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One of the sure ways of getting out of reading glasses is to stop having birthdays. It’s a fact of nature that as we age, the focusing ability of our eyes decreases. It can’t necessarily be stopped, but it can be delayed. In other words, most people will notice in their early 40s that they have difficulty reading.
Today’s guest, Dr. Anshel, tells us it is a combination of a lot of things. We don’t transmit as much light through the eyes as we age, so having good lighting is very important. Maintaining the ability of our eyes to focus is very important. There are techniques where you can keep working on that focusing ability to maintain its level.
The eyes are part of the body, so they will be very sensitive to some of these things, especially the ones that control water content in the body. When we look at high blood pressure, that’s very common. That’s why people have to watch their salt intake. It has to do with fluid retention. That type of thing can affect the eyes as well.
How to Treat Eye Strain, Presbyopia, and Difficulty Focusing
Eye strain means different things to different people. Some people can have a burning of their eyes, soreness or tiring. They might refer to that as eye strain. It depends on what their actual experience is. If they’re having blurred vision, it depends if it’s reading up close or far away. There are a lot of different things that can be related to that.
Because the eyes are exposed to light all the time and are highly reactive and sensitive cells, we find that they undergo this oxidative process quite a bit. Anything that is an antioxidant tends to be really good for the eyes. That includes vitamin E and vitamin C. There are other antioxidants like CoQ10 and selenium. These are excellent things for the eyes to reduce that oxidative stress.
Homeopathic Remedies for Eye Strain
Dr. Anshel tells us that we need to stay true to homeopathy, which is symptom based. Sometimes something will work with an inflammation. Arsenic works with dry eyes. We also have cyclamen which works with tense eye muscles. There are different things depending on what the problem is. Natrum sulfuricum also works with light sensitivity.
It depends on what people’s interpretation of their eye strain is. That’s why some of the combination products might work. As you know as a homeopath, you need to ask a lot of questions.
How to Help Dry Eyes
Dr. Anshel tells us that there are two different causes for dry eyes. Either the person is not producing enough tears or the tears they are producing are evaporating too quickly. The second type where they have enough tears but they’re evaporating too quickly is the majority of the problem.
Most people think they’re just not producing enough tears, but there are three layers to the tears. The front surface is an oily layer which comes from glands inside the eyelids. If these glands are not producing the oils properly, that oily layer on the front of the tears will not spread evenly, and the tears will evaporate too quickly.
We need to make sure that we’re getting enough of those oils and that those glands are working well and producing the oils. Certainly for women, keeping makeup off the edge of the eyelid is a big factor. Getting it on the front part of the eyelash is not a problem, but when you get on the inner side of the eyelashes, it can cause issues.
Interestingly enough, some people complain, “My eyes get too wet.” They’re tearing too much. Many times, the cause of that problem can be dry eyes.
Even though that sounds upside down, the fact is that the brain is in touch with the tear fill on the eye on a regular basis. If it starts to dry out, the brain will signal the tear gland to put more tears in. The tear gland is kind of stupid and doesn’t really know how many tears to pump in, so it flushes the eye as it would when you are exposed to onions, crying or have an eyelash in your eye. It floods the eye with tears, and you get too many tears.
Diabetes Eye Problems
Diabetes, as we know, is a very troubling disorder. The blood vessels inside the eye are very fragile, and there are a lot of them. That’s the problem. They become brittle because of the condition of diabetes. These can leak and break. Blood goes into the eye and starts to clot. Then it starts pulling on the retina. The next thing you know, a person is blind.
In today’s episode, Dr. Anshel tells us a lot more about diabetes eye problems.
