It's Time to Stop Thinking It's Normal for Your Eye Prescription to Keep Going Up
What you can do to keep your vision from getting worse.
And maybe even better? Yes, better!
Image: Woman holding a pair of eye glasses on a city street. Photo credit: Robert Ector via Canva
(This story contains tips on improving eyesight. I am not an eye specialist. I am sharing information I found that may help prevent and improve vision. It is strongly advised you do your own research as well.)
Our vision is something we take for granted every day. But something we would be completely devasted by if we ever lost it.
If you’re like me, you work on a computer all day. Then when you’re on a break you’re checking the news, social media, texting friends and family on your phone. You wear eyeglasses or contacts, and your prescription keeps getting worse every time you go to the eye doctor. If this sounds like you, then you’ll want to keep reading this to the end to get some vital information that could help save your vision and maybe even make it better.
Every year I went to the eye doctor to get my vision checked just to get a new script so I could order more contacts. And every year, I was used to the eye doctor telling me my eyes looked good, “Here’s your new script.” That was until my last check-up.
My eyes were bloodshot. The redness wasn’t going away with eye drops like they usually did, so I booked an appointment with an ophthalmologist to make sure I didn’t have an eye infection. Turned out I was just allergic to my new contact lens solution. Once I stopped using it, the problem went away. However, during my exam, the ophthalmologist seemed very concerned about my nearsightedness. Nearsightedness (myopia) is when you can see things close up, but not far away.
Right now, without any contacts or glasses, I need to hold a book or my phone about 5 inches away from my face to see it clearly. The eye doctor told me I was now in a high myopic stage. My contact lens prescription went from -5.50 to -6.0 in my right eye, and my left eye was now at 7.0 from a year-and-a-half ago.
What upset me was why my prior eye doctor who gave me my last prescription (I thought he was the best eye doctor) didn’t warn me that I was entering a high myopic stage? This way, I could have taken some preventative measures? I didn’t know I was entering high myopia because I lacked information. I think the majority of us lack information about myopia. This is why I thought it was important to write this story. High myopia can cause cataracts, retinal detachment, and glaucoma later in life. Left untreated, high myopia complications can also lead to blindness. This is why myopia education and prevention are so important.
I asked the ophthalmologist what I could do to prevent further vision loss? She didn’t really have much information for me other than to eat right and exercise. That was it. I went home feeling scared and depressed. Worried about my eye prescription going up, even more, every year? And would that mean I could be legally blind by the time I reach my 70s?
I never thought much about my eye health before? I already eat right, exercise daily to stave off diabetes and heart disease. But still, my eye prescription is going up. I took my eyes for granted. Even though the warning signs were there. Blurry vision from eye strain. You may experience headaches too. The good news is, I don’t think it’s too late for many of us to do something about it.
The vision care global market expects to grow from a $125.16 billion industry in 2018 to a $192.85 billion market by 2026 through the sale of eyeglasses, sunglasses, and contact lenses. You can read full reports from Fortune Business Insights and Biospace right here and here.
This epidemic is primarily due to our obsessive use of computers and smartphones, and the strain they are putting on our eyes. And more screen time during the pandemic made it worse. It’s the close-up that is killing our eyes, leading to an increase in myopia (nearsightedness). You don’t realize it, but the love of your devices is slowly robbing you of your eyesight. This is not just a growing problem in adults. This is becoming a huge problem for children as well. You can read more on how myopia is affecting children here and here. We have been conditioned to believe it’s normal for our vision to get worse every year. As long as they have prescription lenses and Lasik to correct our vision, what’s the problem?
The problem is, the eye care industry looks to fix the symptom (our vision) with stronger lens prescriptions. Rather than educating us and fixing the root of the problem. What is causing our myopia? And what can we do to prevent it?
What Your Eye Doctor May Not Be Telling You?
Our lack of awareness around vision health is causing the multi-billion dollar eye-care industry to boom. If we knew more about preventative measures, we could do something to help vision loss. But unlike heart health and diabetes awareness, less is known about vision health. There are no multi-million dollar campaigns warning us about vision health and loss. Even though eye care is a multi-billion dollar business. Granted, myopia is not a disease, but it a very preventable condition.
What makes it difficult is, if you’re like me, the very thing you need to get your work done is killing your vision. I was afraid of my worsening vision, so I took time off from writing to research what I could do to save it, so I can continue doing the work I love. And I found exactly what I was looking for.
Not Only Can You Prevent Your Myopia From Getting Worse,
You May Be Able to Reverse It
Wait? What? You read that right. Through my research, I found out, not only are you able to slow down or prevent myopia, you may be able to reverse it. Enter YouTuber Jake Steiner, a.k.a, “The Eye Guru.” Jake found a way to reverse his own myopia from -5.0 diopters to 20/20 vision 20-years ago. Today, he is the founder of EndMyopia.org, where he helps hundreds of people online from around the world restore their vision, some back to 20/20 like him. Jake does this free of charge through his youtube videos, blogs, and website forums. However, he does also offer group coaching with a one-on-one session for people who want extra help. Many of Jake’s students specify they didn’t pay him a cent to improve their vision. But they are grateful to him and should give him a donation for helping them restore something so valuable to them as their eyesight.
Jake explains what increases myopia is looking at things close up. When you look at things close up, your ciliary eye muscle has to contract to bring it into focus. Over time, if you keep looking at things close up for long periods, like when you look at your smartphone or computer, it causes the ciliary muscle in your eyes to spasm. As a result, our vision becomes blurry. We know this as eye strain. The problem is when the ciliary muscle stays contracted it locks up and our vision gets worse. You can learn more about how myopia causes here. Right now, optometrists correct myopia by giving us stronger prescriptions that help us to see better, as explained in this article here.
However, Jake disagrees with ophthalmologists on stronger prescriptions as the solution. Not only does Jake not agree with their solution, he has also proven with his students that we can slowly undo this ciliary muscle contraction and restore our vision.
In summary, Jake’s method consists of gradually reducing prescription lens strength to give your eyes a chance to exercise and challenge your vision in between lens reductions. This is done through practicing what he calls “Active Focus.” We spend so much time looking at things close up, but we don’t spend time stretching the ciliary muscles looking at things at a distance. By doing this, Jake believes the ciliary contraction can be relaxed over time. Hence making your distance vision better. One of Jake’s students, Gemily Mez, does a great job of describing active focus here.
Just as with any exercise (although, Jake is clear on calling them new habits, not exercise), the more we practice active focus, over time, we build our distance vision and can reduce our lens strength. But, it’s not as easy as that. It took me a few days of going through all of the information on his YouTube videos and website to get a handle on what is actually required to help restore my vision. There is a lot of information. But once you get the gist of it, you can start forming better vision health habits.
One thing I noticed with myself. Is that I didn’t look at things as intently at a distance as I did looking at things close up. I was kind of lazy, not really focusing on anything at a distance. I kind of just look at everything and nothing. So active focus is the perfect name. However, it is a practice because you have to remind yourself throughout the day to active focus.
To aid in your vision recovery, Jake doesn’t recommend full lens correction where things are crystal sharp unless you need it for driving or night vision. Jake recommends going down .25 diopters to what he calls with his Jakeisms the “edge of blur,” where most things look clear, but words start to look a little blurry, so you have “blur challenge.” He tells students to look at these words and try to clear them up. If you have a little blur challenge, your brain wants to clear it up. Don’t give yourself too much blur challenge. That’s like challenging your eyes to conquer Mt. Everest. Start off with smaller goals first.
The reason our vision didn’t get better before was because we didn’t try to clear it up. We didn’t exercise our ciliary muscles to see at a distance. What we did was go to the optometrist to get a stronger prescription. Part of this is mindset too. Instead of looking at things and thinking everything looks blurry and becoming discouraged. See what you can see, and exercise trying to bring them into focus. Start gradually, with only a little blur challenge working your way up. The key, as with anything worth achieving, is practice and patience. As someone commented on one of Jake’s videos, “We didn’t get myopia overnight. It’s going to take time to reverse it.”
Jake says the eye-care industry knows myopia is reversible. They have all of the information. But no company wants to fund a study because there is no end product to make money.
Not surprisingly, many optometrists don’t like Jake. They believe his work is pseudo-science. But watch Jake’s YouTube and you will see interviews and testimony after testimony of grateful students thanking Jake for helping them to restore their vision. Since so many eye doctors don’t believe in vision recovery. Jake was surprised to find out about Dr. Julie Steinhauer of Vision for Life. Dr. Steinhauer is part of a very small but growing group of functional medicine optometrists that help to correct vision naturally. Dr. Steinhauer said she didn’t agree with some of the things she learned in optometry school. She feels so many people in the eye-care industry are conditioned by their schools to believe that vision cannot be corrected naturally, but she has the patients to prove it as well. Dr. Steinhauer believes that as optometrists, their role should be to help correct vision naturally, and not just prescribe stronger prescriptions. Jake invited Dr. Steinhauer as a guest on his YouTube channel. You can watch the interview here.
I was surprised. Not only did any of my eye doctors who had seen me in the past not educate me about myopia, they also didn’t warn me that I was entering high myopia. When I asked how I could prevent it from getting worse, the ophthalmologist didn’t have much information other than to eat healthy and exercise. This is because they are not trained in prevention, only correction. But if eating healthy and exercise were the answer to better vision, my sister would still have 20/20 vision. She is one of the healthiest people I know. The woman lives on raw kale and steamed broccoli. And she has been waking up at 5 a.m. to run and work out since we were kids.
If your eye doctor also isn’t warning your or giving you tips on how to prevent myopia. If your contact lens prescription lens at -5.0, you are at the beginning stages of entering high myopia, which is -6.0 or higher. The following are a few tips you can start using for healthier visions. Please note that I am not a trained eye care professional. I am only sharing what I have found online to help prevent my myopia from getting worse. I am also not a sponsor for Jake Steiner. I am only someone who found him, along with thousands of others, on our quest for healthier vision. I strongly suggest you do your own research as well and always seek advice from a professional eye care specialist before starting any eye care program and make your own informed decisions.
1. Take Frequent Computer Breaks (every 20 mins)
This was something I’ve always heard about but never did, and my eyes paid the price for it. I now use my phone less for social media and more as a timer to make sure I give my eyes the break they need. I go to a window and look out at a distance for 30 seconds. Doing this, I never noticed before how many birds flew past my window and rested on the church steeple across the street.
2. Work in Well-Lit Rooms
Your mom was right. Don’t sit too close to that t.v. and don’t read with poor lighting. The glare from computer screens can be harsh on your eyes. I now brighten the room and dim the light on my screen. I also try to work with natural daylight as much as possible. Do everything you can to create less strain and more TLC for your eyes.
3. Go for Daily Walks
Jake recommends going out for a walk an hour or two a day. And practice using your distance vision. I am already a walker but now walk through the park looking way up at the trees looking and the leaves and branches. This is a perfect addition to a mindfulness practice. I just started distance vision a month ago and I can really notice a difference with my eyesight on days I do this and days I don’t. My eyes feel so much more relaxed on days I walk and exercise my distance vision. And I can now see letters on street signs more clearly than I could before. I now make it part of my job to walk and distance vision and listen to a good book along the way.
4. Ditch the Smart Phone
Sorry, but this is serious. Your phone is messing up your eyesight big time.
Okay, you don’t have to ditch it entirely, but use it as little as possible. I was addicted to my phone as much as the next smartphone junkie, but when it comes to my smartphone or my eyesight. My eyesight is going to win every time. No brainer. It was easy to put my phone down. I’m not a huge fan of audio messaging, but I am using it a lot more often now.
5. Staring
According to these vision gurus. Staring is really bad for your eyesight because it causes the eyes to become weak and lazy. We are focusing on blur. Staring is the opposite of active focus.
6. Eye Yoga and Acupressure
Mr. Jake is not a fan of eye yoga. But as I was writing this piece Sir Paul McCartney professed his love for eye yoga in an article by the UK’s Daily Mail. I love eye yoga and acupressure. It feels so good when I am experiencing computer eye strain. I’ve added eye yoga to my morning yoga and meditation practice. And I have incorporated eye yoga and acupressure into my eye breaks throughout the day when I am working on my computer. Alternating between window breaks, eye yoga, and acupressure breaks. You can check out eye exercises here.
7. Wear Contacts as Little as Possible
This is a hard one for me. I love my contacts because I love having my peripheral vision. Eyeglasses make my eyes tired. However, contact lenses are a big cause of dry eye. You may not be able to feel your dry eyes with your contact lenses in because they block your ability to feel the dryness. However, if you must wear contacts be sure to use preservative-free lubricating drops a few times a day. Now when I am not wearing contacts, I think of it as giving my eyes a chance to breathe.
8. Drink Plenty of Water
Your eyes are largely made up of water, keep them well hydrated.
9. Warm Compresses
At night, put warm compresses on your eyes. This helps to relax your eye muscles and keep your eyes moist. You can do this with a warm towel or purchase an eye pillow. Add a drop or two of your favorite essential oil and it feels like a spa experience. This helps to ease tension and soothes tired eyes.
10. Eye Meditations
Dr. Steinhauser recommended eye meditations. I don’t know exactly which one she is using? But eye meditations do feel great when you are lying on your bed with a warm lavender eye compress. You can try an eye meditation here.
These are only a few basic tips to help get you started on myopia prevention. There is so much more information on how you may be able to reverse your myopia so I encourage you to do your research and try these exercises for at least a month to see the difference in how building better eye habits can change your vision and your life.
Through this article, I hope to help bring more awareness about myopia prevention to people who are affected by it. Please share this information with your loved ones. With practice and patience, may we all become myopia recovery success stories too.
#myopiaawareness #endmyopia
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Kat OM is the author of Resilient Love: Turn Your Wounds into Your Wings, blogger, and Spiritual Mindset Resilience Coach. Kat helps her readers and clients find healing through self-love, spirituality, and mindfulness tools to add more peace, joy, and resilience in their lives. You can find Kat OM at: KatOMLife.com | IG: kat.om.life_resilient.love | FB: katOM30