Back on glaucoma drops :(

Had a early morning appointment with my opthalmologist - pressures were 30 in right and 24 in left. So he put me back on glaucoma drops :(. On top of that I've got pressure at work. 

Anyways I am not giving up - I read this amazing book over the weekend - The Brain that changes itself -- where there is this amazing story about a Russian doctor - and his lines are -- WE SEE WITH OUR MIND AND BRAIN AND NOT WITH OUR EYES.. Wasn't exactly the same this said by Dr Bates over a 100 years ago? Enough talk.. back to practicing Bates method - which is not doing eye exercises but conditioning the mind so that the brain is capable of seeing again. 

Visual Field Test result

Got the visual field test done yesterday - the whole process went pretty well. The machine uses was SITA SWAP - where yellow background with blue dots is used. This is supposed to detect optic nerve changes much earlier than other machines .. The result was normal for both eyes. 

Next appointment with my opthalmologist is next tuesday (03/24). 

Visual Field Test tomorrow

Have a visual field test tomorrow in the morning. This is the first time I am getting it done since I changed doctors. The doctor informed me that this will be a bit different than my previous VFT's - it will be yellow dots on a blue background. Will blog tomorrow once I get that done.. 

Eye pain relieved with eye movement

I work as a software engineer.. so due to the eye strain, quite a lot of times there is pain when I move my eyes. 

It seems like looking/staring kind of stops the eye movement.. at least in my case.  When this happens I also noticed that my eyes feel hard - so can it be that the pressure increases if the eyes do not move? I surely think so. So the best way to get rid of the pain is to move the eyes a lot.. in all directions.. try to trace any object, letter, numbers, anything .. I did this for around 30 minutes yesterday and my eyes felt a whole lot better last night as well as today in the morning. They felt softer too. Will remember to do this whenever this happens again. 

Off my Glaucoma Drops :)

Something awesome happened!!! I changed my doctors - and I see a new Glaucoma specialist. 

My first appointment with him was on 3rd Feb 2009. Pressure was 22 in both eyes. 

He looked at my reports and said that he thought I had inflammatory glaucoma - the kind where someone's pressure can rise high because of imflammation in the eyes. So he said that he needs to treat the inflammation and asked me to see him in 2 weeks and to stop.. yes STOP taking the damned glaucoma drops 1 week proir to this. Awesome.. He also did a HRT eye test and my eyes look the same they did last year - so no change in that. He also said that looking at HRT report and the condition of my eyes, people like me can go on for years without taking any drops !!!! 

This is awesome news. I was a bit skeptical at first but I decided to take the risk. I stopped my drops on 10th Feb 2009. My eyes did feel a bit heavy at time.. but what the hell. Whenever I got that feeling I did long swing which helps me immensely. 

So I had another early morning (9.00 am) appoitment with him yesterday - 17th Feb 2009. The pressure's were 20 and 22 - which is the same as with drops :) My eyes were feeling awesome yesterday. He seemed pretty happy with what he saw and has asked me to see him in 1 month. 

He also prescribed an anti-inflammatory eye drop - Xibrom - which is non-steroidal. 

I will also be doing a visual field test in the next month - and meet the doctor after this. 

I am so excited by all this!!!! This is the best thing that has happened to me after a long time. 

My B'Day was on 8th Feb.. has GOD given me this awesome gift?? The Gift of Vision? I surely hope so. 

Another appointment with my optometerist

Had another appointment with my optometerist on Sat - 1/30/2009. This time the eye pressure was 18/18 same in both eyes. The measurement was done in the evening around 5.00 o'clock. 

My optometerist gave me some good peice of info - With a lot of closework, the eye compensates by tilting blood vessels towards the nasal side. Which is why my optic nerves look kind of funny - normal optic nerves have blood vessels passing in the center. So if I start using my peripheral vision, will the network of blood vessels shift towards the center? How do I use my peripheral vision? 

* Dont do close work (I dont know if this is possible)

* Doing various bates exercises - specially long swing - which seems to make one us pay attention to our periperal vision. 

I haven't been blogging that much but rest assured have been doing my eye exercises. If I dont do these for some time, my eye sight starts deteriorating. 

* Long swing (115) 

* Shoulder exercises

* Sway before eye chart

* Fine print reading

Jan 13th 2008

today too my eyes a paining a bit. So I went for a walk... and just got back. they feel much better after that.

* Long swing - lots
* shoulder exercises
*

Chocolate - Eye pain - relation?

My eyes felt heavy and horrible the whole day. I was not able to do any amount of work..

I wonder why? Last night I ate a sub with a chocolate chip cookie. I also ate three peices of chocolate - cadbury's. Was it the chocolate? I am gonna keep an eye for this in the future.

Jan 8th, 9th and 10th

I have been doing my regular doses of Long Swing, fine print reading, swaying and shoulder exercises. Today (Jan 10th) my eyes didnt feel too good in the morning. I started with long swing and in no time my eyes were relaxed and I am still feeling better (its 3 in the afternoon).
Long swing rocks!!

Jan 6th and 7th 2009

Got my usual dose of long swing, sway and fine print reading.

Jan 5th 2009

My eyes feel great this morning. Is it the sway that I did last night? Did some more swaying in the morning. 

* Sway before eye chart (50). 

* Long swing - Stopped counting. I just do it for as long as possible. 

* Fine print reading - Read two complete Bates magazines. 

* Shoulder exercises

* Sway before eye chart. 

BTW I've started noticing that after long swing or sway my eyes feel nice and SOFT. I just feel the upper part of the eye ball and it is so soft as opposed to when my eyes feel strained. I am going to confirm this in front of my optometerist next time.. Will ask him to measure my IOP before and after a sway or a swing and see how Bates exercies effect IOP. Stay tuned.. I got an appointment on the 17th of this month. 

Jan 4th 2009

Today the weather was excellent - sunny skies with little wind though it was cold. Went for a walk and walked for around 50 minutes. Did a little bit of sunning too. 

Apart from this, did my regular exercises -

* Long swing (100)

* Fine print reading (read Feb 1921 issue of Bates magazine)

* Shoulder exercises

* Sway before eye chart (250). Sway makes my eyes moist - love that. 

In the night my eyes were feeling too jammed - can't move the eyes that freely. So I started 

doing the sway. I did it for quite some time - around 15 minutes or so. After this my eyes felt awesome. I also got a great sleep in the night. Before sleeping I did some fine print reading - read March 1921 issue of Bates magazine. 

Jan 3rd 2009

I had an early morning appointment with my optometrist today - I see a nutrional optometrist. He's a 76 year old guy and is pretty good - in peak condition. Has given me a lot of good advice so far.

Last time I saw him (about a month back) and he informed about about the study that was done on doctors on foods that help prevent heart disease and the two top items that were found to have a profound effect on this are -

* oats &

* fruits.

So I've made it a point to have organic oats everyday in the morning. On the fruits front, I make sure I have atleast 4 fruits daily - fresh and organic as far as possible.

BTW he measured my eye pressure today and it was 16 & 17 in left eye and 20 & 20 in the right. My eyes are feeling great today.

My optometrist does this hair test where he takes a sample of hair and sends it to some laboratory for analysis. The result shows what nutrients my body is deficient in. Here is a list along with the sources of these nutrients.

Manganese - Very low. Sources of this are nuts, whole grains and dark green veggies. I have started eating nuts (walnuts cause they are high in omega 3), whole grains I guess oats are good for that. And I make sure I eat a bowl of organic baby spinach in the night.

Potassium - Low. Sources - fresh fruits and veggies like tomatoes.

Sulphur - Low. Sources - fish, sea veggies. I dont think I am going to start eating sea veggies any time soon but I need to make sure I get fish in my diet.

iodine - Sources - eggs, onion, garlic. I need to make sure I eat boiled eggs. At least two a day.

cobalt - Low. He said that this is pretty common in people whose diet is predominantly vegiteranian. Sources of this are meat products. I think I should eat chicken once a week.

That's all on the nutritional front. More later on the Bates exercises that I will do today.

* Long swing (100)
* Fine print reading - read Dec 1920 & Jan 1921 Bates magazines. Skipped Nov 1920 magazine as the primary theme of that is squint and is not very interesting to me at the moment.
Dc 1920 os intersting - Dr Bates talks about Glaucoma and how it can be relieved via relaxation methods. Jan 1921 issue is on cataracts.
* Shoulder exercises.
* Sway before ey chart (200). Sway makes my eyes feel very relaxed and moist.
BTW I am not wearning my glasses as I type this. Since my vision is very bad, I just go on typing and proff read later. It is pretty interesting as I have to use my memory to imagine what I am writing and this probably is good for my memory :)

2nd Jan 2009

Today I didn't get a chance to do the exercises in the morning did those in the evening.
My eyes felt pretty heavy today.. don't know why.

* Long swing (100)
* Fine print reading - Oct 1920 Bates Magazine. There is an interesting case mentioned in this - a woman had atropy of optic nerve (optic nerve starts losing its fibers - something that happens in glaucoma). She was cured by palming !! This magazine also has another interesting article that talks about organic changes that occur when eyes are not normal - and these organic changes cause disease. Makes perfect sense to me.
* Long swing (50) Did some more of long swing.
* Swaying before eye chart - Did 150 total. Sway really relaxes my eyes.
*

Note to self - the exercies need to be done every single day - no exceptions. And for as much time as possible. - cause the more the time, earlier the cure. When the exercies are not done, the brain switches back into its older ways of seeing - that is by straining, staring, etc.. and this is to be avoided.
Reminds me of a saying that I read in a Astanga Yoga book - Yoga - 99% practice 1% theory.

A note on Long Swing - Long swing seems to open up my vision - its kind of my visual field seems wider.


BTW I own a lot of books on Bates Method. Will post a list of them soon.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!!

* Long swing (100)
* Fine print reading - read two bates magazines (Aug 1920 and Sept 1920).
* Shoulder exercises.

* went for a walk.. in biting cold - its 27 degree F out there... walked for 30 minutes... the day is deceiving.. its nice and sunny but freakin cold.. brrrr...

There is something magical about walking.. My eyes whites look really white and not pale. And besides that they feel alive - they tend to move more freely. Walking is awesome and I should make it a point to do some of it everyday.

Here is the proof - positive effects of walking on intraocular pressure --

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208697