An Interesting Phenomenon

Orthoculogy (or ortho C, for short) is a recent breakthrough method of correcting nearsightedness by wearing a slightly “flat” plain contact lens (without any prescription). I also sometimes refer to it as plain contact lens therapy to emphasize the importance of removing the prescription. (Refer to the site www.theeyefix.com for more information.)

Ortho C should not be confused with an existing method on the market known as orthokeratology (or ortho K, for short). Ortho K is an existing method of correcting nearsightedness by wearing a very “flat” prescription contact lens with the intention of “flattening” the cornea. This will alter the projection of a distant image so that its focal point comes into contact with your retina and thus brings the image into focus. Ortho C, however, does not tamper with the cornea. It changes the curvature of the lens of the eye and the eyeball instead.

You may have this interesting idea of increasing your visual acuity beyond what plain contact lens therapy has to offer by combining some features of orthoculogy with orthokeratology. I suggest you don’t. Ortho C and ortho K do not mix. (Refer to my book Reversing Nearsightedness for more information.)

There are different ways you can go about attempting to combine ortho C and ortho K, but in every case, ortho C would not work properly. If your prescription is mild, in the -0.25 diopter to -1.50 diopters range, ortho C can “correct” your vision. But if you applied ortho K afterwards, it will cancel all the benefits gained from ortho C. If your prescription is more severe, in the -2.00 diopters to -4.00 diopters range, ortho C will “reduce” your refractive error until it stabilizes in the 20/40 to 20/25 range. But if you applied ortho K afterwards, it will cancel some of the benefits gained from ortho C. The amount which ortho K will cancel in this case depends on the severity of your nearsightedness. The more nearsighted you are, the least the amount of cancellation. The least nearsighted you are, the more the amount of cancellation. Your reduction in visual acuity would be permanent—until you engaged in ortho C again to restore it to the way it was prior to ortho K. Another interesting phenomenon is that if you applied ortho K when your vision is normal, your vision would become blur; and your deterioration in vision would be permanent. The only way you can reverse it naturally is by resorting to ortho C. All this indicates that ortho K does more harm than good.

If you wear an ortho K lens after you “improved” your vision by ortho C, it will project a fixed focal length as oppose to a variable focal length (which is produced by the lens of your eye and which is allowed by the ortho C lens). And if this fixed focal length which is projected by an ortho K lens, length B, as shown by the solid parallel rays on the diagram, is longer than the maximum variable focal length projected by the lens of your eye, length A, as shown by the broken parallel rays, it will cause the lens to “bulge”, as shown by the solid line.

Under normal circumstances, the lens only adopts a “bulged” shape when it focuses on objects close-up. It’s suppose to assume a “flat” shape, as indicated by the broken lines, when you try to make out something far away. But ortho K will cause it to “bulge” even when you are looking into the distance. It assumes this shape because the ciliary muscle is not doing anything when the longer focal length takes over the act of distant accommodation. Moreover, it has to assume that shape before a distant image can come into focus. That is, it has to compensate for the minus lens. The lens in your eye has to “bulge” excessively if it has to look at an image up close. It will be seized in this shape if the ciliary muscle spasm. But this myopic shape is contrary to the “flat” shape the lens is suppose to assume for distant focusing.

In a roundabout way, this also proves that prescription glasses are bad for your eyes. (For more information, refer to my book Reversing Nearsightedness.)

Because ortho C and ortho K do not mix, I intend to use the outcome as proof that ortho C changes the curvature of the lens and eyeball.

The First Experiment

The first step in proving that ortho C corrects the lens and eyeball is to prove that none of the improvement from ortho C is due to a change in the curvature of your cornea. The proof is simple. It involves the following steps:

Take a K reading (or keratometer reading) to measure the curvature of the cornea. Once it is determined before engaging in ortho C, take a K reading again after ortho C improves your vision. You will find that the curvature of the cornea does not change. In severe cases of myopia, ortho C may smooth it out instead.

Of all the patients I had fitted contact lenses to “correct” mild myopia, the curvature of their cornea did not change once their vision improved. And of all the patients I had fitted contact lenses to “reduce” severe myopia, the horizontal or vertical curvature had only altered by 0.25 diopter at the most.

That means your improvement in vision is mainly due to other parts of the eye: namely, the lens and eyeball. (For more information refer to my paper Proving that Ortho C Smooths Out the Cornea.)

The Second Experiment

Purpose

My intention here is not just to point out the dismal results of ortho K but also to prove that ortho C “improves” the myopic shape of your lens and thereby improves your vision for distant focusing.

If your prescription is mild, in the -0.25 diopter to -1.50 diopters range, ortho C can “correct” or normalize your vision by engaging in a continuous “draw”. (For more information, refer to my book The Five Minute Fix, which is mainly about “correcting” mild myopia.)

But if you applied ortho K afterwards, even for a short period, it will cancel all the benefits gained from ortho C. It is comparable to how an overcorrected pair of prescription glasses can make your vision worse.

Subjecting to a .17 mm Thick Lens (After Correcting Mild Myopia)

I had a volunteer perform this experiment. His prescription was within the mild range: OD -1.00 OS -0.75. I fitted him with a pair of contact lenses according to specifications for a refractive error in this range. After he removed the ortho C contact lenses, (after he performed the continuous “draw” drills) his vision was “corrected” to 20/20.

In cases of mild myopia in the range of -0.25 diopter to -1.50 diopters, the lens in your eye mainly assumes a myopic shape. The eyeball may or may not become myopic. If the eyeball does assume a myopic shape, it is usually very slight. Thus his improvement in vision is mainly due to the lenses of his eyes—especially in the lower mild myopic range.

He retained his improved visual acuity for days until he attempted ortho K. He wore a pair of plain contact lenses with a thickness of .17 mm. This was not according to specifications. The acceptable thickness for a continuous “draw” is .14 mm.

The “flatness” of the lenses were the same. It was within specifications. The diameter of the lenses were the same, and the material of the lens was the same. And the duration of wear was the same. But an ortho C lens will not work if you alter the thickness—even if the “flatness”, diameter, the type of lens, and duration of wear remained the same.

To prevent the oblique muscles from becoming too tight and thereby forcing the eyeball to relapse back to its myopic shape to length D (if it did assume a slight myopic shape at all), as illustrated on the diagram, the following precautions were taken:

He did not wear the ortho K lenses longer than necessary. He only wore them for about ten to fifteen minutes. The ortho K lenses did not have a prescription, and he mainly focused his attention on distant images beyond twenty feet instead of images up close or in the intermediate range. (The effect of extensive close up work on the eyeball is outlined in my book Reversing Nearsightedness.)

After he took the lenses off, he found that his vision had deteriorated. His relapse in vision was confirmed by my colleague. It had relapsed back to his original prescription. His deteriorated vision lasted for a week without any sign of improvement.

It was due to the lens of his eye rather than the eyeball because of the precautions I took to ensure that the oblique muscles did not tense up. Also, a prolong deterioration after wearing the ortho K lenses for a short duration is attributed to the lens rather than the eyeball. It is easier to induce spasm to the ciliary muscle than the oblique muscle since the ciliary muscle is smaller than the oblique muscles.

He applied ortho C again after a week. When he removed the lenses after wearing them for five minutes, he could see the 20/20 line again. His improvement in vision was confirmed by my colleague. The interesting phenomenon was that not only did ortho K made his vision worse but that ortho C was able to restore his visual acuity in a very short time..

Conclusion: The relapse in vision proves that ortho C corrects the lens when you apply a continuous “draw” to “correct” mild myopia in the -0.25 diopters to -1.50 diopters range.

The Third Experiment

Purpose

The purpose of this experiment is to prove that ortho C alters the shape of the eyeball as well as the lens.

If your prescription is more severe, in the -2.00 diopters to -4.00 diopters, ortho C will “reduce” your refractive error by engaging in an intermittent “draw” until your visual acuity stabilizes within the range of 20/40 to 20/25. (Refer to my book Reversing Nearsightedness, which is mainly about “reducing” myopia, for more information.)

But if you applied ortho K afterwards, it will eliminate some of the benefits gained from ortho C. The amount which ortho K will elimination in this case depends on the severity of your nearsightedness. The more nearsighted you are, the least the percentage loss in your visual improvement. The least nearsighted you are, the more the more the percentage loss.

Severe nearsightedness is due to the “bulged” shape of both your lens and eyeball—both which are too long from front to back. Since your nearsightedness is more severe compared to the second experiment, both the lens and eyeball would “flatten” out when you apply an intermittent “draw”—whereas in the second experiment it was mainly the lens which “flattens” in response to a continuous “draw”.

The reduction of your visual acuity due to ortho K in this third experiment is attributed to the lens. According to the second experiment, your eyeball was not affected by wearing the ortho K lenses for only a short duration and by focusing only on distant images. The same holds true for this experiment. If your eyeball was affected by ortho K, your vision would have been worse. Thus the residual improvement that you still retain is attributed to the eyeball.

Thus this experiment proves that ortho C changes the curvature of the myopic lens and eyeball.

Subjecting to Lenses Flatter than 1.50 Diopters (After Reducing Severe Myopia)

I want to conduct several experiments involving the use of a “flatter” and “flatter” ortho K lens to make one’s vision worse after improving it by ortho C. But in order to make one’s vision worse and worse, it had to first become better and better. Thus I had to apply this experiment to someone who had “reduced” severe nearsightedness by ortho C. But I was unable to find a volunteer. No one wanted to improve their vision and then make it worse again—especially if their nearsightedness was severe to begin with.

Since my nearsightedness was severe, I conducted this test on myself instead. I repeated it over a dozen times, and the results were the same. The ortho K lenses I selected had a varying degrees of “flatness”—all of which were “flatter” than 1.50 diopters. The “flatness” of a contact lens is the difference in curvature between the contact lens and the cornea. The maximum “flatness” that is acceptable for an intermittent “draw” is 1.50 diopters when the contact lens is 0.15 mm thick.

But instead, I subjected myself to several “flatter” lenses. The “flatness” of the lenses used in this experiment were as follows: 2.50 diopters, 2.25 diopters, and 2.00 diopters. They were not within specifications.

Their thickness were according to specifications. The diameter of the lenses were the same and were according to specifications. And the type of lenses fitted each time were the same. And the duration of wear was the same. But an ortho C lens will not work if you alter the “flatness”—even if the thickness, the diameter, the type of material used, and the duration of wear remained the same.

I wore these lenses for one to three days—for the same duration each day as the ortho C lenses, which was about ten minutes. The outcome in each case was that my vision had deteriorated, on an average, by -0.50 diopter. It was due to the lens of my eye. It became “bulged”. If my eyeball was affected, my deterioration in vision would be more than -0.50 diopter.

Unlike the second experiment, my myopia was severe. It was -5.25 diopters. Ortho C had improved it to -2.00 diopters at the time of the experiment. Thus my eyeball as well as the lens of my eye was liable to become worse, but it did not.

I then had to resort to ortho C to regain the clarity of my vision.   

Subjecting to a .17 mm Thick Lens (After Reducing Severe Myopia)

I also wanted to conduct several experiments involving a thicker ortho K lens to make one’s vision worse after improving it by ortho C.

In one of my experiments, for example, the thickness of the lens was not according to specifications. It was 0.17 mm instead of 0.14 mm. I selected a thickness of 0.17 mm because the transition thickness is 0.16 mm. A 0.16 mm thick lens is the turning point in the sense that sometimes it will work but other times, it will not.

The “flatness” was according to specifications. It was 1.50 diopters. The diameter of the lenses were the same. And the type of lenses fitted each time were the same. And the duration of wear was the same. But an ortho C lens will not work if you alter the thickness—even if the “flatness”, the diameter, the type of lens, and the duration of wear remained the same.

And even though the “flatness” was according to specifications, the ortho K lens was hard instead of “flexible” due to the extra thickness. So it created a “push” instead of wrapping around the cornea and “drawing” on it.

Since the “flatness” was 1.50 diopters, it depressed the cornea by 1.50 diopters at the most. It was like wearing a weaker pair of prescription glasses. (I was still nearsighted after I had reduced my myopia; it was still in the -2.00 diopters range. Originally it was around -5.25 diopters.) I noticed that my vision was blur after I removed the lenses—after wearing them for just one day for fifteen minutes.

The “flatness” of the lens was 1.50 diopters, so the induced “strain” was 1.50 diopters. But my vision had deteriorated by only 0.50 diopter. That means that there was still a tendency for my vision to deteriorate by another 1.00 diopters.

I was still subjected to “strain” because I was forced to comply to a longer focal length, length B, as illustrated by the solid lines on the diagram, and it is fixed instead of variable. The fixed focal point is in front of the retina, and it means that the prescription is still undercorrected. But since its focal length is longer than the focal length produced by the lens of the eye (as illustrated by the broken lines), it means that it does the work of the lens. The lens in your eye is forced to assume a “bulged” shape to conform to the minus lens. The lens is the first to comply to this sort of “strain”. Afterwards, the eyeball would assist by attempting to alleviate some of it. It would deviate from its improved shape to its former elongated myopic shape.

But I did not wear the ortho K lenses long enough for that to happen. Also, I mainly confined my focus to the distance, so the impact of the “strain” on the eyeball was minimized. I mainly watch TV from a distance while I was wearing the ortho K lenses. The full extent of the imposed “strain” was limited to the lens of my eye, and it deteriorated by -0.50 diopter. If I was performing close-up work, the “strain” would have been more pronounce because the lens of my eye would have to “bulge” more to compensate for the ortho K lens.

The blurriness induced by the ortho K lenses in the above experiment was more noticeable under adverse conditions such as when I attempted to drive at night even when I wore my glasses—whereas before, I did not have any difficulty (when I wore the same pair of glasses).

Thus my improvement in vision was not completely erased by ortho K. I still retained a good portion of it. And it is due to the improved shape of the eyeball.

Using Lenses Thicker than .17 mm

I repeated the experiment several times using different lenses that are thicker than .17 mm while retaining the same “flatness” of 1.50 diopters. I had started with lenses thicker than .17 mm. It was by conducting a trial and error with lenses of different thickness before I found that a lens with a thickness of 0.16 mm was the turning point.

The “flatness” was according to specifications. It was 1.50 diopters. The diameter of the lenses were the same. And the type of lenses fitted each time were the same. And the duration of wear was the same. But an ortho C lens will not work if you alter the thickness—even if the “flatness”, the diameter, the type of lens, and the duration of wear remained the same.

I had initially intended to use this experiment to find which thickness works best, but it also revealed another important phenomenon. Not only did my vision deteriorated, but it had deteriorated in each instance by the same amount, by -0.50 diopter.

Ortho K should have erased more than 0.50 diopter if my total visual improvement was attributed to the lens. This was proven in experiment #2. In this experiment, I indicated that it is possible for your vision to deteriorate by an amount equal to the “flatness” of the contact lens if the lens in your eye had improved by that amount. So in this experiment, if the lens had improved by more than 0.50 diopter, then the deterioration should be more than 0.50 diopter since the “flatness” of the ortho C lens was 1.50 diopters.

The portion of my improvement in vision due to a change in the curvature of my eyeball was still intact since I was mainly looking into the distance and I wore the lens on average for only about ten minutes.

Since the blurriness I experienced after engaging in ortho K is attributed to the lens and since it is only a portion of the total improvement I gained, the residual amount of improvement from ortho C was due to the eyeball. Thus this experiment also proves that ortho C had improved the curvature of my eyeball as well as the lens for distant focusing.

Conclusion: Ortho C corrects the curvature of the lens and eyeball when you apply an intermittent “draw” to “reduce” severe myopia when your prescription is from -2.00 diopters to -4.00 diopters or more.

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