Do People Believe This?

[McAnerin]

https://www.iblindness.org/3282/stop...e-your-vision/

Articles here, as well as "The Bates Method" were brought to my attention in a natural health store in my area. They were advertising and selling "glasses" consisting of a black frame with a pinhole on it, toting that this would teach your myopic eyes to not need glasses anymore. Thankfully, I don't have any patients coming in screaming that we are turning them into eyeglass-drug-addicts, but it worries me that devices like these are being sold while having "medical benefits" attached to them.

I'm all for eye exercises and therapeutic methods, but to my understanding, pinholes and covering your eyes isn't going to turn your -5.00 into a 0.00.

I wonder if stuff like this is even legal to sell.

[Tallboy]

When I hear someone going on about the Bates method I seize the moment and present to them one of my custom made Tin Foil hats, taking the time to describe their benefits.

[Quince]

oops! double post!

[Quince]

After reading the comments, this guy is going to get sued in the near future. He is telling people to decrease their own Rx by whatever amount to try and ween off of them.

"The less correction the better, and especially the more you are able to do without your glasses the better, provided you are also working on using your eyes better. There is no magic formula for reducing your prescription by a certain amount."

This isn't the first scheme and it won't be the last. I just feel bad for the poor fellow who got their hopes up that this could work. He might as well be selling this along the lines of a New Age 'reality is what you make it' / 'the power of mind over body' / 'power of attraction' bit.

He also doesn't seem to understand how the eye functions...

"The thing is with your glasses on you wouldn’t be able to notice the changes in your vision as you do the exercise. They give bad feedback. If your eyes improve their focus as you’re doing an exercise, your glasses will make your vision look worse instead. So it’s going to be really confusing and I don’t recommend it."

[McAnerin]

http://www.myopia.org/pinholes.htm

The "science" of the pinholes. Conveniently from a site that sounds like you could trust.

Really, all pinholes do is create a constant squinting effect, there is nothing therapeutic about it.

These are being sold in a mall, in an actual store.

[UtilityDave]

won't that worsen the myopic axial growth and do the opposite of what is being claimed? (I am still not 100% clear on all the details, so please correct me if I am wrong)

[Robert Martellaro]

https://www.iblindness.org/3282/stop...e-your-vision/

Articles here, as well as "The Bates Method" were brought to my attention in a natural health store in my area. They were advertising and selling "glasses" consisting of a black frame with a pinhole on it, toting that this would teach your myopic eyes to not need glasses anymore. Thankfully, I don't have any patients coming in screaming that we are turning them into eyeglass-drug-addicts, but it worries me that devices like these are being sold while having "medical benefits" attached to them.

I'm all for eye exercises and therapeutic methods, but to my understanding, pinholes and covering your eyes isn't going to turn your -5.00 into a 0.00.

I wonder if stuff like this is even legal to sell.

Several entrepreneurs have marketed "pyramid" or "pinhole" glasses consisting of opaque material with multiple slits or perforations. The "technology" involved has been known for centuries and was used before glass lenses were invented. Light passing through a small hole (or holes) is restricted to rays coming straight from the viewed object; these rays do not need focusing to bring them to a point. Modern promoters claim their products are better than conventional lenses. Actually, both reduce the focus effort needed to read, but pinhole glasses are much less useful because they restrict contrast, brightness, and the field of view [38]. Worn as sunglasses, they can even be harmful because the holes allow damaging ultraviolet rays to reach the eye.

http://www.quackwatch.com/01Quackery.../eyequack.html

http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article...icleid=2166618

[Steve Machol]

Also these links:

Can Eye Exercises Improve Vision?
http://www.netasia.net/users/truehea...0Exercises.htm


Fallacies of the Bates System
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/bates.html

The bottom line is that if this really worked, then people would have been using this method to get rid of their myopia and glasses for many decades now. It doesn't and they haven't.

[rbaker]

Proof that you can easily pull the wool over the eyes of the public, again and again. You will never go broke by selling a promise and delivering nothing because there is a sucker born every minute.

[pknsbeans]

You will never go broke by selling a promise and delivering nothing because there is a sucker born every minute.

Needs to be on one of those motivational pictures.


(i apologize. i don't know how to size images)

[Chris Ryser]

The Bates method is an alternative therapy aimed at improving eyesight. Eye-care physician William Horatio Bates, M.D. (1860–1931) attributed nearly all sight problems to habitual strain of the eyes, and felt that glasses were harmful and never necessary. Bates self-published a book, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, as well as a magazine, Better Eyesight Magazine, (and earlier collaborated with Bernarr MacFadden on a correspondence course) detailing his approach to helping people relax such "strain", and thus, he claimed, improve their sight. His techniques centered on visualization and movement. He placed particular emphasis on imagining black letters and marks, and the movement of such. He also felt that exposing the eyes to sunlight would help alleviate the "strain".<sup>[1]

source;</sup>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method

[Robert Martellaro]

The pattern is common: a new paranormal claim or movement turns out to be a very old one, debunked long ago, long enough for the debunking to be forgotten.

http://jeromekahn123.tripod.com/spiritualism/id2.html

[pknsbeans]

http://jeromekahn123.tripod.com/spiritualism/id2.html

Oof. Doesn't speak well of the chiropractic profession.