Strabismus and amblyopia: their treatment
It is proven that strabismus and amblyopia, like refraction anomalies, are purely functional problems. From the fact that they always decrease with the removal of the tension that accompanies it, it follows that any methods that help achieve relaxation and central fixation can be used to eliminate them. As with refraction anomalies, strabismus disappears, and amblyopia is corrected as soon as a person achieves enough to recall an absolutely black point of mental control. In this way, both states can be temporarily improved after a few seconds, and their permanent elimination is, in fact, the process of transforming this time state into a continuous one.
One of the best ways to achieve mental control in cases of strabismus is to learn ways to produce other types of strabismus or a way to increase existing strabismus. Typical in this respect is the case with one woman who had a divergent vertical strabismus of both eyes. When her left eye looked straight, her right eye leaned outward and upward. When the right eye looked straight, the left eye swung down and out. Both eyes were amblyopic, and vision was double. At the same time, the images turned out to be on one side and then on opposite sides. She was tormented by headaches, and glasses and other methods of treatment did not bring relief. For this reason, she tuned in for surgery and went to a consultation with a surgeon with the hope that he would take up this matter. The surgeon, puzzled by the revealed multitude of muscles with a possible violation of his functions, asked my opinion about which of them should be operated on.
I showed the woman how to reduce her strabismus, and advised the surgeon to treat her with eye training instead of surgery. He did, and in less than a month the woman learned to arbitrarily reject both eyes. At first she did this, looking at the pencil that she held over her nose. Later, she was able to do this without a pencil. In the end, she learned at will to produce any kind of strabismus. Treatment was not pleasant for her, because the production of new types of strabismus or exacerbation of the existing was accompanied by painful sensations, but this led to the complete and permanent removal of both strabismus and amblyopia. The same method was successfully applied to other people.
Some people do not know whether they are looking directly at the object or not. They can be helped if another person follows the deviating eye and corrects people in such a way that they look more accurately in the right direction. When the divergent eye looks directly at the object, the effort to see is reduced and, consequently, vision improves. Closing a good eye with an opaque screen or frosted glass stimulates a more correct use of the mowing eye, especially if the sight of this eye is imperfect.
In the case of children six years and under, strabismus can usually be eliminated by applying a 1% solution of atropine, which is dosed twice or twice a day into one or both eyes for many months, a year or longer. Atropine makes it difficult for the child to see objects and makes the sunlight unbearable. In order to overcome this obstacle, the child is forced to relax, and relaxation heals squint.
The improvement achieved by eye training methods in the case of strabismus and amblyopia is sometimes so rapid that it seems almost unbelievable. Below are a few examples of this.
The girl of eleven years had a converging vertical strabismus of the left eye. The sight of this eye for the distance was 3/200, while at the near point it was so bad that she could not even read. The vision of the right eye was normal at both distances. When she came to my office, she was wearing glasses, but there was no use from them. When the girl looked with her left eye three feet away from the big letter "C", she saw her better than when she looked directly at her. When I asked her to count the fingers on my arm, which I kept three feet away from the checklist, they so caught her attention that she could see this bigger letter worse. She was persuaded that when she was looking away from the checklist, she could see her better or worse, depending on her desire, and asked her to pay attention to the fact that when she sees the letter worse, her vision improves, and when she seesits better, vision worsens. After several moves from the test table to the point three feet away from her and seeing the letter worse, her vision improved to 10/200.
Her ability to move and see worse improved as she trained so quickly that in less than 10 days her vision became normal for both eyes. After that, within two weeks, her vision improved to 20/10.In this font, the diamond was read by each eye from a distance of 3 to 20 inches. After 3 weeks, her vision for the distance was 20/5 with artificial lighting. At the same time she read reduced photocopies of fonts from a distance of 2 inches. The check was carried out for both eyes together, and for each eye separately. She read the unfamiliar test tables as easily as her acquaintances. She was advised to continue treatment and at home to avoid relapse. For 3 years after the treatment, no relapse occurred. During treatment in my office and home training, a good eye was covered by an opaque screen, but the rest of the time it was taken off.
A similar case occurred with a girl of fourteen who had a strabism from childhood. The internal rectus muscle was dissected when she was 2 years old, but she still pulled her eye inward. The girl resisted wearing glasses with frosted glass over her good eye, because her friends were teasing her. In addition, she thought that such a glass attracts more attention than its strabismus. Once she lost her glasses in the snow, but her father immediately got her a new pair. Then she said she was sick and could not go to school. I told her father that his daughter has a hysterical nature and she just writes that she is sick to avoid treatment. Her father insisted on continuing the treatment, but since the girl did not feel very well to come to me, I visited her myself.
Not without the help of her father, she was told that the treatment would still have to continue, and then she began to work with such energy and ingenuity that in half an hour the sight of the squinting and former amblyopic eyes improved from 3/200 to 20/30.She was also able to handle the small print that she kept at a distance of 12 inches. She returned to school, wearing glasses with frosted glass over a good eye, but whenever she wanted to see something, she looked over them. The father saw her off to school, persuading her to use a weaker eye instead of better. She came to the conclusion that the simplest way out of the difficult situation for her would be to follow my instructions. Less than a week later, strabismus was corrected, and in both eyes she gained normal sight. At the beginning of the treatment she could not, with a weaker eye, count her fingers from 3 feet, and after three weeks, including all the time that she had wasted, she had no problems at all in this regard. As soon as she was told about this, it seemed, the only thing that continued to interest her at that moment was the question whether she should still wear glasses with frosted glass. The girl was assured that it would not be necessary if there was no relapse, but the relapse did not come later.
In the third case, the girl of eight years from infancy had amblyopia and strabismus. The vision of the right eye was 10/40, the vision of the left eye was 20/30.The glasses did not improve the sight of any of the eyes. The child was put in 20 feet from the test table. The right( weaker) eye was covered with an opaque screen. The girl was asked to look the best eye on a large letter on the checklist and pay attention to her clarity. Then she was asked to look at the point three feet away from the check table. Her attention was paid to the fact that she no longer sees a large letter as well as before. The fixation point was moved closer and closer to the letter until the child noticed that vision deteriorates when it looks only a few inches away from the letter. When the girl looked at a small letter, she readily admitted that an eccentric fixation of less than an inch worsens her vision.
After she learned to increase the amblyopia of the best eye, this eye was covered, while the other( weaker) eye began to teach deterioration of vision through an eccentric fixation. It managed to be done in a few minutes. The girl was explained that the reason for her poor vision was the habit of looking at objects as part of a retina that was away from the true center of vision. She was advised to look straight at the examination table when examining it. In less than half an hour, the vision of the left eye became normal, and the right eye sight improved from 10/40 to 10/10.The girl's sight became normal after 2 weeks.