Hey, [s2Get user_field=”first_name” /].  🙂

Let’s take a moment today to add a bit more to your toolbox of habits.

At this point, some of the dust might be starting to settle.  We’ve basically overcome all the big challenges.  You have two lowered prescriptions, covering both your close-up and distance needs.  You’ve opened your eyes to the realities of for-profit optometry, and you know how to measure, you know when your eyes feel strained.

And best of all, you’re very likely to already see some improvements.

To be fair and not overstate my awesome-ness, this is all your doing.  That and initially we tend to get more traction since you’re getting rid of an overprescription, and are finally doing something about al that massive daily eye strain (that you used to live with, unknowingly).

So now we’re getting into more tweaking of the details.

Details are important.  The big picture I cover in the blog too, for those who won’t commit to this proper program.  Anybody can get the basics, and get on to improve their eyesight.

But, the detail …

If it took me half a decade to get the basics, it may well have taken just as long (or longer) to fine tune all the little things that make progress consistent, and cover all the various strange things that happen along the way.

To that end, let’s revisit your prescriptions today.

Action Items

Since I first started my vision improvement journey with no intention of what it has become today, I didn’t do many of the things I recommend you do.

For example, I didn’t really keep a log.

Neither did my first few participants, way before the Internet site.  This created some problems down the line.

Most notably, troubleshooting is really hard, without data.

“I feel like I haven’t been improving”, was a common one.  But how can we be sure?  So we’d go dig around drawers for past prescriptions, trying to piece together a picture.  That wasn’t very effective at all.

This is why I push for you to do logs.  It’s like a ship’s sonar, mapping the ocean floor.

If I have access to your log, then we can look at how progress happened, when it was faster, when it slowed down, what prescriptions you were using, and hopefully notes about your habits at the time.  So often students don’t even need my help to piece things together, when they have a good log.

For your long term habits, to help make sure you stick with it and always feel good about progress, let’s add something to the log:

1. How is your differential prescription now, compared to when you started?

You want to answer this question every 4-6 weeks, for yourself.  Has centimeter improved?  By how much?

Also check out your differential prescription on the Snellen chart.  Anything change there?  Sometimes centimeter and eye chart results change at different rates.  You might find that you can suddenly see a whole lot better on the eye chart, even with that significantly reduced prescription.

That’s often a sign that it’s time to soon be looking at your normalized prescription, and reducing that as well.

Remember, 4-6 weeks.  Don’t make prescription changes in less time than that minimum. (unless there’s discomfort or other pressing reasons)

And the other piece?

2.  How is your normalized prescription right now?

Check the eye chart.  Go outside, and find yourself a good easy landmark, and written text that will be there weeks and months from now.  Take note of your eye chart results and the outdoor sign result (the latter, obviously somewhat subjective – it’s meant to be)

Realize that progress is organic, not linear.  Sometimes your centimeter improves, other times your un-accomodated distance vision.  Sometimes you get a sudden spurt of progress, other times things don’t seem to move at all.  The longer you have a chart of it all, the more a rhythm will reveal itself.

Know that rhythm and especially if you start with high myopia, you’ll be like the wise professor by the time you have the first few prescription changes.  And the more you know what to expect, the easier it will be to enjoy and appreciate as things turn out as expected.

Take care of those log items, and then we’ll soon look at your distance totals next.

Cheers,

-Jake

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