The Engineer's Guide to Ending Glasses Dependency
Are your eyeballs just like mine?
- Begin life as normal, healthy, geeky kid.
- Around age 10, wear minus-lens glasses “in case I need them” for school.
- Annual optometrist visits. The glasses thicken a bit each time.
- Enter adulthood. Holy cow, I can’t see a thing without the glasses!
If so, you could relate to one of the following:
- Eh. No biggie. Glasses/contacts don’t bug me.
- Yep. Glasses sucked. Then I lasered and can see again!
- Help! Glasses… depressing! Contacts… itchy! Eyeballs + lasers… bad idea!
The rest of my body rocks, but my eyes… the most important body parts… seem hopeless!
If you’re like me, and fall into category “3,” you’re in luck.
A solution exists!
Your eyeballs are not doomed by genetics to be worthless misshapen non-focusing orbs wasting space inside your skull.
Analogy time! Your brain is a computer, and your eyeballs are one of many programs the brain runs.
Like any good computer program, the eyes accept parameters YOU control.
Consistently feed the eye program good parameters and get good results!
Introducing a new acronym! Your eyes will thrive with DLL.
No relation to dll files on a PC, but hopefully DLL is easy to remember!
- D = Distance
- L = Light
- L = Lens
DLL. Cute. Got it. What’s your point, Mr. Blog article writer?
DLL in more detail…
D. Distance. The healthy human eye is relaxed and happy when it’s focusing on objects 6 meters (20 feet) away or longer. The engineer’s lifestyle is totally opposite of that, with most eye time spent looking at a screen. But that’s okay.
To-do: Squeeze in “distance time” every day. For me, that’s going on a daily walk, looking at the trees far away. At work, I use the Pomodoro Technique to relax and gaze outside twice an hour whilst at work.
L. Light. Good light makes for good vision! Jealous of your friend who has 20/20 vision? Turn off the lights and see how well they can read an eye chart in the dark! Vision thrives with lots of good light.
To-do: Sunlight is the best light. Avoid sunglasses, get outside and gaze upon nature’s glory. Find a free eye chart online, print it, and take it with you everywhere for a day. Tape the chart 3 meters (10 feet) away from you in various locations:
- See how easy or hard it is to read in fluorescent light in an office.
- See how easy or hard it is to read in incandescent light in your home.
- See how easy or hard it is to read outside on a sunny day.
- See how easy or hard it is to read outside at dusk, or dawn.
- Ponder how quality of light affects quality of sight.
L. Lens. Nature’s amazing autofocus lens lives in the eyeball, of course. But unfortunately, the lens is a forced business partner with the plastic lens sitting in front of it. We will update this business relationship.
To-do:
- Find your current lens strength/prescription. For example, at one point mine was “-4.75.”
- Buy some glasses with teeny bit weaker strength, just “0.25” weaker. For example, I was at “-4.75”, so I’d buy “-4.50” lenses.
If your strength is “-6.75,” then get “-6.5” lenses. If your strength is different in each eye, just reduce each eye by “0.25.” Always be safe, of course. Use your stronger glasses when driving if needed.
What Happens Next…
After about 3-5 months, assuming you feed your eyeballs some good daily DLL, your eyes will adjust to the new lenses. Formerly blurry lines on the eye chart will be clear.
As I promised, this is the “Engineer’s Guide.” As an engineer (or mathematician or physicist), you learned inductive reasoning. If your eyeballs can adapt to 0.25 weaker lenses once, then by inductive logic, they can adapt to 0.25 weaker lenses again! And again. And again, aaaaaand again. And… again. And again. :-)
Works for me. Here’s a log of my lens strength:
| Date | OD Sph | OS Sph | OD Cyl | OS Cyl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/11/2014 | -4.25 | -4.75 | -1.00 | -1.50 |
| 09/30/2015 | -4.00 | -4.50 | -1.00 | -1.50 |
| 12/30/2015 | -3.75 | -4.25 | -1.00 | -1.25 |
| 03/30/2016 | -3.50 | -4.00 | -1.00 | -1.00 |
| 06/25/2016 | -3.25 | -3.75 | -1.00 | -1.00 |
| 09/29/2016 | -3.00 | -3.50 | -0.75 | -0.75 |
| 01/27/2017 | -3.00 | -3.25 | -0.75 | -0.75 |
| 04/17/2017 | -2.75 | -3.00 | -0.75 | -0.75 |
| 11/30/2017 | -2.75 | -3.00 | -0.50 | -0.50 |
| 06/18/2018 | -2.50 | -2.75 | -0.50 | -0.50 |
| 01/18/2019 | -2.50 | -2.50 | -0.50 | -0.50 |
| 08/19/2019 | -2.50 | -2.50 | -0.25 | -0.25 |
| 03/19/2020 | -2.50 | -2.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Obviously, I am still not glasses-free, but I created a spreadsheet of what my future lens strengths will be. Just minor 0.25 improvements every 3-6 months or so. The dates below are just estimates. If I need more time with any particular strength, it’s okay to push back the dates.
| Date | OD Sph | OS Sph | OD Cyl | OS Cyl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08/19/2020 | -2.25 | -2.25 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 11/19/2020 | -2.00 | -2.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 02/19/2021 | -1.75 | -1.75 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 05/19/2021 | -1.50 | -1.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 08/19/2021 | -1.25 | -1.25 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 11/19/2021 | -1.00 | -1.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 02/19/2022 | -0.75 | -0.75 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 05/19/2022 | -0.50 | -0.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 08/19/2022 | Freedom! | Freedom! |
FAQ
Q. Wow, this takes a long time!
A. Yes. College also took a long time. It was worth it! :-)
Q. Anybody else besides you do this wacky stuff?
A. Yes. Please visit endmyopia.org and be assimilated.
In conclusion, use your DLL every day for happy, healthy, myopia-free eyeballs!
I look forward to your comments below!