Articles:
ABOUT THE CURRENT CULTURE OF SPECTACLES
TO SPECTACLE WEARERS AND EYE PATIENTS
PUPILLI LEHDEN ARTIKKELISARJA AKKOMODAATIOSTA 1988, pdf (Pupilli Magazine articles about accommodation, in Finnish) lataa: OSA IV OSA V OSA VI
MYOPIA AT WESTPOINT - Past and Present (PDF)
A CRY FOR HELP – FOR EASING THE STRAIN OF THE WORKING POPULATION
My letter to a 75-year-old, mildly pseudomyopic friend who is unwilling to give up her glasses, only because of her familiar appearance. (February 2012)
As I now face being silenced forever, I cannot leave this unsaid:
Do you think I have not noticed your systematically nonchalant attitude to everything about myopia prevention that I have brought up, even between the lines, in a superior sense of your own intelligence!
However, you are only one of the billions for whom understanding this is an uncrossable hurdle.
This is the reason why I wrote my six books.
Cholesterol is not the only cause for untimely deaths.
We should stop and take stock of those numerous and unexpected early deaths that are so difficult to explain.
But in order to be fatal, the miscalculation must be in the range of 10 - 20 diopters, and even these pass undiagnosed and poorly understood, while individual stress levels and tolerance also vary greatly.
For this world to have any future at all, then gradually, one by one as is already happening, individuals must be found who understand the secret of this biological phenomenon that is destroying the humankind.
Kaisu
ABOUT READING GLASSES (February 2012)
The aim of everything I have written over the last years has been the prevention of myopia.
At the same time, however, the deep ignorance of the general public of other important issues relevant to refraction has become obvious. I am here referring to reading glasses.
It is clear that optics in itself as a discipline is totally unknown to the general public.
It is, however, possible to understand it, if explained simply and shortly.
One of its areas is manifest hyperopia.
In this connection, we have to remember that it often is only significant enough inborn hyperopia that saves the patient from slipping to the minus side.
A child is usually born as a hyperope, and quite a significant share of people stay as such, even if hyperopia keeps decreasing with the immense and threatening increase in myopia.
This state is well known to opticians and ophthalmologists, and they are able to treat it by means of continual use of plus glasses.
People are accustomed to purchasing plus glasses of up to +4.0 diopters in supermarkets and drugstores for “reading glasses” in order to cope with the increased demands of close work. This has been apt to mislead them and confuse the issue.
The need for reading glasses is specifically connected with presbyopia at the age of 35+/-5 years. This means that depending on the patient’s age, +3.0 - +4.0 diopters are added to the basic value of refraction.
Here we absolutely must not forget that a drugstore is not an optician’s.
Now, apparently the fact that reading glasses may also be minuses can be confusing. If the patient is strongly myopic, let´s say with eyes of -7.0, a reading addition of +3.0 produces reading glasses in the strength of -4.0, thus minuses!
A precondition for improved understanding is educating people, which certainly must happen!
ABOUT THE CURRENT CULTURE OF SPECTACLES
What on earth has caused this regression in the last few decades – not only in Finland but even further out – that has been the downfall of the spectacles culture, which already was looking rather good!
Vast quantities of people are seen nibbling at their frames and sucking their temples, predominantly consisting of VIP persons, generally men.
Everyone afflicted by presbyopia, or old age vision, completely regardless of what they started with, should in the name of their own health constantly wear bifocals (or alternatively multifocals, the optics and benefits of which are however not ideal, or for more aged persons trifocals) at the very least when they are giving a presentation or attending a meeting, perusing documents. Wearing bifocal or multifocal glasses also eliminates the need to keep swapping one's arsenal of specs or, as seems already have become a fashionable trend, letting the reading glasses slide down one's nose. This is something I see as a desire to draw attention to one's excellent distance vision. With the above-mentioned glasses, you would always have the right focus where you need it.
The lower the threshold for starting to wear glasses the better (at the age of 40 to 45 years). As regards our health and the ease of getting used to glasses at least, the very dumbest attitude is putting it off until it is absolutely unavoidable.
If you happen to be one of those rare people who, when looking out into the distance, do not need even a slight plus correction, you could have plus minus zero in the top section, or a plano glass; the main thing is that the necessary plus lower section is always there, or if you are myopic and find it easier to read without glasses, then you should have a similar plano glass in the lower section.
The main thing is that such as people attending to a lecture need not constantly be disturbed by the speaker pulling his or her glasses up and down his nose or swapping them.
I cannot help but wonder that, as much as we hear about the building up and polishing of the images of public personalities, this essential area seems to have escaped notice. But the reason for this can to no small degree be attributed to my own profession: ophthalmologists should play a leading role in guiding people in this matter.
If these people could themselves see how disturbing this kind of behaviour is and how much it undermines their credibility, they would certainly hasten to put the matter to rights.
Personally, when I am forced to watch a speaker who keeps pulling his or her glasses up and down numerous times, I for one lose my concentration on the actual message.
And how tortuous it is to see speakers who, squinting their faces, try to cope with their printouts, images etc. despite their defect. By squinting your eyes and frowning it is possible to achieve a so-called stenopaic, pinhole, which will get you through even the smallest print, but what is the price? It most definitively will not make anyone look younger.
A restful expression and a peaceful countenance are a much more pleasant sight.
In addition to this aesthetic problem, I cannot stress enough the great importance appropriate glasses have for the wellbeing of the whole body and autonomous balance. This theme would deserve a whole book dedicated to it.
A "manager" waving his glasses about by the temple and leaning back his chair may think he gives a relaxed and pleasant impression but – civilised people will not eat their frames!
Turku 6 September 2007
Kaisu Viikari
TO SPECTACLE WEARERS AND EYE PATIENTS
Most eye troubles and particularly headaches, including their most severe form, migraine, are fundamentally the result of abnormal refracting power. The refracting power of the eye depends on the anatomical shape of the eyeball which is hereditary like all other physical features. All visual concentration but especially close work requires a change in the shape of the lens inside the eye, and this change is made possibly by the ciliary muscle in the eye. During prolonged effort the ciliary muscle like any other muscle, gets overstrained and undergoes a spasm of accommodation. The spasm and impulses transmitted by the spastic muscle trigger off the headache. In the treatment of spasm of accommodation plus glasses are always required, or a modification of existing spectacles in the plus direction. It is in the character of latent hypermetropia (far-sightedness) that it becomes ever more manifest as long as a person lives. For this reason, the first spectacles are often not strong enough. To ensure that the treatment is effective and brings about the desired result, the strongest possible lenses should be prescribed at the beginning. Even in the best cases the glasses usually only correct a fraction of the true defect, concealed in the background, and only a part of that which has already been detected in examination. In the conditions of every day life it is not possible right away to wear glasses that fully correct the fault. An eye which has for years behaved in a certain way automatically persists in its error. For this reason it is necessary to begin with glasses with a smaller plus value and by stages introduce stronger ones as soon as possible. The release of the spasm can be accelerated if two pairs of glasses are used, or bifocal lenses; perhaps even several pairs of glasses which can be used alternately, the stronger ones always for close work. This treatment may be followed irrespective of age.
If a patient is given glasses with which he can at once see well at a distance and which he makes no complaints about, his trouble will not be greatly alleviated. In most cases the result would rather be adverse, because patients suffering from spasm of accommodation often want minus glasses instead of the correct plus glasses!
Moreover, patients who are given glasses that are not strong enough find them useless almost at once, and the spectacles have to be changed at considerable and unnecessary cost.
It should be plain from what has been written above that a patient being treated for eye troubles must try to adapt himself to a state of affairs where he sees less well at a distance than he is accustomed to doing either without glasses at all or with weaker plus glasses to which he has become accustomed. This phase is of course unpleasant, but it causes no harm and a cure can only be effected at the price of such discomfort. To put it in a nutshell, the more bleary your vision the quicker you will be cured!
It is important to be aware of the fact that to see well at a distance is not the same thing as to see perfectly. The glasses may seem impossible for distant vision, but the patient must first get used to them when doing close work, when they are easy to wear and then he must be persuaded gently but firmly to use them all the time. The patient is gradually helped, by means of close work to get accustomed to the glasses also for long distance vision. This will be the sequence of events in every case.
It is easier to get used to stronger plus glasses in daylight and therefore no opportunity of accommodating oneself to them in daylight should be missed. During an arduous day’s work, the accommodation tends to strain. The strongest glasses should therefore be worn first thing in the morning and for this purpose it is good to keep them on a bedside table (or under the bed) so that they can be put on in the morning even before switching on the light. If by the afternoon the blur is unpleasant, a weaker pair of plus glasses may be substituted, unless there are signs of a headache.
Night driving is a problem indeed, it being far less easy to release the accommodation in darkness and the difference between glasses worn in daylight and those required for night driving may be as much as a diopter or even more. For this reason it is a good idea to keep the old glasses handy for the transition from daylight to darkness.
It is by no means unusual that to begin with, on the first day or even for several weeks, when the new or stronger glasses are worn, the patient suffers from a headache or even a severe attack of migraine. This results from relaxation of the ciliary muscle followed by physiological changes in the organism. It does not mean that the glasses are unsuitable and there is no need for concern.
If the patient has several pairs of glasses of different strengths, when he gets a headache or an attack of
migraine, he must immediately put on the strongest possible plus glasses or even two pairs, one on top of the other, just relax, look around and tryto bear it even though everything looks blurred. There is no danger to the eyes and no one will get hurt. On the contrary it is the simplest and best way of releasing the spasm of accommodation which is causing the headache.
If the patient can afford it the best way of warding off headaches is to have an extra pair of glasses which are especially strong, perhaps 2-4 dioptres stronger than those usually worn.
The cheapest form of bifocal spectacles is that in which there are only half-lenses and they can always be replaced by full lenses in which the vacant half is ± 0; the only difference is one of price. Half-lenses are often necessary when the patient is being treated for spasm of accommodation.
Case 1. The patient is able to wear plus glasses for close work but finds the distant blur utterly unbearable. By removing the top half of the lens the patient can be enabled to see as well in the distance as before and in this way one can continue with the necessary treatment. In order to ensure that the glasses are effective, the empty upper half must be as small as possible so that the patient is obliged to do close work through the lower, plus half otherwise the glasses quite fail in their effect.
Case 2. The patient has become pseudo-myopic due to a severe spasm of accommodation; in order to release the spasm the same principle as above must be observed, but this time it is the lower half of the lens that is removed. (This is possible with a certain degree of pseudomyopia ; for those who had very strong minus glasses it is necessary to use bifocal lenses., in which the lower half has a smaller minus value.) Such a person can manage close work easily without glasses and in doing so is giving himself the best possible treatment. The avoiding of close work through minus glasses results in relaxation of the spasm of accommodation. In this case, the lower port must have the highest possible limit so that it is impossible to do close work through the minus half. Otherwise the spectacles are more or less useless. Depending on the design of the frame, this half-lens can be extremely narrow.
Spectacles, which in any case are the alpha and omega of eye treatment, are the starting point, from which one can go on to possible further treatment.
Patients are welcome to telephone the oculist when in difficulties and to seek encouragement, but not in order to explain that their distant vision is blurred and that the spectacles should be changed.
If instructions have been followed and there has been no improvement it is of course necessary to consult the oculist.
The above instructions are appropriate for one and all, but those who see well in all circumstances, do not suffer from headaches and have no evident eye trouble will find it hard to see their significance. On the other hand, when treating complicated cases all the above points are extremely important.
I wish all my patients to peruse this leaflet before getting
their glasses, so that they may be prepared for the difficulties
ahead.
Turku, February 25, 1974
Kaisu Viikari
Specialist in eye disease
Dr. of Medicine and Surgery
A CRY FOR HELP – FOR EASING THE STRAIN OF THE WORKING POPULATION
I believe my website adequately explains how greatly the spectacles supply of the mankind lacks plus dioptres to ease accommodation.
But a fact that I have not seen highlighted anywhere is the background to headaches that so commonly occur with illnesses.
We must remember that accommodation is muscular work, and loss of muscular power is an inevitable consequence of illness as our general condition deteriorates.
How many clinical pictures of illnesses do, almost as by an unwritten rule, include headache as a symptom: flus, fevers in general, even Parkinsonism, to say nothing of mere tiredness.
I at least have never come across a study attempting to establish to what extent headaches could be eliminated, if in connection with each episode of fever, an attempt was made to increase the plusses at least for near work, and possibly also in distance glasses.
I boldly cite my personal experience as an example: even though I have been prey to fevers etc. in my life, I have never had to suffer a headache.
Another dismal state of affairs of a similar magnitude is the thick "coke bottle glasses" that the VIP's of this world, and commonly also those even in minor managerial positions and the heavily responsible jobs of today, can unfortunately be found wearing, betraying tightness and accommodation strain.
It is heartbreaking to think of the capacity for work, and even days of life, that are lost both to these people personally and the society, as this state of affairs is not managed and under the understanding control of the body of ophthalmologists!
And who would be powerful enough to also open the eyes of the employers to this problem, which would be easy to remedy and could greatly improve the efficiency of work?
It has so happened, that myopia has become the most recognised eye problem, shrouding the clinically even more important issue of hyperopia (If these two enormous ailments can even be compared).
Mankind being - still at least - dominantly hyperopic, the significant lack of plus diopters is responsible for several health related difficulties, an affair even the health professionals have not sufficiently acknowledged and remedied.
