Eyesight Improvement & Diet

[harvest_table]

Hi friends,

I've been thinking about this thought this was worth mentioning.

I saw my eye doctor this week for my yearly exam and he was quite surprised to find a significant improvement in my eyesight in the last year. So am I, and we discussed it and have come to the conclusion that it's very likely my diet and lower stress levels the last couple years have contributed to this.

A little background. I have needed corrective lenses since my early 20,s. For the last 14 years I have had a yearly vision checkup with this same doc and needed new glasses each year with a stronger script. What's interesting is, I went from wearing regular lenses to bi-focals, then tri-focals within a 2 year period and those years were exactly when I was living with chronic symptoms of undiagnosed MC. So, the MC (and my lousy diet) possibly may have contributed to my deteriorating eyesight.

From what I've read, a diet in whole fresh foods and high anti-oxident intake is optimal for possibly improving ones eyesight and that's exactly the way I've been eating now for a couple years. So, yet another added benefit of eating a diet of whole and fresh foods!

Haven't quite come to the place that I'm actually thankful I was DX with MC but it sure has forced me to make some very healthy changes in my diet & lifestyle and things just keep getting better.

Happy New Years!
Joanna

[tex]

Joanna,



That is good news. I thought that vision only goes downhill, and never actually improves. Thanks for the inspiring information.

Happy New Year to you, too
Tex

P S Are you taking Lutein? (It's a dietary supplement that helps to prevent macular degeneration. I take a 20 mg capsule each day, because of my autoimmune-related drusen. Opthalmologists recommend it, but it's available OTC.

[harvest_table]

Tex,

What is Drusen? Could you provide a link for that.

I'm not taking any supplements other than B-12 for a couple of months which has helped me rally with my diet. My eye doc is intrigued about my vison improvment. I am too.

Love,
Joanna

[starfire]

Tex, I didn't know that drusen in the eyes could be auto-immune related. I found out tht that besides a mild case of (dry) macular degeneration (caused by drusen) that I also have drusen around the optic nerve. Is that where your drusen is located?

Joanna, I would try to answer you question but I know Tex will do a much better (and clearer) job of it, so I'll just let it go but the only treatment offered me to keep the macular degeneration from getting worse is anti-oxidents and the Dr. said the drusen around the optic nerve didn't matter (I didn't believe him).

Love, Shirley

[tex]

Hi Joanna,

Drusen are tiny yellow or white deposits in the retina of the eye or on the optic nerve head. They can be in two forms - wet or dry, with the wet type being an indication of possible serious eye disease. Believe it or not, something like 95 % of people over the age of 43, have drusen in at least one eye.

As far as vision is concerned, they seem to act like tiny holes in the macular surface. IOW, they behave like a functional thinning of the macular surface, and tend to reduce the amount of light available to the sight receptors in the eye. Normally, though, center vision is not significantly affected.

While some people have only a few, if you look into my eyes, (with the proper equipment), the back of my eyes appear as though they're heavily covered with yellowish speckles. My vision is still excellent under optimum light conditions, (with good sunlight, I can usually read fine print without problems). Under reduced lighting, though, I have to wear glasses, in order to read fine print, (such as a computer monitor with a screen resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels, or higher).

Soft drusen have indistinct borders, and as far as composition is concerned, they can contain a variety of cellular debris, lipids (fats), and minerals, mostly calcium.

There is no known cure, and the condition tends to slowly get worse with age. Luten seems to help to slow down the degeneration process.

Here's an image of what drusen look like, (the yellow spots in the center of the image):

http://www.charles-retina.com/drusen-pic.htm

I can't find the photos of my own eyes, at the moment, but they show almost total, somewhat dense, fairly uniformly distributed coverage of drusen over almost the entire hemispheric surface.

Though it's widely assumed that drusen are autoimmune related, very little research has been to done to confirm this. The only study I can turn up in a quick search, is one done on monkeys. Here's an abstract:

http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/abstract/04-3525fjev1

If you will google the words "drusen autoimmune", the first link to come up is the full report, in PDF form. It's a fairly long document, (24 pages).


Shirley,

Your doctor is mostly correct, since most people with optic disc drusen don't normally lose a significant amount of central vision. Over time, though, about 70% of patients lose some peripheral vision. Optic disc drusen are caused by an abnormal deposition of a protein-like material in the optic nerve. I can't help but wonder if that might be collagen.

Love,
Tex

[MaggieRedwings]

My last eyedoctor's appointment saw me getting an improved script for my eyes which too seem to have improved. I have another appointment this Saturday morning and will let you know if they stayed the same or became worse. I don't see anything differently but you never know.

Love, Maggie

[starfire]

Well, macular degeneration affects center vision and the drusen on the optic nerve affects peripheral vision.........hope both of mine stays mininal!! He didn't say how much was on my optic nerve but I presume it's not bad. Obviously, the MD I have is the dry type. I am supposed to look at a grid every day (I'm lucky if I remember once a week or so) and if I notice changes, I'm to call immediately because it COULD become the type wet at any time. I'm praying it doesn't ever do that. I don't worry about it much though since I've had it for several years with hardly any change.

Thanks for the links, Wayne.

Johanna & Maggie............sure glad to hear that both of you have improved!!!! Hope it continues.

Love, Shirley

[tex]

Shirley,

My opthalmologist never recommended anything, in the way of treatment. I'm on my third one, as they have retired, or moved on, over the years. I've had drusen now for quite a few years - in fact, I think I was in my early 40's when it was first diagnosed. I hadn't had an eye exam in many, many years, and when I went in, I assumed that passing the magic age of 40, was the major problem, and I expected to be prescribed reading glasses.

He took photos of the back of both eyeballs, though, and gave them to me - they looked like orange targets, shot full of holes, (as if by fine birdshot), and superimposed over a lighted yellow background, so that all the bright, yellow dots, were very clear, (if you can visualize what I'm saying). I've still got them, (if I could just remember where I put them for safekeeping). LOL.

After you suggested lutein, I asked the last doctor about it, after the exam, and so he wrote down the name of Centrum Silver, (vitamins), on a piece of paper, and gave it to me. Those vitamins only contain 250 mcg of lutein, though, which is only a quarter of a milligram, (mg). Instead, I went to a HFS, and bought a bottle of lutein, 20 mg, (which is 80 times the dosage rate, compared with the Centrum vitamins), and have been taking them ever since. If I remember correctly, I asked if it was possible to overdose with it, and he said that shouldn't be a problem.

I'm kind of curious - what dose did your doc recommend, if you don't mind saying.

You know, it's kind of strange - I hunted through a lot of sites, and I couldn't find a single site with an image that has anywhere close to the concentration of drusen that my original photos show, (the ones taken a couple of decades ago). It makes me wonder if I've the worst case in the world, or nobody's interested. There are a lot of good images of drusen on the optic disk, though.

If my drusen population has increased even just slightly, each year, then the backs of my eyeballs are bound to look pretty rough by now. LOL. That's probably why they don't take any more pictures of them - they don't want to risk me having a heart attack, while sitting in their exam chair.

Love,
Tex

[artteacher]

I just wanted to weigh in on the eyes improving with better control of food intolerances/paleo diet. I've found the opposite. In the last 5 years, my eyes have deteriorated from 20/20 to 20/30 and 20/35 for no apparent reason. I had lasar eye surgery 9 years ago, and the doctor says it's very unusual for the eyes to stay stable for 4 years, and then change. I've gotten both presbyopic (old eyes) and more nearsided. So now I wear glasses to drive.

Love, Marsha

[starfire]

Tex,
Yes, I believe I can visualize what the pictures of your eyes looked like. I also don't doubt that it's a scary image!! Makes you wonder how you can still see with all of it.

My original opthalmologist told me to take Baush & Lomb PreserVision. It's a vitamin and mineral supplement formulated specifically for eyes (supposedly). Dose was 2 AM & 2 PM. I'm positive that one has lutein in it along with C, E & other things. They still sell that version although I haven't checked the ingredients since I first started taking it.

In the meantime Bausch & Lomb has come out with a version where you only have to take 1 AM & 1 PM and they are much smaller and more like oval gelcaps. I just assumed they were the same as the much larger ones and switched. Stupid Me. I just looked at the label and lutein isn't even in the ingredient list, which follows.
Vitamin A (beta carotene) 28,640 IU 573%
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) 452 mg 753%
Vitamin E (di-alpha tocopheryl acetate) 400 IU 1333%
Zinc (zinc oxide) 69.6 mg 464%
Copper (cupric oxide) 1.6 mg 80%
Other Ingredients: gelatin, glycerin, soybean oil, unbleached lecithin, yellow wax, annatto oil, titanium dioxide.

Yuk - soybean oil - I try to avoid soybeans as much as possible and here I'm taking it twice a day. Anyway, as you see everything is in much higher doses than the recommended daily dosages. I presume all the vit. & minerals are thought to be antioxidents. I believe the supplement is supposed to help keep more drusen from forming (not remove what is already there).

I am definitely going to check the ingredients of the original product to see if it's the same as this one. I KNOW that when I started taking it, lutein was an ingredient.

The opthalmologist I saw here last summer just said to make sure I took a multivitamin evey day, which would agree with what you were told except that mine didn't even mention lutein. Don't know if all multivitamins have that or not. My first opthalmologist specifically mentioned antioxidents as a preventative, but I can't really remember exactly what he said about lutein.

Well, looks like a very long post with not much useful info. Sorry

Love, Shirley

[tex]

Shirley,

Yes, those are pretty potent levels of those vitamins. The Centrum Silver only contain these amounts:

Vitamin A 70%
Vitamin C 100%
Vitamin E 150%
Zinc 100%
Copper 100%

Plus a zillion others, of course.

Wonder why Bausch & Lomb left out vitamin D?

Love,
Tex

[harvest_table]

Tex,

Thanks for providing those links about Drusen. I've leaned alot about Lutein also.

If my drusen population has increased even just slightly, each year, then the backs of my eyeballs are bound to look pretty rough by now. LOL. That's probably why they don't take any more pictures of them - they don't want to risk me having a heart attack, while sitting in their exam chair.

You are so funny.....kidding aside, sorry to hear you have such a serious problem with Drusen. When was the last time you had pictures done and wouldn't you like to know how it's progressing after all these years?

You had asked Shirley about Lutein dosing and from what I've read it should be 20mg 2-3 times a week. They suggest not taking it daily. What dosage are you taking? I found an excellent link on Lutein and it's benefits and tried to provide the link here but the url is too long. That happens to me frequently, and I never know what to do about that?

I just wanted to weigh in on the eyes improving with better control of food intolerances/paleo diet. I've found the opposite. In the last 5 years, my eyes have deteriorated from 20/20 to 20/30 and 20/35 for no apparent reason. I had lasar eye surgery 9 years ago, and the doctor says it's very unusual for the eyes to stay stable for 4 years, and then change. I've gotten both presbyopic (old eyes) and more nearsided. So now I wear glasses to drive.

Marsha, well that shoots my theory out of the water. Just curious, what was your eyesight before you had laser surgery done?

I'm still thinking that somehow my diet has played a significant part in improving my eyesight in the last year but of coarse, I don't know this for certain. Not only have I been eating better the last couple years I also gave up coffee and have developed an enjoyable habit of drinking tons
(at least 5-10 cups daily) of green tea which is very high in antioxidents.

Here's a good link for reading about the many benefits of green teas. In a study done, Celestial seasonings green teas pack more of an antioxident punch that any other prepackaged teas on the market.

http://www.celestialseasonings.com/tea- ... n-tea.html

Love,
Joanna

[tex]

Hi Joanna,

Unless they've been taking pictures and not telling me about them, that's only been done once in my life. To be honest though, no, I'm not actually curious about how my eyes look these days, I'm only interested in how they see. Since there's no way to reverse the damage, I'm only concerned about how well they deliver a usable image, and they're still getting the job done with plenty of margin to spare.

I wonder why they recommend against taking lutein daily? I've been just following the directions on the bottle, which is to take one softgel per day, with food. I hope I'm not causing problems by doing that. It's rather expensive stuff, for an OTC med - over 45 cents per softgel.

You should be able to enter a long URL without any problems. About a year ago, I modified the code for the board, so that the system will automatically shorten long URLs. Unless one of the version upgrades since then has defeated it, it should eliminate all long-URL problems. Try it, and if it doesn't work for you, please let me know, and I'll see if I can track down the problem with the code.

Concerning laser eye surgery - I think that there's always a chance of adverse long-term effects for some patients, but that's an extremely small risk. As far as I am aware, no one has actually done any long-term studies past about five years.

From a practical viewpoint, though, "normal", (unmodified), eyes tend to deteriorate over the long haul, so there's no reason why surgically-altered eyes shouldn't change with time, also.

Still, Marsha's doctor is right - that's a significant change. I doubt that it's connected with the surgery, though. We're all affected somewhat differently by MC. Some of us end up with permanent damage from years of untreated gluten sensitivity. (For example, I wound up with damage to my enteric nervous system - I no longer feel any hunger pangs when mealtime rolls around. I have to eat out of habit, not because I'm hungry). I have a hunch that some day researchers will prove that, (among other things), MC causes vision degradation.

Love,
Tex

[artteacher]

Hi Joanna,

Before surgery it was 20/800 and 20/600. Pretty darn close to legally blind I think. It's a given that you will become presbyopic immediately after the surgery, or at least sooner than you would have otherwise. The unusual part is to be stable for a period of time, then get more nearsided. I think for me it has to do with ongoing inflammation (because I still have inflammatory markers on my blood), or water/electrolyte/calcium balance. If I ever figure it out, I'll let you know.

Love, Marsha

[harvest_table]

I wonder why they recommend against taking lutein daily? I've been just following the directions on the bottle, which is to take one softgel per day, with food. I hope I'm not causing problems by doing that. It's rather expensive stuff, for an OTC med - over 45 cents per softgel.

Tex, Here is a quote from that site about Lutein dosing, also lot's more interesting info-going to try to post a link to, again.

Lutein Side Effects
I can't find any research that points to any possible lutein side effects, however there could be some lutein side effects if too a high a dose is
taken for too long. I am just guessing, but taking a very high amount of lutein could disturb the balance of carotenoids in eye tissue or other organs. It is best to keep lutein dosage to less than 20 mg two or three times a week.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:sb3 ... =clnk&cd=2

Marsha, Sorry to hear about your eye problems. Maybe as a team, we can figure it out together.

Love,
Joanna