Nearsightedness Books

David's book is a very good one and it is a method (like john method) that CAN give you back your clear and sharp vision, other books just talk only about improvement of vision and to be independent from glasses. The book describes the ocular stretching which I believe to be the basis of any method that you will may choose (add also neck exercise and breathing exercise to it). Then when the muscles of your eyes become stronger you may start the retinal defocus with the plus lens. My advice for anyone who wants to clear their vision is to do the exercises first and then ask if it will work or not. Last december i was prescribed a -2.00 lens to wear full time and with consistent training I can now see 'not perfectly' but i have good visual acuity with a low -0.75D. I am certain that additional improvement is ahead and all depends on my commitment and tenacity. One thing remains to say is "thank you David"

JDM

This is the best practical book in the market so far for Myopic eye. The use of plus lenses glasses really made a difference.

Their are few excercises which need to carry out on daily basis. Plus if u take multivitamins from GNC which really make difference for better vision.
Low Myopic eye which is less than minus three can even reverse their problem by applying the skills.

I ordered David De Angelis's book, "The Secret of Perfect Vision," as soon as it was announced, and have been following the program now for just about six months now. The "secret" of the "Power Vision System" that David describes in his book is working for me. I will let you in on the "secret". It is threefold:

1. Thorough extraocular muscle stretching/strengthening/range of motion exercises
2. Rest/recovery intervals
3. Retinal defocus training (reading through a slight blur produced by wearing a reduced, or sometimes "opposite" prescription, or so-called "plus" lenses, for low myopes)

Although I was able to pass the driver's exam (twice) since I "threw away" my -1.50 D glasses 15 years ago, my vision still wasn't perfect. Under good indoor conditions I have been able to read the 20/40 line. Today I am reading 20/25 under the same conditions.

Over the years I have been using plus lenses to keep my vision from slipping (I work at the computer all day), sometimes more, sometimes less intensely. In the past I have always reached a point of maximum improvement, where instead of improving with the plus lens, I felt my eyes simply got more tired. So I gave it a rest for a while, coming back to it when I became unsatisfied with my distance vision again. Basically, one step forward, one step back.

With the muscle exercise routine added, it seems more like four steps forward, three steps back. So it still isn't an "instant" cure, but I am noticing overall, gradual progress. My outdoor daytime vision is now excellent; it tests at 20/20 or even 20/15 in bright sunlight.

I feel that extraocular muscle exercises have "unlocked" my eyes, and now the exercises with plus lenses can "open" them up where they weren't able to before.

Although this book is quite long, its value is in the simplicity of the method presented. David spends a lot of time going over the scientific underpinnings of the method, from experiments with monkeys wearing lenses to the principles of exercise physiology. He puts it there, I think, mostly for the people who insist on having "proof." He warns you that there will be good days and bad days; you have to stick on through it. For some people, having a "scientific" explanation will give you the courage do persevere. Others, I must admit, might find the "science" part confusing, but it is really not necessary. For balance, David touches on emotional aspects of vision, which may resonate better for other readers. At the end of the book he has a practical question and answer section and specific very easy-to-follow routines.

And if you still have some questions, David provides a link to the free "PowerVisionForum" web site (full disclosure: I am the moderator) where you can discuss this method (and other methods of vision improvement) and David (or I) will happily answer them there.

I have read this updated edition of the book and also know the previous version. I recommend it to anyone willing to improve their nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism. When I first started doing the exercises described in this book my prescription was -2.25/-2.5. Well, after constantly practicing my vision has improved and now my nearsightedness is -0.50/-0,75...amazing! The same exercises and principles can also be applied for prevention purposes and the author can be contacted for further questions. Highly recommended!

My Aunt just had her eyes done at Long Island Eye Care... her descision was totally influenced by reading this and two other books on eye surgeries. She ended up avoiding Lasik and going with Mike Sable, a master. No scaring or pain, on visible anything 24 hours after the procedure...no dry eye... go to the Jordan of Surgery in your area if you are messing with your eyes. Cut no corners and read and study to inform this most crittical of descisions.

This book gave me all the information that I needed in order to make an educated decision regarding which refractive surgery was right for me. It is written in terms that a regular person can comprehend, which in turn, enabled me to communicate with my own physician more clearly.

I highly recommend this book if you are considering refractive surgery of any kind. You'll be glad you did!

What an excellent poem writer! I highly recommend this book! I cant wait for his next book to come out!

I have read many books on natural vision improvement and Mr. De Angelis' seems to be one of the most honest books to date. He supports his claims with scientific research. He talks about his own journey toward 20/20 vision and he is easily accessible. His focus is just on a few exercises that will help stretch the muscles and restore flexibility to the eyes, thus restoring them to their natural state. He also advocates the use of the plus lense to assist accomodation. This book is not a Bates book. Although I have been using Bates' techniques for some time, I wanted to try something different. As when you exercise your body, your muscles get used to the same exercises over and over again. I want to give my eyes something different as well. The only reason I do not give it 5 stars is because I have just started using Mr. De Angelis' techniques. When I am cured I will write another review! :)

I've read this book and I recommend it to anyone willing to improve his/her nearsightedness, farsightedness and/or astigmatism. Some months ago, when I started doing the exercises described in this book my prescription was -2.25/-2.5. Well, after constantly practicing my vision has improved and now my nearsightedness is -0.75/-1.0...amazing! The same exercises and principles can also be applied for prevention purposes and the author can be contacted for further questions. Highly recommended!

PS: I don't agree with the other reviewer claiming that "it is just another re-working of the Bates method". It's just not true, but if you feel like, you can integrate both methods!

A no nonsense book about restoring one's vision. Mr. De Angelis has put together his own experience, with all the elements necessary for others to accomplish the same. He does not hide the fact that only those committed, with discipline and perseverance will succeed. The book's bibliography has many good references for those interested in exploring the subject in depth. I commend Mr. De Angelis for making the effort in documenting his experience, and making it available in English, in addition to his native Italian

What a mess.The publishers have made no attempt to sort out a very bad translation of an Italian original.Add to that the author's mind numbingly leaden,repetitious,jargon filled style,and you have a very hard read.There may be the germ of an idea in there somewhere,but getting to it is painful.

It's true, that the book is a pretty hard read, and that it shows that Davids native language isn't English just as it isn't for myself. Actually I needed to go through it 2-3 times, underlining the essentials before I was able to put everything together - how to practice and USE the exercises and what the exercises included. But still the book is different then the others..and I have read pretty many.


Davids book writes about the importance of strengthening and stretching the muscles and especially the symmetry between the two eyes.

I'm just about starting using the exercises...because when i START, I want to be VERY dedicated. But the "eye test" showed, that I indeed have "week spots". You can do the test yourself if you like:

Look and fixate on a small object 2-5 meters away. Now turn your head while keeping the gaze fixated all the way round the visual field, where you are still able to maintain binocular vision (you will be able to see the rim of the eye sockets and side of your nose and eyebrows while you turn your head all way round in kind of a circle). That's very important, for in my case I have a hard time maintaining binocular vision in my upper right part of the visual field, where the vision "breaks up" and gets double. So that's my "part", where I have work to do....:o)

And that's one of Davids main points. The muscles and muscular innervation's have sort of atrophied or weakened because of many years of misuse due to near point stress (especially when using glasses for near work). So the muscles need to be stretched and strengthened and learn to work together perfectly as agonist and antagonist again.



Beside that the book IS indeed a hard read, and you don't need all the information given, and you probably will have some hard time sorting out what is really important and what isn't...it is obvious and inspiring, that David is very enthusiastic about his approach and his personal success, he wants to share with everyone, who is open and receptive. That also shows in his email replies.... he is very friendly and motivates you to go for it....and get back, if you have any additional question. Way to go, David :o)


So, give this book a try....I love the principles in it....and you can still combine it with other relaxation and visualization techniques of course.

I'm excitedly looking forward witnessing my own eyes getting back to splendid health and agility.

With LOVE
Kim from Denmark

Concave "minus" lenses are indeed harmful to nearsighted people, especially children. The medical profession knows this but doesn't tell parents. The public, too, is at fault. Parents demand that their children have instant clear vision with glasses or contacts. But they should, at the very least, ask how they can prevent their childen's eyesight from becoming worse.

This book should be read by every parent so that no child ever becomes nearsighted. The people who wrote the negative reviews below are forgetting that eye doctors also sell products, and most of the eyeglasses that they sell only lead to more eye exams and thicker glasses - which is more money for the doctors. Take a look at the author's website by typing in "myopia" on any search engine and going to The Myopia Myth. READ THIS BOOK!

Donald Rehm, who is an electrical engineer with no credentials whatsoever about optics, decided one day that he didn't like the current theories about causes of myopia and so he would make up his own. The result is this book, and a slew of products with varying degrees of ridiculousness.

He states that eye doctors are only interested in money, and therefore cause you to become more and more nearsighted by treating you with glasses, which he claims are actually harmful to the eyes.
The proof that glasses are harmful? The only proof he gives is that no study exists proving them otherwise.

He insists that the only way to really cure myopia is to use the Myopter and pinhole glasses, two obscure, ridiculous-looking products, which he conveniently controls the supply of.

He claims that the reason you have not heard of these cures before is because of a conspiracy of opticians and opthamologists trying to get your money by making you use ineffective glasses and hiding his products from the general public. Of course, in reality, all these products have been available on the mainstream market for many years. If they really were effective, surely they would be more widely used by now.

Since opticians are so evil, he insists that you don't pay attention to the results of their eye exams and suggests you do them at home. Conveniently, that requires buying special lenses that he happens to sell.

So, to wrap up, glasses are bad. Your eye doctor is not to be trusted because he will make your vision worse. You must read his book because it's the only book out there that is true. You must buy his products, which are overpriced and have no return policy, because they are the only way that you can get better.

Well, he's right about one thing - the name of the game is definitely money.

This book isn't bad at all like other reviewers have tried to suggest. But to show you this is so, I'll have to describe to you what the book is actually trying to tell us and how it is valuable to our understanding of myopia.

From the outset, The Myopia Myth takes us on an exposition of what myopia actually is. And to sum it up, it's a condition whereby the eyeball focuses light such that it comes into focus in front of the retina rather than directly on the retina, resulting in a blurred image. Few people dispute that fact. But in the second chapter, Rehm endeavours to explain that the cause of myopia is excessive close up work. Now, to back this up, he employs some simple physics, which tells us that light rays coming from a near object take more lens power to focus than rays coming from a far object (i.e. farther than 2 metres). Our eyes need to accomodate, or put pressure on the lens in our eye, in order to focus on light rays from close objects. The eyes also need to point inward. Both of these aspects of accomodation put pressure on the outer coat of the eye, and over time, many individuals experience the stretching of the coat of their eye; and a longer eye means that rays of light from distant objects, which used to be focused directly onto the retina now come into focus before reaching the retina, and we have a case of myopia on our hands.

So much is the main point of his book. Rehm does acknowledge, however, that many factors, including diet, genetics, personality and lifestyle do play a role in putting someone at risk for myopia, but the true proximate cause of myopia, Rehm maintians, is excessive close work. Corrective lenses used to treat myopia, i.e. glasses and contacts only worsen myopia further because they effectively bring all light rays closer to the eyes, thereby exacerbating the circumstances that caused myopia to develop in the first place. Rehm then goes on to describe ways in which parents of young children can prevent their children from developing myopia. And here's where the Myopter viewing device comes in. The myopter eliminates the stresses of near work using lenses, that focus light rays from near objects so that the lens of the eye doesn't need to change shape when accomodating, and by employing mirrors that split the incoming light such that both eyes see the same image when reading, eliminating the need for them to turn inwards.

Incidentally the Myopter is also Rehm's own invention, and being an engineer, it's no wonder he should have set to work on a myopia-prevention device. But accusations that Rehm is peddling the myopia by making a sales pitch in his book are missing the point entirely, because from Rehm's viewpoint, myopia (of the everyday variety, barring congenital birth defects) is solely caused by excessive near work. It's only logical that a device like the Myopter be harnessed to prevent it. And such a preventative device isn't offered elsewhere. Why shouldn't Rehm introduce it to anyone concerned that they, or their loved ones, will develop/has rapidly worsening myopia (which probably describes many of the people who read this book)?

In the later chapters of the book Rehm accosts the eye care industry, namely ophthalmologists and optometrists, of deceiving the public of the true causes of myopia and knowlingly destroying the vision of their patients by prescribing eyeglasses that will have to be changed year after year due to myopia progression that inevitably results from using such glasses. Here, it becomes clear that Rehm is a better scientist and engineer than he is an advocate for the cause of myopia prevention. While Rehm offers some valuable insights into why the eye care industry takes so little interest in the area of myopia prevention, his rhetoric in doing so belies his intelligence, and he sometimes comes across as a desperate lunatic trying to paint a negative picture of the eye care industry with little hard evidence to back himself up.

The reviewer who wrote about the Myopia Myth back in 2000 also seems to have missed Rehm's point. As Rehm explains, eye exercises are beneficial to the eye insofar as they relax the strain caused by near work. But the evidence suggests that while exercises can improve someone's visual accuity, and indeed reduce someone's eyeglass prescription due to the relaxation of the ciliary muscle and subsequent flattening of the intraocular lens, the stretching of the coat of the eye is irreversible (just as the modifications some aboriginal peoples in the world do to certain body parts by hanging weights off them is irreversible). Improvements due to eye exercises can be quite dramatic in some people, but even the reviewer from 2000 cannot claim to have entirely reversed his myopia.

While those with Myopia should remain hopeful about their ability to improve their eyesight (every improvement is worth it!), they should also be realistic; this book is an excellent read for someone who wants to learn some pure facts about myopia that few people even in the eye care industry actually dispute with real hard data/evidence, and despite its fringe (indeed nearly non-existent) presence on their eye care scene, I highly recommended.

i have read this book. I find it amusing, but sad that people will disregard the normal standard of care to embrace some flakey theory to enable their denial about there vision. Most eye doctors are not "pushing" glasses and contacts. They are just trying to help people see so they are safe and functional. Dr. Bates as mentioned earlier had some very interesting ideas about eyes. He was not a genius just a person with a lot of wild ideas that sounded good at the time. Thankfully we know a lot more now... Believing what Mr. Bates wrote is like believing 16th century medicine... ie if your sick we will just bleed you until you are well. As far as the individual commenting his vision improved from 20/600 to 20/40...it is possible but not the norm. Most people have myopia/astigmatism/hyperopia due to the curve of the cornea, density of the focusing lense, or lenght of the eye. All these are structures you cannot change them by exercise. That would be like me charging $1000 to take you to 24 hour fitness to teach you exercises to make you 6 inches taller. It is not possible. However, if you are part of the 1-2 % of the population that have a muscular Accomadative focusing spasm then learing to control your focusing system better would help. But to provide false hope or to play on peoples placebo reaction and deny them safe and clear vision is irresponsible and an injustice to public safety. All we need is a bunch of people who think they see well because they use some crazy contraption or did some miracle exercise running over children at a crosswalk.

In short dont waste your money. See an Optometrist or Opthalmologist that is recommended by your friends or family to have an eye exam for your health. In general all they are interested in is to help you vision health and clarity. Sure they would like to pay thier bills and put food on the table too.

Dont waste your money on books and programs without one shred of evidence that they work other than "paid" testimonials and speculation. go with hard evidence.

I have been a vision researcher for the last two decades--never making a living at it (I have no financial incentive one way or the other).

Having participated in what can only loosely be called discussions with this author in online forums about vision, I can confidently say that he is awash in information and sadly lacking in knowledge. This recipe never adds up to wisdom.

Such basics as the difference between pseudomyopa and axial myopia consistently elude Mr. Brown. Without an understanding of how retinal image resolution does or does not impact each, his conclusions are arrived at purely as a result of faith, not science.

Worse, his immutable need to cite hundred year old theories and more recent, but consistently disproven hypotheses puts him in the realm of medically dangerous.

Finally, his total inability to understand what is meant by the "Scientific Method" will serve as his final, insurmountable obstacle, always keeping wisdom at more than his arms' length.

If your child is having difficulty reading, don't buy this book. Take him or her, instead, to a qualified optometrist.