what causes and does not cause astigmatism
The following is an excerpt from an email between me and a potential patient, who has wasted a lot of time and money doing “eye exercises” and taking “vitamins” and doing other (ridiculous) things to “reduce his astigmatism.”
I really think it is terrrible how unethical pseudo-doctors (almost never MDs) try to prey on the public’s ignorance about myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia, and astigmatism to take their money so they can “fix their vision without a laser!”
The stupid “see clearly method” ads you hear on the radio are by a company that keeps going bankrupt every few years or is asked to stop doing business by the attorney general’s office after ripping off thousands of people for worthless “eye exercises” to make their vision better, and then just reopen every couple of years and start ripping people off all over again!
“Eye exercises” can only help a VERY LIMITED SUBSET OF VISION PROBLEMS, mostly pediatric patients with a “high AC/A ratio,” people with accomodative problems, etc., adults with convergence insufficiency, etc.–NOT MOST PEOPLE WITH GLASSES!
Here is the exchange:
PATIENT:
To answer your question of how can exercise help with Astigmitism, I imagine you’ve never read Bates book, “Sight Without Glasses”, but he believed that the external eye muscles being in a chronic state of contraction due to stress and improper eye usage, such as reading in poor light, straining the eye muscles by reading for too long without a break (extended periods of focusing at a fixed distance) cause the complete eyeball to change shape, either shorter or longer, thereby changing the focal point and causing vision problems. I think he believed that Astigmatism is caused by unequal pulling of those muscles (maybe external oblique) and causes the mis-shaping of the eye. I understand that you have no belief in these things, but I feel they have slowed the progression.
Dr. Chynn:
this is absolute, unmitigated nonsense
astigmatism is not caused by your eye muscles pulling anything out of shape
your eye muscles insert on the sclera, which is the white part of the eye
astigmastism is an irregularity of the cornea, or clear part of the eye
it’s two totally separate parts, so the eye muscles have 0 ability to warp the cornea
it’s kind of like saying a distortion in your car’s windshield is caused by unequal tire pressure
does that make any sense to you??!:(
i really hate people like bates who are either stupid or unethical, and waste people’s $/time
either he is stupid/uneducated and doesn’t know/understand eye anatomy, which is bad
or he knows and still cooks up this half-baked crock of - - - -, which is even worse!?:(
