmology meeting in December for glaucoma, which is a disease of vascular health, you can go blind. And they even said, if you can improve the cerebral spinal fluid flow into the eye, you can bring the eye pressure down. Wow. They didn’t know anything about cranial sacral. But that’s exactly what cranial sacral does. It impacts how the cerebral spinal fluid is impacting the sphenoid bone that sits behind the eyes, and the muscles and the orbit of the eyes. And so if you can create more movement in the face and the head, then the eyes are going to sit in a more relaxed way. I mean, hundreds, hundreds of cases. I’ve done pictures before and after it works.
48:18
Now, is it the answer? No, because you’re going to also have to feed his software, so that when he gets under stress, he doesn’t revert to turning one of his eyes in because that’s when it’s going to happen when he’s under stress when he’s overwhelmed when he’s sick. So you’re gonna have to build that software. So he’s got more options than just defaulting into turning the AI in. But it’s a whole body process. It’s not just the eyeball. That’s why I’m having to do all these things. So I want I want you to spend every day during the day, not just 10 minutes, isolated. This is his new lifestyle. I’m Hans Chang. Yeah, let’s do that. Let’s change the car seat. Let’s do some spinning, rolling. Let’s get him into crawling. Let’s get him into going backwards. Let’s do that starfish. Let’s do the hopping. Okay, I love melons better. I mean, it’s all going to work for you. So then what I’d like to do is in about six weeks, let’s set up another conversation. And I know there’s going to be obstacles, roadblocks, skepticism, and there’s also going to be great stuff. So I want you to bring it all because I’ve seen it all at this point.
49:42
More believe now that there’s there’s some hope that you can I know you’re one more question just quickly so far to me. What are your thoughts about like, I haven’t had an eye exam in about eight years, like getting dilation and I can’t believe I poke myself in the eye. That’s nice, but I’m okay. My vision is back
50:00
I just feel a little gritty. And I want to go to the eye doctor to just check to make sure there’s no scratch. Should I? Is there any issue with dilation just to get a full exam? Or should I just kind of, you know, it kind of depends. I mean, you have a history of, you know, any eye diseases, your mom, your dad, I just,
50:21
yeah, I had a little bit of an eating disorder when I was in my 20s. So I start seeing floaters in my vitreous was starting to generate, and I should have been to an eye doctor 10 years ago, but so I see floaters, but overall, my vision is very good. I know this is a lot. By the way, I have great remedies for floaters.
50:41
I’ll send you you probably have seen that. Yeah. Anyway.
50:47
It’s probably good. It’s probably good to do at once. Just know that when you do it, and you’re not going to be able to read for a few hours, bring sunglasses, maybe have a friend, Dr. You
51:02
know, I just meant since maybe, I don’t know, if my corneal is
51:06
to see if you can, you know, you can say call up an eye doctor and say, Oh, I think I you know, I, I scratched my cornea a little can you look at it? And maybe that’s all they’ll look at, sometimes that’s what they’ll do.
51:19
So I think it just depends, you know, the thing about the dilation is, is that if there’s a genetic influence, then yes, you need to get dilated. But if not, you know, then you don’t have to get dilated all the time. But you know, like, any, any physical, it’s good to get some baseline blood work. And, you know, that’s basically what this is. And then you can see after that, if you need to go, but just take those precautions, and then it’ll be fine. Okay? The job, prepare yourself that, you know, it’s going to be bright and sunny and bright.
51:57
Okay, so I’m going to send you a couple of handouts. And I’ll send you this recording, and go to work you got you got the prescriptive. And then
52:09
yeah, and then let’s talk about six weeks, get some cranial work, find a good cranial person.
52:16
It’s wonderful. Great. Sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll even have mom and the child lay on the table, and I’ll do them both at the same time. And that brings you back to in utero time, which is really cool. But you know, different ways. It may be a 15 minute session, you know, may not be that long. But just to get just to get the hands on to see if you can create more movement in here. Could be really amazing. I mean, it could be a game changer. It’s worth it. Oh, this has been awesome. Thank you so much, Doctor, I really I feel
52:51
oh my god so much. I look
52:54
forward to talking to you again. Thank you so much. Okay. Take care.
53:00
Have a nice day.
53:08
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.
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