It sounded so good to only one lens for three different purposes. You could drive with them, you could work with them and you could also read with them - amazing technology!

After a while you became used to having to point at what you wanted to see. As time went by, the lenses’ power was increased and each time your eyes dutifully adapted to their greater strength, until you reached the point where you couldn’t see anything without them.

That’s probably the point in time when you started looking around for a natural alternative. Is there a different way to deal with presbyopia?

Indeed there is

Vision Training assumes that your visual system functions as a whole. It’s a function of all the elements of the eye. Not only the flexibility of the lens. You may not know, but your lens has been growing thicker and thicker every year. From age 20 to age 80 your lens will double in thickness. If your eyes followed the laws of optics, you ought to have become near-sighted. The thicker the lens, the shorter the focal length h correct?

Since vision is a learned ability it will respond to training like any other part of the body. If your shoulders do not function the way they should, you go to a physiotherapist and do various exercises until they function normally.

So what happens when you stop wearing progressive lenses?

There are several problems we need to deal with.

If your eyes are stressed or even painful, we obviously need to address this as a first step. Eye strain and stress can be dealt with most effectively by applying hot and cold towels. If your eyes are very uncomfortable, you may need to repeat the process several times.

Your near point of clear vision has moved several metres away from you. A normal near point is 15 cm from your eyes. Since you can’t read anything without glasses, we need an eye chart with larger print. The objective is to encourage your eyes to focus on smaller and smaller letters. If there is a difference between your eyes, you will need to work more with the eye that can only see the larger letters.

Most importantly, you also need to reduce the diopter power of the various lens prescriptions in your glasses. You need to reduce the power of the lens for distance so you can drive legally. The good news is that your distance vision usually is the first to come back. Your reading prescription needs to be reduced so you can read 12 point print clearly. It is important that the print is crystal clear and not just readable.

You will do reading exercises with your reduced-power ready-made glasses until you can read 4 point print easily. Then you go back and buy another pair of ready-made glasses which allows you to read 12 point print clearly. You continue to reduce your diopter power until you can read 4 point print with + 1.00 diopter glasses. Then you can read 10 and 11 point print easily without glasses.

If there is a difference between your eyes, i.e., one eyes near point for reading is further away than the other’s you need to exercise more with the eye that reads the furthest away until both eyes are equal. This is especially important if you use ready-made reading glasses since they have equal power for both eyes.

How long will it take?

Of course, it depends on how strong your progressive lenses are, especially the stronger reading lens. If the reading prescription is + 2.50 or less, then the process will not take long. Essentially, your eyes will take a few days to get back to normal. However, if you have a stronger prescription, it may take longer. In some cases, where glasses are + 6.00 diopters or more, it may take a long time and you may need to do it in stages.

The next Vision Training workshops are:

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Canberra

Sydney

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