The complication here comes from Lasik surgery because it alters the thickness of the cornea, which will alter the perception of pressure, thus making it harder to measure. To date, it has been difficult to determine what the pressure truly is after Lasik surgery.
We would like to assume that normal pressure in the eye is between 10 and 20 mercury points. Anything less than 10 could be insufficient pressure on the eye. We need pressure in the eye just like a tire needs pressure to maintain its integrity. But when the pressure mounts, it can destroy weak areas in our eyes. The main area that it destroys is the optic disk, which is rather weak in all of us but is even weaker in people who have glaucoma. Reducing pressure would take away the risk of blindness or, at least, of partial blindness.
Statistically, it is true to say that those who have pressure above 30 will most likely lose more vision, but only statistically. In any particular case, it could be that even a pressure higher than 30 does not lead to vision loss. You could also say that some people at a pressure of only 24 or 25 may lose a lot of vision.
The other problem that could easily occur is low-tension glaucoma. With low-tension glaucoma, the optic disk degenerates and is destroyed even at a pressure under that which is considered to be desirable for most of us. The optic disk is a weak and vulnerable area. When that area has pressure it cannot withstand, the optic disk can be compromised. In some people with completely normal pressure (the 16 mercury points that most of us would desire to have), the optic disk can still be destroyed. Still, the prevailing viewpoint is that the problem is the high pressure in high-tension glaucoma patients, and if they have surgery to reduce the pressure, the problems will go away. While I agree with it to a point, I believe that it is only a part of what happens. Therefore, the treatment is sometimes ineffective, and can even be dangerous because it works only on the eye pressure without considering other factors.
Recently I had the pleasure of working with a bright woman named Lucia, who came all the way from Brazil to San Francisco for two weeks of intensive sessions with me. She came to me with much fear because she had lost 95 percent of her nerve functionality due to glaucoma. The surprising thing about her case was that, after doing the eye exercises and before she even met with me, she gained back the peripheral vision she had lost; her field of vision was almost completely normal—there was only one small spot of vision loss—and her acuity was 20/20. I am not the only one who is surprised with such magnificent vision after such significant loss of nerve tissue.
Lucia also told me that several of her family members were afflicted with cardiovascular disease. Knowing that she had this family history, my conclusion from her case was that doing the exercises had increased her blood flow to the remaining nerve tissue and had improved the situation tremendously. Doctors had offered her a very risky surgery to reduce the pressure, but it would have also posed a big risk to her vision, and she could have lost it completely. I am happy she refused.
I believe that the following can help people with glaucoma:
• Reduction of pressure (in this I agree with doctors)
• Balanced use of the two eyes and within each eye
• Sufficient circulation to nourish the optic nerve
In Lucia’s case, the bodywork we did was just as important as the vision work, and the part of the nerve that was working assumed the work of the nerves that had been destroyed.
The frustrating part of it all is that even when you reduce the pressure to 10 or 11, as many doctors want you to do, the optic disk may be fine but could also continue to erode to the point of destruction, causing damage to the optic nerve. And the feeling shared by medical doctors is that the optic nerve can never regenerate.
Unlike cataract surgery, about which physicians are very optimistic, physicians continuously see that they cannot fully control glaucoma: not with drops, not with surgery. There is no way to clarify to anyone that reduction of pressure equals reduction of destruction of the optic nerve. And it is clear that most people like to have a simple technical solution to complex problems. Since there seems to be no magic bullet for glaucoma, people live in fear. And that fear is one of the main destructive dangers to our eyes.
The eyes feel this fear. The tissues feel the fear as well, and then become much worse. With some of my patients who had temporary improvement in therapy, I sometimes felt that this cloud of fear caused them to deteriorate anyway. With other patients, where the situation seemed to be grave to everyone else, their trust in the therapy dramatically improved their vision through the correct exercises and the right knowledge. Positive affirmation can be very useful. You can close your eyes and visualize that the strength of your eyes outpowers any phenomenon that can destroy them. Positive affirmation is 50 percent of your healing process.
When it comes to high pressure in the eyes, all factors must be considered: lack of balanced use of the eyes, stiffness of the neck (which is a result of stiffness of the body), or even a sense of emotional loss—not just stress, but loss.
A good example is the desire for peace and harmony in a relationship, but never finding it because of resolutions that never come. Similarly, kids of divorced parents feel this when they want to see their parents getting along but never do. There are many different situations that can cause glaucoma, so apply this book in a way that works for your specific situation.
Some people may have lost a lot of vision before the practice of these exercises and will do anything they can to keep the vision they already have and to sharpen it to a great extent. Other people may have lost hardly any vision and, therefore, do the eye exercises to prevent any potential vision loss and to sharpen their vision. Some people may have only a mild vision loss. Pay attention to the area where your vision is mildly lost, and use the area that is fuzzy or almost blind; this will help you to defend the rest of your visual system. So, apply the book individually to your needs. Take time and pay attention to yourself in a way that works for you.
I will never forget one of my dearest patients, Murray, who had glaucoma. He did well in his therapy with me for a period of seven years. But he took a turn for the worse when his wife died. Issues between him and his wife were never resolved, and that’s one of the worst situations when a person you love perishes. If a person who was very dear to you did not get along with you, and the problem you had with that person was never resolved, with their death comes a sense of loss without closure. Part of this loss is not processing your inner feelings around the unresolved issues you had with the deceased. Murray had a problem with his wife’s senility and the Alzheimer’s she had developed toward the end of her life. He discovered much anger that she had against some people which she had never brought out during their marital life. It revealed much of her anguish that he had never noticed during her youth. He was struck by the amount of anger and frustration that came out of her when she forgot the present and only remembered the past. And here was a woman who was a world educator and a writer.
When she died, his glaucoma became much worse because his emotional state lacked the stability that he had during most of the marriage. He was also exhausted from trying to keep his wife in as good a shape as he could during the last years of her life. Often, when there is a sense of loss and death, it can lead to a loss of vision. A sense of loss or death could result from the absence of anything that you really loved and adored, like relationships, stability, or a home you had liked but from which you had to move. Anything that deep inside leads to an emotional connection, and when it leaves your life without a positive resolution, it could lead to tremendous subconscious tension. That tension reveals itself as a great muscular contraction in your neck. And that neck contraction hampers and disturbs the blood flow to your brain and to your eyes. When it disturbs the blood flow to your brain, you run a risk of strokes and hemorrhages of the brain cells. When it disturbs the blood flow to your eyes, you run the risk of losing retinal areas and vision, and you run a greater risk of having high pressure in your eyes.