Eyeglasses and retail optometry are scams

[Minoosh]

I developed myopia in my 20s when I began doing close computer work for many hours a day. However, it never seem to get much worse. So much for progressive (in my case). Since the virus I have barely used vision correction as I need it only to drive. I can't say the nearsightedness has gotten any better, but then I spend a fair amount of time staring at screens.

Recently but pre-virus my workplace solution was to wear one contact lens correcting myopia in one eye while leaving the other one out so I can still read up close. This isn't exactly optimal, but works fine during daylight hours. When driving at night I stick to full myopia correction - glasses, or contacts in both eyes. But when wearing two contacts for distance vision, I need readers to see up close. The one-contact solution is OK during daytime, not so much at night.

Anyway the glasses industry hasn't gotten much out of me. I get by as long as I can with one prescription, until I'm either out of semi-disposable contacts OR the dog chews up my myopia prescription glasses. I've recently met an eye surgeon forced out of her practice by progressive glaucoma, and she's urging me to go in at least for glaucoma screenings.

 

[Steve]

I'm wondering why this thread is in "Science". There is no science in evidence.

 

[SusanB-M1]

I'm wondering why this thread is in "Science". There is no science in evidence.

Having a particular interest in sight, or rather lack of it, I have listened to every word in this topic and I agree with you.
Many years ago, I heard about some supposed eye exercise cure but it was full of holes. What always does concern me is people I hear about who have an eye problem, try to make an appointment with their GP instead of going straight to Eye Casualty. Heard of one just two days ago (neighbour of a friend) whose GP appointment was delayed and when he finally got to see an Eye Specialist, he was told that if he had seen a specialist sooner, his sight could have been saved, now it was too late.

I realise this is a bit of a tangent, but I think it bears repeating.

 

[Tippit]

Recently but pre-virus my workplace solution was to wear one contact lens correcting myopia in one eye while leaving the other one out so I can still read up close. This isn't exactly optimal, but works fine during daylight hours. When driving at night I stick to full myopia correction - glasses, or contacts in both eyes. But when wearing two contacts for distance vision, I need readers to see up close. The one-contact solution is OK during daytime, not so much at night.

This is a bad idea. The eyes adapt to whatever refractive state they're in, which means you're increasing the difference in correction you need for each eye. This can cause issues with eye dominance and astigmatism. You're better off just wearing glasses, and then removing them for reading. There are some other adverse long term affects associated with contact lenses which make them wise to avoid as well.

Anyway the glasses industry hasn't gotten much out of me. I get by as long as I can with one prescription, until I'm either out of semi-disposable contacts OR the dog chews up my myopia prescription glasses. I've recently met an eye surgeon forced out of her practice by progressive glaucoma, and she's urging me to go in at least for glaucoma screenings.

For me it's not about money, it's about the independence I gained, not having to wear a "crutch" in perpetuity just to function. I also play sports, and am physically active, so neither glasses nor contacts are desired. I had considered Lasik years back, and I am glad that I opted not to do it.

 

[Tippit]

I'm wondering why this thread is in "Science". There is no science in evidence.

Besides the NIH link that I provided for hyperoptic defocus (there is another one), the science behind this concept is well documented on google scholar.

It's modern optometry that is junk science, but that won't change anytime soon because there are billions of dollars at stake.

 

[Planigale]

Did Vitamin C modify the shape of your eye?

If I recall that is a major consequence of near sightedness and the actual eye becomes progressively more elongated.

Yes that is correct. The commonest cause of the myopia is that the eyeball is too long. It is not a problem with the lens. Therefore actions focussed on focussing will not make any difference. Most people do not wear glasses before they are diagnosed with myopia and are therefore under corrected and still develop myopia. Near distance vision is the active bit of focussing, distance vision is the focussing muscles relaxed. To train distance vision would mean either reshaping the lens or reshaping the eyeball. For most people with myopia eye training techniques are woo.

Also you do not recalculate refractive error (Snellen) with astigmatism, this is nonsense.

 

[Minoosh]

Most people do not wear glasses before they are diagnosed with myopia and are therefore under corrected and still develop myopia.

Good point.

Mine did develop pretty suddenly when I started staring at a computer screen for much of the working day.

 

[theprestige]

Yeah, I'm just not seeing it.

 

[Tippit]

Yes that is correct. The commonest cause of the myopia is that the eyeball is too long. It is not a problem with the lens.

The cause of pseudomyopia is chronic ciliary muscle spasm, the result of staring at screens for hours on end, day after day. The lens is locked in place by the muscle and ligaments, causing blurry distance vision. The cause of progressive myopia, is hyperoptic defocus, which is a stimulus created by eyeglasses which in turn causes axial elongation (elongated eyeball). The first is treated with rest, and abating of staring at screens for long periods of time, and the second can be reversed with reduced lens therapy.

Therefore actions focussed on focussing will not make any difference. Most people do not wear glasses before they are diagnosed with myopia and are therefore under corrected and still develop myopia.

Not true. The act of focusing while undercorrected is myopic defocus, which causes axial shortening and reverses the process of progressive myopia. The people who develop myopia before ever wearing glasses, do not get axial elongation, ever. They are essentially walking around with a chronic muscle spasm until they're prescribed glasses, and their disability becomes semi-permanent.

Near distance vision is the active bit of focussing, distance vision is the focussing muscles relaxed. To train distance vision would mean either reshaping the lens or reshaping the eyeball. For most people with myopia eye training techniques are woo.

Also you do not recalculate refractive error (Snellen) with astigmatism, this is nonsense.

The cylinder portion of an astigmatism correction corrects for refractive error, and the Axis specifies the quadrant. Where myopia represents an elongated eyeball, lens-induced astigmatism represents an irregularly shaped eyeball, and thus compounds other refractive errors, so this is far from nonsense.

 

[Modified]

Most people do not wear glasses before they are diagnosed with myopia and are therefore under corrected and still develop myopia.

They are under corrected but are still probably doing a lot of near work. If they wore appropriate reading glasses for all of that, most would not become myopic. But how do you get a seven year old kid with a huge range of focus to wear glasses to read and use a smart phone, when he can see up close just as well without them?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

A quick Google informs me that eyeglasses were invented in the 13th Century. So I guess the Evil Optometrist Conspiracy has been around much longer then the Illuminati but nowhere near as long as the Knights Templar.

YMMV

 

[Tippit]

They are under corrected but are still probably doing a lot of near work. If they wore appropriate reading glasses for all of that, most would not become myopic. But how do you get a seven year old kid with a huge range of focus to wear glasses to read and use a smart phone, when he can see up close just as well without them?

Just taking breaks and spending more time outside would be sufficient. I think most if not all myopia symptoms in the absence of lens correction boils down to ciliary spasm, I don't think axial elongation generally occurs absent the actual wearing of lenses. In other words, if you never start wearing glasses, you should probably never need glasses (although you may need to prevent your ciliary muscle from chronic spasm). One possible counterpoint to this is that babies are born hyperopic, and then their eyes become emmetropic over time, so maybe elongation/shorting occurs for other reasons outside of refractive stimulus.

Interestingly enough, according to the diopter wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioptre

In humans, the total optical power of the relaxed eye is approximately 60 dioptres.[6][7] The cornea accounts for approximately two-thirds of this refractive power (about 40 dioptres) and the crystalline lens contributes the remaining one-third (about 20 dioptres).[6] In focusing, the ciliary muscle contracts to reduce the tension or stress transferred to the lens by the suspensory ligaments. This results in increased convexity of the lens which in turn increases the optical power of the eye. The amplitude of accommodation is about 11 to 16 dioptres at age 15, decreasing to about 10 dioptres at age 25, and to around 1 dioptre above age 60.

So for young and middle aged people, ciliary spasm is more than enough to account for severe myopia symptoms, given that range.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

A quick Google informs me that eyeglasses were invented in the 13th Century. So I guess the Evil Optometrist Conspiracy has been around much longer then the Illuminati but nowhere near as long as the Knights Templar. YMMV

Don't be silly. Sean Connery is a time traveller whom Umberto Eco sent back to the 13th Century, in Name of the Rose, to start the Evil Optometrist Conspiracy back then.

He is a war with the billions of people who have had eye surgery (Radial keratotomy) to cure myopia, so they don't need glasses anymore. (Which means this conspiracy is complete crap)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_keratotomy#History

 

[Modified]

A quick Google informs me that eyeglasses were invented in the 13th Century. So I guess the Evil Optometrist Conspiracy has been around much longer then the Illuminati but nowhere near as long as the Knights Templar.

YMMV

A quick Google informs me that rates of myopia and high myopia among children in the US are more than double what they were in 1960. In Asian countries, a similar change occurred between 2000 and 2020. Sure, some people would need significant correction even if they did everything right, but that number is quite small.

I don't think it's a conspiracy, just a lack of emphasis on prevention/reduction of progressive myopia.

 

[Tippit]

A quick Google informs me that rates of myopia and high myopia among children in the US are more than double what they were in 1960. In Asian countries, a similar change occurred between 2000 and 2020. Sure, some people would need significant correction even if they did everything right, but that number is quite small.

I don't think it's a conspiracy, just a lack of emphasis on prevention/reduction of progressive myopia.

Its a conspiracy to the extent that If I and others have this information, it’s likely that the executives at Luxottica have it, and would be interested in suppressing it. I doubt most optometrists are aware of it, but most of them would probably be unsympathetic as it represents a conflict of interests.

I read of some proposed legislation to outlaw online prescription eyeglass sales, or require authenticated prescriptions, which would effectively prohibit reduced lens therapy if enacted. I queried a local Walmart optometrist about whether she would give me some custom lenses without a prescription, and she flatly declined.

So there are definitely some people interested in strictly controlling the pieces of plastic we put over our eyes, even if they’re unlikely to have any luck in the near future. I ordered -1.75, -1.5, -1.25, -1, and -.75 lenses from Zenni, all for roughly $100 total! Best money I ever spent. I never even used the -.75 frames much because I decided that my uncorrected vision was good enough around -1 diopter to retire my concave lenses once and for all.


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[Cosmic Yak]

A quick Google informs me that rates of myopia and high myopia among children in the US are more than double what they were in 1960. In Asian countries, a similar change occurred between 2000 and 2020. Sure, some people would need significant correction even if they did everything right, but that number is quite small.

I don't think it's a conspiracy, just a lack of emphasis on prevention/reduction of progressive myopia.

Could this increase simply be a result of better and more widespread eyesight testing?

 

[zooterkin]

Don't be silly. Sean Connery is a time traveller whom Umberto Eco sent back to the 13th Century, in Name of the Rose, to start the Evil Optometrist Conspiracy back then.

14th, sorry.

 

[zooterkin]

Just taking breaks and spending more time outside would be sufficient. I think most if not all myopia symptoms in the absence of lens correction boils down to ciliary spasm, I don't think axial elongation generally occurs absent the actual wearing of lenses. In other words, if you never start wearing glasses, you should probably never need glasses

Why would anyone start wearing glasses if they didn’t need them?

 

[Darat]

Why would anyone start wearing glasses if they didn’t need them?

I hit 50 before needing glasses at all. Which apparently isn’t too bad considering I have read for hours every day of my life and have also been stuck in front of a screen since I started working. I’m shortsighted and it isn’t that bad that I need glasses for driving but that is the only time I do wear them. Strangely my last prescription found one eye to no longer need correcting, whilst the other had got worse. I asked the optician why it had got “better” and she had no idea.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Why would anyone start wearing glasses if they didn’t need them?

The Evil Optometrist Conspiracy?