I'm Answering Your Questions

I had a great discussion the other week with my followers on Facebook. We had a bit of a rapid-fire question session where I covered topics including inflammation, dry eye, essential oils, and more. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

eyes, trauma, lens, eyelids, progressive lenses, cataracts, questions, eyedrops, lymphatic, improving, acupuncture, castor oil, called, exercise, vision, based, working, msm, glaucoma, cranial sacral therapy

Hello, everyone. It’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberene.com. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode.

Hey, everybody, it’s Dr. Sam; I’d like to welcome you to Facebook live tonight. So we’ve got a lot of questions to get to. And we’re gonna go about 30 minutes or so, if you’ve got any questions, you can type them in below. You can always email me at hello@drsamberne.com. And I’ll do my best to answer your questions. In the meantime, a couple of announcements. So my online workshop is a go, it’s going to be happening October 7-9. And it’s a deep immersion, we call it the vision sanctuary retreat. And it’s going to be three days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The very good news about this is that if you can’t make it live, it will be recorded. And if you register, you will have access to the workshop for 60 days, you also will receive a discount on all my products by taking this class. And it’s going to be a good one. So I hope you explore it, think about it, register for it. But if you’re having any struggles with your vision, where you’re not getting the answers you want, you want to increase or improve your wellness quotient, then this workshop is for you. I’ve done it before I did it about a year ago. And it was very well received, people got a lot out of it. So I hope that you take it. Again, if you can’t do it live, you can certainly watch the recordings and and do it that way. Sometimes when I take workshops, I also can’t make it live. So when I’m able to watch the recordings, I can learn a lot. So let’s move to our questions.

I want to I want to say that, you know in these questions, I’ll do my best to answer it. The disclaimer is that this is for educational information only. And it’s not a substitute for your medical care. And it’s always good to go get an eye exam. Have your eyes checked by a licensed ophthalmologist or optometrist. You can always take that information to a more naturopathic doctor like myself. But at least you have the information you know what to look for. And being preventative and proactive is one of the the principles that I talked about. So it’s important to check in with somebody professionally and ensure things are going well. So this first question I want to take is about the organic hexane free castor oil and this particular treatment is really good for the inflammatory situation that can occur in your eyes. And one of the reasons why I like using castor oil is because it has qualities of an anti inflammatory agent. It’s also very moisturizing, and it’s addressing the part of the eyeball that’s related to the eyelid and the eyelid houses the glands that produces the tears that keeps our eyes wet and moist. And if you suffer dry or you’re on a screen for hours upon, you know hours and hours a day then the castor oil I massage is great to do in the evening. I really like how it moisturizes your eyes and because of the thickness. It starts to absorb into your eyes as you go to sleep. But because of the thickness, it tends to do so in a very slow fashion. Now what you can do is

you can I use the castor oil and other times during the day, say in the morning, you can do it. You know, anytime it’s just you want to be careful that you you don’t get it in your eyes, because it is going to make things temporary, temporarily a little blurry. So in order to make sure that you’re not dealing with that I just use a little bit and it goes on the outside part of my eyelids. with my eyes closed. I actually still do it myself. I like to do it in the evening before bedtime. You know, when we sleep, that’s when our eyes get the most dry. But you can do it at other times a day. Now, somebody is asking a question about different eyedrops for cataracts or reversing lens health. And I’ve talked about the ocular med eyedrops, which has glutathione and vitamin C, there’s another eyedrop that somebody is using right now, which has an acetylcysteine NAC that is phenomenal. For lens health, it’s a great antioxidant. So it’s, you know, it’s really challenging to make an eye drop or an eye ointment without putting, you know things like boric acid or citric acid or purified benzo alcohol, sterile water, Pitocin, potassium bicarbonate, that’s what’s in this particular eyedrop. This one is fine to use.

So, you know, I think that because of the NAC and the carnosine, and acetyl carnosine. This is really a great antioxidant for the lens, you know, in any of these things that you use, even if they are natural, they can cause reactions in your eyes. So you need to be listening and watching. Because you know your body better than anybody and you could be taking the best dietary supplements or herbal formula, it can cause reactions, and some of those reactions can be a detoxification trigger. So you know if that happens as you use this, like this gentleman is asking these questions about the you know what’s in it. If you start getting a lot of redness or irritation, then either you have to discontinue, you might talk to the manufacturer about it, find out what their experience has been, or maybe just discontinue, and you’ve got to use something else. I mean, remember, dietary supplements are just that their supplements. And the best way to get nutrients into your body is through live plant based foods. Non GMO organic,

and you know, making sure your your internal climate your gut is healthy. So if you’re suffering, you know, inflammatory gut disease or, you know, Candida, mold, heavy metals, you know, you can eat the best food possible, but it comes down to an absorption level. So with this gentleman, I think you know, again, I would probably check in with somebody naturopath or functional medicine doctor to see what you could do. Now another question that comes in a lot is progressive lenses. And I would not throw away progressive lenses. So you’ve got them, they are convenient. But you just need to use them in the circumstances where you’re shifting from near to far, quickly. And so one option is like when you drive and then you go to the store and you need to see the labels, probably a good idea to use the progressive lenses, you don’t want to be fumbling around. I’m not necessarily a proponent of getting three different pairs of glasses. No, I wouldn’t do that. I think I would just get one pair where you have the highest visually intensive experience. So that’s probably going to be your screen time. Interestingly, I was working with a lady yesterday and we determined that she was going to get in the progressive lenses the middle prescription for the computer. And then when she was using her Kindle and phone, she was just going to increase the size of the font so that she could continue to use the computer prescription magnification.

And that’s a trick that you can use by increasing the font size of your screens, you don’t need to look through as much magnification. Remember, the higher the magnification, the more it’s disconnecting you from your eyes. But I would keep the progressive lenses and use them when you need them. And just get one pair of other glasses, the ones that are single vision that you use the most. You know, I get these questions about eye exercises. And if you’ve got cataracts, and lazy eye are the exercises, okay to use? Well, again, they are but you have to, you know, see how much time you have? And how they respond to you know, a lot of these questions, you can answer yourself, you don’t need me to answer it. You need to use your intuition need to watch how they make you feel. You need to watch if they’re giving you improvements, so they become silly, after while asking so many of these kinds of questions. You can certainly do your vision exercises. For sure you can do them for cataract reversal for lazy eye. And you just have to decide which kind of which diagnosis is the one you want to work on the most. So if you know if you’ve got cataracts, if you’re able to reverse those. That’s an incredible change that can be life changing because you then don’t need the surgery. So I would probably start with that first. And then and then you could do the lazy eye. Eye exercise program. All right, I’m scanning through here.

Nicole is asking I desire to get out of my transitional bifocals every year. They’re getting worse. I’ve had three TBI guys, the last one in 2016. Well, you know when you have a TBI, it definitely shakes up your eye muscles, the nerves around the eyes. And you know, I was talking to a friend of mine today who does bodywork, she’s a she’s a she’s a trauma specialist. She does ortho bonamy and cranial sacral therapy. You may not know what those are, but those are body Senator Senator therapies. And we’re talking about trauma.

And with trauma, when we get traumatized, whether it’s physical, emotional, energetic, whatever it is, our body freezes in that moment. And when it freezes, it creates a paralysis in the area where we’ve, you know, absorb the trauma. So the first and foremost thing to do, Nicole, if you’ve got if you’ve had TBI, you should be seeking out a cranial sacral therapist body worker who can help you release the trauma from the area in your body where it’s most affecting you. Now, if it’s a head trauma, it’s going to affect your vision. And when you look through a transitional lens bifocal lens, it’s a very complicated optical design. And if your two eyes aren’t working together, it’s going to create more visual stress on top of the trauma. So the sequence is find a body worker and see if they can help you release the trauma from your body. Start doing some of my physical therapy exercises. So that you can get your two eyes working together. And you’re right on the money I would I would probably reduce the transitional lenses and maybe get a single vision lens for the the task or the circumstance where it’s most intensive. So the thing is, is about if you’re getting bodywork and it’s still not happening, then you’re going to the wrong therapist, you need to find somebody who can really help you address the trauma and maybe it’s a somatic somatic therapist, you know, Peter Levine, I studied with him at the Esalen Institute. And you might Google people of Peter Levine and work with that type of trauma. The thing is, is that when you say oh, I’ve done this, but it’s still there, that tells me that the trauma is still dominating your system and you haven’t found the right modality.

Usually, you know, when you are working with a practitioner, it’s less about the modality and more about the the process that the person has gone through in the training in you may be that you need to find a trauma specialist. It may be that you may need to do Somatic Experiencing type work I mean, there’s a lot of different ways to do trauma healing, Emotional Freedom Technique is another one EFT, homeopathy might be another one, you know, each person develops their defense strategy around their trauma. But the thing is, is that if you’re going to somebody who who isn’t really deeply, they heal their own trauma, then this is where you hit a wall and you go, Well, I got I’ve gone, I’ve gone, I’ve gone there’s no change, or there’s a little change. 2016 is a long time, you know, to, to say, Well, I’ve gone to somebody and it hasn’t worked, I would look for somebody else. I mean, they’re obviously not touching it at the level you need to, and you need to keep exploring. Sometimes traumas take many, many years to heal. You know, there’s one trauma on top of another, there can be birth trauma, adults have birth trauma, and they haven’t dealt with it. Sometimes they’re multiple traumas. And when one trauma is on top of another, this again shuts down your body. And the key is for you to become more adept at self regulating yourself. And that’s a lifelong process, self regulation, you know, might be worth it for you to come and take my retreat and see if we could make some headway on that. All right, what is the best cleanser for blepharitis and Demodex? Well,

probably getting a tea tree based cleaner would would would be the place I would start. There are a number of tea tree I cleaners on the market. So you know the Essential Oil Tea tree can work really well as an antiviral antifungal agent, and they’re now putting tea tree oil in these I formulas, there’s an iPhone that can work well Demodex blepharitis what I would say is you need to work on the micro level so reducing the inflammation in the eyelid that many times there’s also a systemic and metabolic reason if it’s a chronic situation, you know, like acupuncture meridians, the the stomach Meridian and the spleen Meridian innervate the eyelids, and so sometimes getting some acupuncture redistributes the energy around the eyelids, and that can really take the inflammation away. And that could be away for you to also additionally reduce the blepharitis or the Demodex. Using a gluten free diet, upping your fats and oils, your healthy fats and oils, specifically Omega three eating an anti inflammatory diet, wearing blue blockers for all your screen time. I mean, there’s a lot of levels and layers to things like a blepharitis and any eyelid chronic inflammation. So, you know you have to kind of try different things.

Lippa flow you know, getting a lot of heat on the eyelids it’s an expensive procedure but it can definitely disrupt the inflammatory response that occurs on the eyelids. So, lots of things that you can try, but I would definitely take a look at a tree tree tea tree oil based I product Alright, somebody’s asking what’s my view of can see drops for cataracts and glaucoma. Well, I think can see can be beneficial as a lubricant. And in certain types of cataracts called cortical cataracts, where the cataract is caused by a glycation process meaning the glucose molecule attaches to the protein molecule in the lens and it creates this this glucose type cataract so it’s prevalent in diabetic patients, patients that have moderate to high levels of glucose levels, the the you know simple carbohydrates a lot. That’s where Kanzi can work for glaucoma. Not so much you know, I think glaucoma you need to take a look at how you can improve your retina circulation, your aqueous flow in the eye. And you know, it’s a it’s a situation in you know, improving your vascular health. You have to look at things like first of all, is there any optic nerve damage and if there is how much you know, what is the eye pressure? You may need to go on some pharmaceutical eyedrops for a while and then you can start some more natural therapies, things like that. ginkgo and taurine, bilberry, these are vascular supporting agents.

Obviously Omega three the DHA needing to protect your optic nerve more. I just did a podcast today that’s I just saw it on my feed. Coleus is an herb. In a small study, it’s been shown to bring down eye pressure. So that’s a plant based herbal formula that you could take as a tincture. Getting some acupuncture or cranial sacral therapy could be helpful, improving your lymphatic health, eating a diet that’s low in inflammatory in nature, high fats and oils, the good fats, reducing your eyes stress by again using blue blocking glasses. So there’s a lot of possibilities with neutralizing some of the effects of glaucoma, but I don’t think can see is one of them. I think that, you know, you’ve you’ve got to treat this both again, systemically metabolically and really get in there on a vascular level by doing some really, really deep things to improve the micro capillary circulation in the retina and can’t see is not going to do that for you. All right.

All right. So Rob’s asking about EMDR and brainspotting. Yep, you can certainly you can certainly look at those things. Both of them. Here in Santa Fe, we’ve got a number of practitioners who do brain spotting and EMDR. So that might be another another option to go. Again, I find it’s less about the modality that mean the modality is important, but it’s really the person’s energy and how much trauma they’ve healed in their body. And, you know, and what their energy is like. Because there’s a there’s an aspect of trauma around safety, you know, feeling safe with who you’re working with, and being patient around it, you know, we want to heal things like that. And sometimes we can, but I think the reality is it is that, you know, it’s a lifelong process. And, you know, we have things to learn and on our journey. And so in that part of the process is being patient and loving towards yourself and listening to your inner guidance on you know who and what kind of things you’re going to do. Yeah, tea tree oil can irritate but if it’s in, if it’s in an AI formula, not so much. Again, it’s an experimental thing. I have people that did get better using castor oil, I massage MSM drops. So I think it depends on the person’s constitutional makeup, you know, how long they’ve had it, what their general health is like. So I think it’s an experimentation. You know, one size doesn’t fit all but certainly, you know, you can you can experiment and see what works for you.

Alright, let’s go to this question. Hi Freda. Nice to see you. It’s been 10 weeks since you have cataract surgery, and you have a brighter visual field. But the retina Doc’s called it retain lens fragments. Okay, what can I do dissolve these? Well? This is a tough one because, you know, in trying to dissolve these kinds of fragments, there really isn’t a great answer here. I mean, you could certainly try things like the MSM eyedrops. You could also try my essential oil I protocol. Those are the three essential oils that you put around the eyes, sweet fennel, followed by carrot seed, followed by frankincense. You could do that twice a day, as long as your skin isn’t getting irritated, but you’re getting a lot of oxygenation. I think another thing that I would consider is doing an exercise called Long swings that’s on my website. So think about improving your overall eye lymph health. This works really well with floaters. You know people get these floaters and it really is a lymphatic issue in the eyes. So if they do things like long swings or the eye stretching exercise eyes, they can sometimes start flushing these floaters or in that case, you know collagen fragmentation particles out of the eye. So improving the lymph, maybe getting some acupuncture to clear out your liver and the of the anesthesia, you know, those would be some things that I would try, this is not an easy fix. So, you know, the the key is eventually, if your lymphatic health is working better with your eyes, you don’t notice them as much. And eventually they can disappear. But it takes a while.

So, again, my MSM drops could help. And then I would really do a lot of movement things to see if you could get the lymphatic system working, you know, you can also ask the this, this may not be the same thing. Because it sounds like sometimes a membrane will grow over the lens, and you go in and get a laser clean up which gets rid of the fragmentation on the lens and you get a grow a growth over the interocular lens from the cataract surgery. This doesn’t sound like that the sounds like it’s more in the retina. And so if that is what’s going on, then this would take some lymphatic focus, along with the MSM, so keep me posted on that you can definitely help. Brain spotting is similar to brain mapping. Again, you can you can go on YouTube, and you can learn about there, there are a lot of different trauma based therapies going on now around the brain. So I would just Google it on YouTube. And you can see that the distinction are let’s go to Francis, she’s talking about COVID and pneumonia. Sorry, you’re dealing with that long COVID. And this has affected your vision. I you know, this is I just did a blog, Francis written blog on my website where I talked about some things to help you over COVID. And I listed some research. So vitamin d3 was one of them. There are many things that I listed. So you might go to that, that written blog. And there’s several things there that can help you. The Omega threes are really important.

The fats and oils, again, exercise can be very helpful getting natural sunlight, improving your lymphatic health, working on your sleep cycle, balancing your endocrine health, improving your digestive health. You know, we’re all dealing with immune based challenges. That’s kind of what’s going on right now. Whether it’s COVID, or, you know, other things that are that are, you know, in the environment, climate change, toxicities, stress, so you’re not alone in it. But in terms of vision, what I would say is doing some of my eye exercises like I liked the long swings exercise, I liked the animal eye chart exercise, I like the palm hum exercise, you can email me at hello at Dr. Sam berne.com If you can’t find those, because that will get your eyes moving and get the lymph lymph system working. And that could be very helpful. Just getting your visual system back online. But you might need some support with some acupuncture or some nutritional support, more dietary supplements. I’m sorry that you’re going through that a lot of people are dealing with long COVID. And you know, it’s just something that that’s here now that we’re dealing with. And I have seen the correlation between COVID and AI problems.

But I do see people getting better as well just takes time. So read my blog, you’ll get some good tips on you know what you can do and it’s all science based i i You know, I really looked at the literature to see, okay, what are some things that you can do to boost your immune system? And of course with COVID That’s, you know, that’s a good thing. All right, let’s see if there’s any other questions. Yeah, I would go with YouTube. YouTube’s got some great videos. All right, free to So you’re asking about injection patient connective tissue. I would certainly try the MSM eyedrops, and, you know, I would also consider the possibility of your digestive health. I talk about this protect Killer proteolytic enzyme called serrapeptase. And this digestive enzyme has been shown to dissolve scar tissue in the eyes. So might be something by increasing your digestive health either using serrapeptase are natto kinase, that could be another thing to do. But I would stay more with the natural ways to boost your collagen levels. And I would hold off on getting the injections because that’s a symptom based approach that’s not really going to deal with the problem with the problem.

All right, everybody, I think I’m going to call it a night. I want to thank you for joining me. And this weekend, we have our Labor Day Sale 10% off. And you know, so take advantage of that. Sign up for my workshop on October 7-9th and it’s been great. All your participation and feedback. So thanks so much, and I’ll see you next week. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.