Vision Reflections #1: Are Your Vision Goals “Unrealistic”?

Denise shares a personal reflection on her vision improvement journey—from early skepticism to real change later in life.

After being told her expectations were “unrealistic,” she began to question who really decides what’s possible for your vision.

Listen for the story behind why she doesn’t need reading glasses at age 63.

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Website: https://healingmysight.com

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Transcript

Denise: This is the Healing Our Sight podcast where we discuss vision issues and healing strategies from the patient perspective. The goal of this podcast is to create an awareness of the diverse types of vision issues people experience, to highlight the types of help available, and to open a dialogue between patients to show we're not alone in our vision struggles. As a patient who gained 3D vision at age 54 through vision therapy combined with strabismus surgery, I feel uniquely qualified to offer a hopeful, balanced perspective on the possibilities. Please use the link in the show notes to send me a message and thanks for joining me today.

 Hello, this is Denise Allen, your host. Today I'm starting a mini podcast series that I'm going to call Vision Reflections where I'm going to share some of the things I've been learning over the course of the last six years as I've done this podcast and a little bit about where I've been and where I'm going in my own vision healing journey. Do you ever find there's a disconnect between what you want and what you get? My heart has always been in natural vision improvement. It was something that I heard about way back when I was in my twenties. Soon after I had married my husband, we met this couple who we were talking about vision for whatever reason, and he said he had just discovered this great technique that he was going to try where he would just throw away his glasses and improve his vision naturally. And honestly, I thought he was crazy. And I decided that there was no way that that was going to work. And I think that a lot of times this happens where we don't hear the possibilities or feel the possibilities of something until we're really ready for it. And I had to reach a spot in my life where there was a big enough pain point that I was ready to do something different. 

That point came for me when I was 46 and I was looking for ways to avoid having to use reading glasses. And I reflected on what I had heard way back then and thought I might want to look into that. So, I ordered one of those natural vision improvement programs and started doing a little bit with it. And one of the things they suggested was to be under-corrected. So, I found an optometrist that was willing to work with me and asked if they would give me a reduced prescription. There were a couple of doctors in that particular office, and I saw the first doctor, and his initial tactic was to do monovision knowing that I had strabismus. So, he under-corrected one eye and left the other dominant eye fully corrected, which I only tolerated for about a week before I went in and said, I cannot do this. So, we just kept working with different prescriptions for a while. And then I saw the other doctor in the office who was more willing to give me a more reduced prescription. And as I worked with this doctor over the next couple of years, we got my prescription down to minus 5 and minus 4. 

It wasn't until I found vision therapy and started working with Dr. Davies and Dr. Price that my prescription became really workable at minus 4.25. And I kind of had felt a little bit unsatisfied with the progress that I had made, even though it is progress, until I was talking with my friend Elisa. You've heard her on my podcast: Elisa Beth Haransky-Beck I've been attending Elisa’s somatic yoga class for quite a while, and she invited me to participate in a natural vision improvement study. It's called the Evolution of Vision Natural Eyesight Improvement Study, and it's being done by the International Center for Vision Coaching and the International University for Human Development and Leadership. And the people that are running this study are Dr. Alejandro Gonzalez Heras and Dr. Ainhoa de Federico. And I'm familiar with her work. She has a program called the ClearSight Method, and a couple of other vision improvements coaches are also participating in this study. Claudia Muehlenweg, who I've also had on my podcast, and Nathan Oxenfeld, you heard from him a few years ago, also on my podcast. And I have explored both of their programs a little bit. Also, I feel a little bit frustrated with myself because even though I'm familiar with all these programs and I've looked at them and started them and explored them a little bit, I haven't done the work necessary. 

I'm seeing a little bit of a pattern, though, and my background, as I've reviewed the record that I got from my optometrist that helped me reduce my prescription. Initially, the two doctors were at odds with each other, and I worked more with one than the other. And the one doctor in his notes, midway through this process, or I guess more towards the end of when I worked with them, said that he thought my expectations were unrealistic. And I thought, oh, that's interesting, because that's what my surgeon said also, when I voiced my desire to have 3D vision after my surgery, I could tell by the way that they delayed my surgery and wanted to do additional testing that they were worried that my expectations were unrealistic. So, I guess it's a common thread, and that's how I am. But I don't think you get results on the level that you want unless you have high expectations. And whether someone else thinks they're unrealistic is the other person's problem. Frankly, I think what I wanted to share today mostly is that doesn't matter what someone else thinks is possible for you. It only matters what you think is possible for you. And regardless of what any doctor says about how your eyes are working, it's a snapshot of that moment in time when you're sitting in a dark office with machinery in front of your face under pressure and they're evaluating what your vision is in that moment, not what it is all the time or what it can be moving forward. There's always hope, and that's why I continue to work on my vision. 

Thanks for listening to the Healing Our Sight podcast today. I'd love to connect with you. You can leave a comment by clicking the link in the show notes. I love receiving your messages. You're also invited to join the Healing Our Sight Facebook group. Let me know what resonated with you and how I can better serve you.