Here is a talk I gave recently at a book shop called The Ark. I cover topics in my new book and take questions from the audience. It was a great time! Enjoy the show.
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
eye, called, people, macular degeneration, eyedrops, started, vision, study, cataracts, macula, good, nearsighted, glasses, glaucoma, gallbladder, doctor, prescription, kids, child, sun
00:05
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@drsamberne.com.
00:47
Good evening, everybody. Thank you all for coming here. It’s really nice to have a fence back at The Ark. And I’ve been coming to them recently, but it’s very loving. We’re very proud to have them. And we’re very excited to have Dr. Sam Berne with us this evening.
01:09
Being on the holistic optometrist and vision therapist for over 30 years, and immense following of people who believe in Him. And I took a look through his book. And it’s very, very wonderful, fascinating things that I loosely follow, even though I see pretty well. I’m a little bit disappointed that not everyone’s wearing glasses, though, because that seems like a missed opportunity. I hope you enjoy what he has to say. And I think it would be very beneficial for everybody. We do have the book available if you need it to be signed. And Please enjoy yourselves. And I hope you’ll learn all you can.
01:56
Well, before I begin, I have a couple of thank yous. First of all, I’d like to thank the yard for hosting me tonight. And also, I would like to say my partner and wife, Charlie, she has really supported me over the years. And there are people in this audience that I would like to thank that have both helped me with the book, and just been great supporters. I’m gonna keep it anonymous. But I’m deeply grateful for their support. And so let’s begin. I want to see a show of hands of people who have either worked with me take one of my workshops, or so Okay, a few of you.
That’s great. So, you know, in my story, one of my Northstars is when I was about eight years old, I I grew up in a middle class family, my parents really emphasized education. My mom was a schoolteacher, my dad was in business. And my grandparents and my aunts and uncles, they always stressed going to school reading, I remember my uncle, I would go see him. And he had this library kind of like this room. And I would go in and pick one of his books. And the problem was is that I was labeled as learning disabled. And I was a really poor reader. And my mom took me everywhere. In fact, I don’t know if you remember, Evelyn was sure speed reading. That was like one of many things we did biggest waste of money. But we ended up we ended up at an eye doctor’s office. And of course the doctor gave me a pair of glasses. This is a kid he uses these. And so I started down the road of being nearsighted. And the way I got through school was memorizing. So it became this brainy kid, and I worked really hard. But there was not a good reader. I did enjoy reading. So fast forward, I got through college, got to a professional school. By this time, my glasses were pretty thick. And I couldn’t see the big E on the HR. So I was like, my perfect optometrist, just couldn’t see. But I met this doctor.
And he was called a behavioral optometrist. So if you think of the two words together, it’s kind of a juxtaposition. It’s kind of an oxymoron behavior vision. What does that but anyway, this His name is Dr. Al Shankman, and he practicing kinetic and I lived in Philly. And I started to go to him as a patient. And he said two things to me. He said, you know, your left eye wanders out, and that’s why you see double vision. And I thought double vision was normal. I thought everybody thought double. And then the second thing he said was, you know, you really carry a lot of tension in your eyes. I said I’m totally unaware of it. So we started in with his physical ID therapy. And I just wanted to make a distinction between that and like you were here of the Bates method eye exercises.
This was not eye exercises, this was brain therapy. And over a period of six months, my left eye and right eye started to work together. And so my reading got much easier. I was amazed how much easier it got. And then my nearsightedness went away, my tension in my eyes completely cleared up. And I was like, oh my god, this is not what I learned in school. So at the same time, I was enrolled in a place called the gazelle Institute. And I don’t know if anybody has ever heard of this physician, because L speller GSELL. And it was started in 1948, by Arnold Gizelle, MD, who was a child development specialist. And it was affiliated with the Yale study center in New Haven.
And it was a really cool place because it was a place where there was a lot of different professionals, psychologists, nutritionists, occupational therapists, obviously, eye doctors, and I spent a year there learning how to evaluate and treat special needs kids. So after that was over, I moved back to Philadelphia, and I associated with one of the graduates of that program, a Dr. Alice Adelman, and he practiced on the main line in Philadelphia. So I was an apprentice of his, he also gave me the opportunity to start my practice in his office. But the problem with that was that I couldn’t get any patients because we practiced in an area that was surrounded by like five ophthalmology practices. And although people were really well off really well educated, they got what they needed from the regular doctors, they didn’t need somebody alternative. So at that point, I needed to make some money. And I thought about, okay, where are there populations that are underserved.
And so I went to one of the local hospitals, and I volunteered my services to the traumatic brain injury unit. So this was an outpatient hospital. And these people were high functioning, but they had been in car accidents or sports injuries, they had strokes. So they had like, double vision like I had, they also had brain fog and memory issues. And the regular eye doctors just wrote them off. There was really it was kind of sad, because these people were like struggling. So I applied my physical therapy program to them, and everybody improved greatly. And so the hospital administrator said, Okay, we’ll give you a contract for three hospitals. And so some other outside patients started to trickle in, because my reputation was I was a problem solver. I worked with people where they had been other places, and they couldn’t have their problem solved. So come to me. The other underserved population that I contacted was the special needs children. So these were kids that had brain injury, they were down syndrome.
They were, you know, in a wheelchair, obviously, there was the autistic to add population. And I did so well with those kids. I mean, they were amazing. The parents were amazing. And so over time, my reputation got bigger, and I built up a very successful practice. And then one day I woke up and I said, you know, I think I want to move back out west. Back out west. When I was in school, one of my internships was actually here at the Indian Health Hospital in Santa Fe. So I worked for IHS, and, you know, I said, I think Santa Fe could be a good time for me. So I sold my interest in Philadelphia, and I moved out here got my license, and I opened a practice I got really busy, which was great. So I met this woman and I’m gonna bring her up because you’re all New Mexicans, you probably maybe have heard of this person. Her name was Dr. Hazel Parcells. Has anybody ever heard of?
09:31
Yes. So Dr. Parr cells. When I met her, she was 103 years old, and she was starting a retreat center. She had been practicing in Albuquerque for many years. She was a naturopath and a chiropractor. And she knew a lot about nutrition. And I was writing my first book creating your personal vision and I wanted to interview an expert so I called her up and she was starting to center Do you know where Las Vegas New Mexico is? It was north of that in this beautiful valley called sappy Oh, New Mexico. Yeah. And so I went to visit her. And I ended up becoming a student of hers, studying nutrition. And then one day, she turned me into this laboratory in another building. And there were all these black boxes. I said, Dr. What, what is this, and she said, Well, I’m working with people I’m broadcasting frequencies to that homeopathy color therapy. And he’s like I want they’re not here. They’re not physically in this building. Know, they’re there, other places, but they’re all getting well, because I’m changing their frequency, their vibration. So this was my Introduction to Quantum healing. And so she taught me how to do this. And a couple years later, a very famous cardiologist, who lives in Santa Fe, he was in Dallas, I know you’ve heard of him, Larry Dossey.
Larry is bestseller in New York Times, wonderful person in his wife, Barbara. So he wrote a book called the power of prayer, you may remember that book. And he actually researched people who are in different locations, and you send positive energy and they would feel it or they would get better. So it kind of opened that door of the non local field. And I could go into more of that, but I’ll put that aside, because we’re talking about the eyes tonight. So in my practice, what began happening here is that I started to study Chinese medicine. And for those of you acupuncture is so well known here in Santa Fe, that I started to develop this idea of the relationship of the meridians to our IO, you probably all know this, you know, the liver meridian, profoundly affects the eyes, gallbladder, stomach, spleen, and then we can look at eyelid issues. spleen is the upper eyelid stomach is the lower island. So instead of using antibiotic eyedrops, you could get some acupuncture, and would clear up your sky or conjunctivitis.
So, you know, those were all the things that I made those connections. And then I was working with an occupational therapist, and we were working with autistic kids. And a lot of these kids had birth trauma. So you know, the birth industrial industry, and when it’s like, children are now born infants are not born based on the schedule of the doctor, you know, and it’s, it’s really challenging when a child comes out, and their C section or their breech, or there’s forceps delivery, or you know, some distress, it has an impact on their sensory motor development. And so I went back to massage school here based on this OTS recommendation, and spent two years learning with cranial sacral. And then what was interesting is in my exam, when I had a regular office, next to my exam equipment, I had a massage table. So somebody would come in for, you know, glasses, and I would do an exam on them, I’d measure their eyes, and then I would do an hour of craniosacral on them. And then I would give them that prescription. And that prescription used to would be like 30% less than what they came in.
Because if you think about going to regular eye doctors, this stressful experience, which is clear one or two, and you get the lens and it makes you dizzy, and the doctor says just get used to it. You know, I’m busy, you know, just get used to it. So you get used to it, and your body starts twisting or torquing. So the cranial work was very interesting. And then there’s this condition called astigmatism. Anybody ever astigmatism? Astigmatism, which is not astigmatism, astigmatism, they think a stigma, you know, but so a stigmatism means the eye is misshapen, okay, and and like it’s like an egg. That’s how it’s shaped. But it also reflects some echo in the body where there’s some asymmetry, some twist, so if you start unwinding the body and then you give a non astigmatism correction, the stigmatism goes away. As opposed to when you get an astigmatism correction, it reinforces the twist. And we have some cranial sacral therapists are very fine cranial sacral therapists are in there nodding their head, because they know what’s going on. When you get a regular lens prescription and an exam. It’s reinforcing some adaptation that you’ve made somewhere in your vision. And so your eyes are gonna get worse. I mean, who hasn’t had the experience where they’ve gone back to their eye doctor after they got a prescription?
The next year or two, it’s now stronger, or they were just wearing them part time and now they’re in progress. So bifocals. So, I mean, it’s, it’s interesting the way an eye doctor calculates a prescription, like you’re a specimen, you know, like you’re a problem to solve. And one of the things that I think about is, instead of looking at the numbers, I look at the person behind the numbers. So even though I might get some data, it’s like, well, what’s your stress? Like? What’s your lifestyle? Like, you know, what do you eat the all those kinds of things, and then based on the whole person, then maybe a prescription might be beneficial, that actually support your vision getting better. I’ll never forget people coming in to see me every year and they would come in and say, you know, my contacts aren’t working anymore. My glasses aren’t working anymore. And what happened was, they thought their eyes got worse, when in fact, when they measured them, their eyes got better.
15:59
So we didn’t even think we don’t even think that our eyes can get better, right? We think only think they get worse. So I would say to them, what are you doing? Well, I’m, you know, doing Vipassana meditation, taking a yoga class, you know, doing Rolfing, whatever it is. So your eyes reflect your consciousness, they reflect what’s going on energetically in your body, getting back to acupuncture. If you start measuring the pulses, you’ll find that the meridians if there’s a stagnating energy, that could lead to something like floaters or cataracts, or even macular degeneration, I’m gonna talk about those things in a little bit. And by the way, what I’d want to do here, this is I think this is like a fireside chat. I want to speak for a little bit, and then I want to open it up for q&a, because I find that, you know, I can talk about a million things. But something drew you here tonight and some interest. And I would love to be able to answer your questions. And we learn from each other.
So I’m going to speak a little bit more. And then then we’ll open it up for q&a. So who here knows somebody who’s dealing with macular degeneration? Anybody? Okay, so definitely, it’s the number one disease for blindness, and it’s growing by epidemic proportions. And part of it is we’re living longer. But one key principle to note is that our eyes have one of the highest metabolic needs of the body. So what we eat is going to really affect our retinas, our corneas, our eyelids. And by the way, every tissue of the eye comes from the brain. The eyes are the only part of the brain that are outside the cranium. But they are part of the brain. And this is why the eyes qualify for neuroplasticity. And as long as the retina cells aren’t dead, then there is the possibility of regeneration. And there’s more and more research coming out. And I could stand up here for an hour and give you all the research.
My book has got a lot of good research in there. But in looking at neuro scientists, they’re the ones on the cutting edge doing the research that says you can regenerate your eyes and not the eye doctors, because, and I’ll say we because I was trained that way, we are here to look for disease. And then when we find that disease, what we have in our toolbox, pharmaceuticals and surgery. And I’m sure somebody in here has had a conversation with their eye doctor. Well, what about physical therapy? What about nutrition? I have this beginning cataract? Is there anything I can do about it? No, no, no. Exactly. Right. So the point of the story is, is that there are things you can do. And because my own eyes got better, and my double vision went away when I was a kid, that’s my Northstar.
I just kind of keep coming back back to that. How can I problem solve? If you’ve got something going on and it hasn’t been solved somewhere else? Maybe I can help you maybe I can point to certain directions, whether it’s functional medicine, whether it’s color therapy, whether it’s cranial sacral, could be aromatherapy could be herbs, you know, all of these things do come into play around healing your vision. So back to macular degeneration. The macula has the highest metabolic need in the retina that’s made up of what we call cones, color, vision and detail. And when we are exposed to things like artificial blue light, or we’re developing oxidative stress or inflammation, it seems to magnetize itself at the macula area. And so when we get that diagnosis, it’s like, Oh, my goodness, you know, it’s the death sentence, I’m going to lose my independence, I’m not going to be able to drive I’m not going to be able to read.
And what’s really cool is that back in 2001, a very long time ago, NIH did landmark study on macular degeneration and using different nutritional ingredients to prevent or reduce the risk of macular degeneration. They redid the study in 2006. And what they found was pretty obvious, eat a lot of colorful vegetables, your rainbow diet, eat some berries, make sure you’re getting things like your omega threes. Beta carotene. Zinc is another one that’s really helpful for the macula. So this is back in 2006. And then, of course, with macular degeneration, we have the dry Kai. And we also have what we call the wet macular degeneration that’s a little harder to work with. But there are things that you can do. Even things like gingko, and wormwood, these herbal remedies.
21:22
You can reduce the diabetic or pre diabetic possibility. So if you’ve got glucose issues, wet macular degeneration, you can stave that off. And there’s one other thing that’s coming that’s come into play right now, which is hot, hot, hot, at least through my funnel, and that is red light therapy. Has anybody heard about red light? Yeah, probably. And so there was an ophthalmologist at the University College of London. And he did a study with people between the ages of 40 and 75, who had macular degeneration and another condition called drusen.
I don’t know if anybody here has Drew’s and it’s fatty deposits that start to grow on the retina. If it comes on to the macula, it can be a problem. So Dr. Jeffries and his team did this study where he gave his subjects red light every morning, few minutes, and over 12 weeks, their visual acuity improved by 22% 22%. That never happens in AI research, you know, the most improvement you’ll see is maybe 3%. So he said in the in his paper, that the red light stimulates something called mitochondria. Heard of mitochondria, it’s a buzzword now. So it’s the organelles that are in our cells that produce energy, specifically ATP. And when we start hitting 40, the mitochondria start receding in our eyes. And so then what happens is oxidative stress goes up, inflammation goes up. And then if we’re eating a diet, maybe that’s more inflammatory based or we’ve got Candida or IBS or some digestive issue or we’ve been exposed to some toxicity, or our dental work is not very good.
There’s a lot of reasons why. So then over time, our macula is in our retinas develop this oxidative stress. And then one day we wake up and we go, oh, my, it’s blurry, even though this has been going on in the background for quite a while. So with Dr. Jeffrey’s found is this red light can actually reverse certain types of macular degeneration and drusen. He also wrote in his paper, it might help dry eye, it might help glaucoma, and it might help other eye diseases as well. And it worked the best when you did it early in the morning.
That is an important point. Because that was when our circadian rhythms are kicking in. And by the way, there’s another study I want to bring in about being out in the sun, because in the mainstream, they tell us to be afraid of the Sun’s right. So there’s a pretty big study. Now that’s that’s come out about morning sunlight, giving us better mood so our dopamine levels get increased. Also more energy, better focus and better vision. So the morning sun is very important to get it also has the blue light that we need. So not all blue light is bad for you. You know, you read about blue light from screens and yes, you don’t want to get too much of that. But the sun’s blue light is something that we do need. In addition, in this study, they wrote about children that way to reduce nearsightedness because I don’t know where they know this but all these kids are on their screens. I read a study that 94% of the public schools in the US they’re using computers, and they’re off in their in their school room.
So the point of it is the screens are really hard on our eyes, and they’re developing this myopia kind of thing. So in the research, what they said was, these kids need to get outside 30 minutes a day, they need to look at long distances. And in this study, they saw that the myopia started to recede when they went outside when they got off their screens. And so just another support for getting out in nature be in the green because it’s very important for us. So with this macular degeneration, you’ve got lutein and zeaxanthin and acid Xanthine. Those are the carotenoids that protect the macula. And then you’ve got things like glutathione, which is a master antioxidant. You’ve got your omega threes, you got vitamin A, you’ve got a lot of things that you can take, even berries are good for you, as well as we move into the summer months. Very good for the retina. So there’s a lot of things that you can do. And this is not a cookbook you know, it’s everybody’s biochemistry is different. Everybody’s stress level is different. But these are some general guidelines for macular health. Now let’s move to cataracts. Do you know anybody who has cataract? Cataract surgery, okay, so cataracts statistic I read that 90% of all people over the age of 65 will be getting cataracts.
So, you know, you go to your doctors and you got a cataract, you got a cataract. And let’s take it out. And you know, there’s certain things that you want to do if you’re going to have that surgery, like match both eyes for distance, you don’t want to have one eye distance when I’m here called monovision out, nobody has that here, because it’s very confusing for the brain to have to deal with two images at once it’s like you know, you’re, you’re going to be confused. Number two, these bifocal contact lenses that they’re putting in the eyes is also very, very confusing for the brain, I don’t recommend and then number three toric lenses for the astigmatism. So you walk out of there and you’ve got all this you know distortion and because the lens is kind of warped to try to match your astigmatism. You’re much better off just getting the simple lenses for distance and and getting reading glasses. And if you’re nearsighted before the surgery, try to be nearsighted after the surgery. It’s really interesting when a near sighted person has surgery and becomes farsighted. Because their behaviors and personalities are very different you know nearsighted person is really good up close. That’s that’s their strength.
That’s why they become nearsighted or farsighted person is out their focus is hard to come into. So spatially the nearsighted person pulls in, the farsighted pushes out. So if you’re near sighted before the surgery and farsighted after, it’s going to be confusing mentally for you to figure out, wait a minute, I used to have really good near vision, now I need the strong magnifiers or vice versa. So there are things that you can do proactively to take care of your lens, because it’s a part of the tissue of the eye that is vulnerable for oxidative stress. So what are some things that you can do? Well, again, the master antioxidant glutathione is really important. Now one place, you can get that as cruciferous vegetables, leeks, onions, garlic, you can also supplement with glutathione as well. Studies have shown that people that develop cataracts tend to have low levels of glutathione there was a study done in the UK about vitamin C and cataracts. So it was with women and in the early stages. When women started to eat more foods that contain vitamin C, they had a 20% reduction in developing cataracts, and over a 10 year period and a 33% reduction in developing cataracts. Vitamin C is very important for a lot of different things, usually somewhere between 1000 to 1500 milligrams a day, if you’re gonna go that route number three sugar. So what happens in the bloodstream is the glucose molecule attaches itself to the protein molecule in the lens of the eye.
The lens is made of mostly protein, amino acids and water. So if your glucose levels are high, and these glucose molecules start to attach to the protein in the lens, this is called glycation glycation And it’s a special kind of cataract that forms, which is around the edge of the eye looks like spokes on a bicycle. It’s called a cortical cataract. And the way you know you have it is because you’re driving at night, and the headlights are just overwhelming you with so much sunburn Starbursts and glare. That’s a cortical Catterick. So we’ve got to eliminate sugar, processed foods, clean up your diet, that’s another thing that you need to do. And then start looking at some really concentrated antioxidants and acetylcysteine alpha lipoic acid. So in other words, start looking at how can I boost my antioxidants. Very important, and in, I have people here in this room that have reversed their cataracts completely. And they are amazing because they’ve done the work. So you all can do it if you want, you know, find out what you’ve got. And then you can do the same thing. Alright, let’s move to glaucoma because this is called the Sunland thief, meaning that you don’t know you have glaucoma
31:13
and you start to lose your peripheral vision. So it’s a vascular disease. Basically, it’s a circulation issue in the eyes. Well, guess what, there are some great herbs that can bring your eye pressure down one is called Coleus Coleus forskolin. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it co L E us. Studies have shown that you can bring your eye pressure down to to five points. Amazing they and they want to give you the eyedrops, but there are things that you can do to bring your eye pressure down that are natural, you know another one that’s very interesting. Jump on a rebounder. So when you improve your lymphatic health, you bring your eye pressure down. A third one and I know this this was amazing because I went to a glaucoma meeting a few months ago was all you know allopathic medical for three days, I sat in this meeting for Well, I needed to keep my license. So you know that I’m legal. So I can keep working with everybody. So I’m good with that. But they at the very end of the very end of the seminar the last day, the last five minutes, one of the instructors said And oh, by the way, there’s a study that came out that said, if you meditate, you can lower your eye pressure.
And I looked it up. I couldn’t believe it. Why don’t they recommend meditation? I do. But anyway, that can bring your eye pressure down. Amazing. Okay, so you’re starting to get the connection. I mean, you already have the connection. Let’s see if there’s anything else dry. That’s another one. So you know, we’re all on screens, our eyes are drying out. We’re using these drops. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but there have been deaths. I just put together this video that I’m gonna release on social media, maybe tomorrow or Monday. So the deal is, is there’s this bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa. And it turns out that this bacteria is in our water, it’s in the soil, and it’s in human waste. And it’s all over the place. So somebody somewhere in this particular company, it’s an artificial tear, and they must have somehow that bacteria God in the eye drop.
But what we’re dealing with also is our own inflammatory environment that we deal with, for a variety of different reasons, and a lowered immune system. A few years ago, I wrote an article that is published in mind body green called the ocular micro biome. So you know, the microbiome, the good bacteria in our body. We’re always have an ocular microbiome. So when we take steroid eyedrops, or via zine eyedrops, or we’re staring at a computer through our progressive lenses, which is a prescription that’s going to really trash our eyes, or we’re eating, you know, fried foods and we’re not taking care of ourselves. Our ocular microbiome goes down so we’re susceptible to whatever is out there. And I’m really glad that the FDA stepped in. I’m glad they took this off the market. I know my eyedrops are made in the US and I vigorously test them all the time. And I am very close with my manufacturer. And in fact I got right on the phone with her when I saw this this news item and we’re good. You know we we are very fastidious about our eyedrops and all my products Looks are really, really clean. But the thing is, is the media turns this into something that, you know, we have to be selective about, okay, what are we going to do here? And I would say use common sense. You know, I do have my MSM eyedrops that burn, and people will write me and say, you know, these are really burning, I’m freaking out. So there are other ways that you can use them, you can put them on a soft cloth or wet cloth and you can place them on the outside part of your eyes. So you have to learn about self regulating, you know, what is going to work for my body. And I think that’s in anything, whether you take an herbal formula supplement a mushroom, what foods you eat, you know, it’s really up to us at this point to regulate ourselves because Big Pharma and the FDA are not going to do that they have a certain prescription and dose based on your weight and height, and sex and all that. And not one size does not fit all, it just doesn’t happen that way.
So back to dry I, there was a study that came out about the eyelids that because they get inflamed, they’re not producing enough of the tears that cover the cornea. And there was a study that ophthalmologists did where they use castor oil on the islands. And when you know it, the dry went away. Now this is some hidden, obscure study like over there in the corner, as opposed to say, Well, what about steroid droughts? What about Restasis? What about all these other things which are much more mainline and mainstream.
So my manufacturer and I got together we made an organic castor oil eyedrop and we use it like an ointment so you put it on the outside of the eyes before bed. And it’s very moisturizing and it works without having to use the drugs that create the side effects. You know, it’s interesting about back to this. This artificial eyedrops its causes blurriness and redness, and so on. I have so many patients that take the glaucoma medications, and my goodness, it blurs your vision out it, it makes your eye so red and burning people stop using them because it’s it’s so negative for their body. So, you know, again, we have to kind of be educated as why I’m doing what I’m doing. Because to offer other people an alternative. Like you. And there are a lot of people out there like that. And it’s it’s growing. And I think it’s us that’s going to change the grass roots that will change the profession eventually.
Okay, I think the last thing I’m going to talk about is kids. So who’s has kids grandkids knows kids up? All right, they’re all are out there multiplying? Well, when I was at the Gizelle Institute, back to that that institution, I learned in an eye exam was about getting on the floor with the child and exploring how they move through space. And one of my mentors, dear mentors on live anymore, Dr. Albert a Sutton, another great developmental optometrist, he taught me how to treat the whole child through the eyes. And it’s actually quite genius, in what he came up with.
So I’m kind of taking his stuff. And many of my other mentors, I wouldn’t be here without any of them, and I bow to them every day. But in working with kids, one needs to be very careful about prescribing glasses, doing surgery, you know, if there’s a cross dye, or labeling them to the point where you’re dyslexic, or you’re, you know, like me learning disabled, or you can’t read or whatever. And I do work with a lot of special needs kids. There’s a place that I work in Albuquerque called Kidpower. And this is a facility that’s full of occupational therapists. And these folks are with they are progressive, that’s why I work with them. And my job is to come in and we connect the child’s eyes to their brain. Because when I do an evaluation with them, their eyes and their brain and their body are not connected. And it has nothing to do with reading the eye chart. In fact, that’s how they’re treated. They can’t read the eye chart, or they can barely read the eye chart. So they get these crazy thick glasses. And they’re, they’re lost. And so the point But the story is, is that vision can be learned and developed. And as kids, there’s so much plasticity that, you know, you can, you can do it. I’ll point you to a podcast that I was just on. The woman’s name is Katie wells. And the podcast is called Wellness mom, and very popular podcast. And if you want to learn about my methods, she did a great job interviewing me about how I explored children and help them. And yes,
40:37
all the kids that you see down in Albuquerque, do, they all wear glasses, or
40:42
some of them wore glasses, but all of them have developmental problems. So what happens is, if they go to the conventional doctor, the only thing that doctor can do is put drops in the eyes, which are going to parallels the paralyze the focusing muscles, and then they’re going to give the maximum prescription. Now, if you were to put that maximum prescription on, you throw up. And what’s interesting with those kids is they read as well with those glasses as without those glasses. It’s kind of obvious, right? To us anyway. So they may be wearing glasses, but I take them off. And we’ll do something maybe 10 or 20% the power part time, because once kids start wearing a full prescription, their visual development stops. And, you know, if you really knew that, if you really thought about that, you wouldn’t do it. But again, we’re we’re trained we and the profession that somebody comes in, they’ve got an optical distortion, we’re going to fix that optical distortion. And that’s it. And we know that there’s something else going on. So that’s the that’s the kid angle. So I think right now I’d like to open it up to q&a, and see if there’s
42:14
any questions? Yes.
42:16
Just the generic for the eyes also, thanks. Hear me? Sure. Sure. Damage to one, or improvement of one or the other. This was the entire brain, I would assume. So
42:31
there’s a part of the vestibular system, which is our balance mechanism that’s very married, married to the eyes. We call it the vestibular ocular reflex. And there’s no question because we’re talking about the brain here. The ears are here, the eyes are here, but in prenatal development. And when we see the fetus start growing, they’re all coming out of the same area. So the hearing affects the vision, the vision affects the hearing. And the vision and the hearing affect the movement. And then they affect the cognitive ability. And they go back and forth. It’s a feedback loop. So the key is, where do you enter to flip the switch? I talked about this at Kidpower. I did a lecture down there. And one of the key points that I make when I work with those kids or any kid is where can I enter? So it turns them on. Because if I go in with a preconceived idea of why they get this testing this test in this test, and I go into that, they’re going to shut down I have to go in a way that allows them to feel safe. And then something can happen.
44:05
Yeah, I wanted to talk about the Nerva hit like some hearing damage and the little Harry’s died and like what he does healing and he didn’t know the hairs died, so he may go back and they have almost normal hearing whereas everything I couldn’t hear is real distorted, like wow. You know, and so when we talk one on one, it would just be that kind of a wallop. And is there something I know it’s it’s not quite the eye but there it’s all connected. Is there anything about the hearing and the eye and things coming back that shouldn’t wear the eye in the ears like the the hairs on the ears, the silly
44:43
what I said a while ago is the cells are not dead and they can come back. Now, it seems like vibrational healing works really well. You know, I talked about this red light therapy There also may be a type of sound frequency. There’s something called the tomato sauce method if you’ve ever heard him, say anybody heard of tomatoes, tomato, this was a French physician. And he was able to determine where certain frequencies were not getting into the, to the eyes to the years. And he would give them those frequencies. I was at a conference, and you can actually now speak into a software program, and your voice will tell you what frequencies you’re not hearing. So the voice is also very connected to the years as well.
You know, people that speak in a monotone. There, there was a study that was done that monotone speaking, it can create more osteo arthritis and osteoporosis. So make sense, sound and the bone. Obviously, there’s other things like, you know, weight bearing and stuff like that. But sound healing can have a positive effect on your bones. You know, the astronauts when they went up into space, they lost some of their bone density. Right? Right. So gravity is another thing. So there’s a lot of different ways to go up the mountain. And if you’re not getting the answer, like you weren’t, weren’t, you find another avenue? And there you go, we’re able to heal it. Fantastic. That’s, that’s, it’s a very inspiring story. Well done. Any other questions? Yes. Go ahead.
46:42
Yes, I was just glancing through your quote, and then about fear, and the connection between your emotional life and your eyes? And if you’ve had a lot of fear in childhood, and then can you speak more to that I want to read more about so I would question but I was very interested in the connection with your emotions and your I know.
47:06
Well, our eyes are like a videotape library. And as children, we see our parents, we see authorities, we absorb and we internalize what we see. And we don’t always have the opportunity to then express, we just take it in, and there’s a, there’s a saying that I use is it’s not a problem with the eyes. It’s the programming behind the eyes, that causes the eye problem. So what do I mean by the programming? Well, our mind our brain, or posture, movement, or diet, our emotional health or psychological health kind of depends on where you are. There’s an exercise and it’s in the book, it’s called an eye dialogue. And what it is, is you patch your left eye, and you tune in like I’m now my right eye. And then you start asking your right eye some questions, and you just use stream of consciousness. So how old is my right eye? And you might be surprised it’s very old, or it’s very young, or I have no idea. You know, it’d be great for you because now you’re doing an inner vision exam.
What’s my inner vision in that right eye? Then the second question is right, Id you know, you’re married to the left eye. And a lot of people will say, I didn’t know they were married. Can you imagine? You went to a marital counselor and a husband and wife are sitting there? Therapists asked the husband you know, you’re married dear wife, he says I had no idea. So you’ve got that internal programming going on somewhere, you’re projecting that out there. And to Chinese medicine, the right eyes, the masculine, it’s the father, left eyes, the feminine the mother, the right eye, 80% of the nerve fibers go to the left brain, what’s our left brain, our analytical or linear? Get it done. And our left eye is our feminine right brain, intuitive creative Gestalt. So you can check out the marriage, what is the right eye need. And then you could do the same on the left eye. And a lot of times the right eye and the left eye are very different. And so you start doing that dialogue, you can journal, you can do movement with it. I mean, there’s a lot of things you can do with the eye patch. And so you start awakening the internal awareness of what are your eyes, saying, What are they feeling? Am I talking to them? And most people are not connected to their eyes. And part of it is because of that eye exam you go to. It’s so fast. Yeah, flip, flip, flip. You got the lens I’ll see in the year.
And your eye health is good. And that’s it. There’s no exploration. And the deeper functional relationship that you have, you know, I learned that from something called voice dialogue, your voice is very famous. And the therapist, so I asked him, I said, can I talk to my eyes? I said, sure. Yeah, you know, we didn’t, we never thought about that. So the eye dialogue would be a way for you to explore Maybe today’s fear. Maybe tomorrow, it’s grief. Who knows. But it’d be great for you to develop more awareness about what’s inside and become free of that, and work on the marriage healed a marriage, and the better married you are internally, the better functionally, your two eyes are going to work together. So that’s the progression. First, have the conversation and then see where it takes you. And everybody is different. I mean, I bet if we did, I’d dialogue and all of you. We have, you know, as many people here as many answers, and it’d be really fun and interesting. And you would get a psychological insight that this may be what my parents were. Maybe that was their relationship. And I just sat there taking it in, you know? So, thank you. That’s a good, good question. Yes. Okay. So
51:24
I’ve zulip Being farsighted. Now. That’s important. Now, I just didn’t know
51:32
cataract.
51:34
Cataract surgery? Yes. So and I have progressive lenses for the computer, so I can see the computer and then I can look down and read stuff. So it’s said that that is not good for the guys that I know since I have the cataract surgery, is there anything I can do to improve any of my vision?
51:58
Well, the first thing I would say is one size does not fit all. And so when I make that statement about progressive lenses, where that’s the gradient bifocal, where you’ve got the split lenses, if you wore that, you know, 12 to 14 hours a day. That’s where it’s going to really start affecting your eyes. But one of the things that I promote, is use the optical system that you need to, to perform at the highest level. And as long as you just use it in that circumstance. And then maybe outside of that time, you do some eye exercises, semi calisthenics, almost anything you can do to stimulate your eyes out of that pattern, you’re fine. There’s no problem. And it sounds like that’s a good setup for you. Because you get the computer you have the reading sounds like the the lenses they put in for distance, I mean, it’s probably about the best you’re going to do. Unless you’re going to like really dive into like 30 to 50 minutes of eye exercises every day. And I’m not sure you need to do that. So I think what you’re doing is working well. And as long as you’re not having headaches or red eyes, or double vision or whatever. I know you said that you there’s a little bit you’ve lost a little bit of your clarity from the cataract surgery compared to when you first got it. The exercises will bring that back. So well down where you are. I think that’s, that’s about as good as you’re gonna get it. For what for what you’re for where you’re at.
53:40
Yeah, I tend to forget to take them off when I’m walking around the house. Well, that’s,
53:44
you know, you want to remember that so that you’re not, you know, getting sucked into it all the time, just just when you need them. Thank you. Yes. Can you talk about Graves disease? Sure. So Graves disease is a thyroid condition. And it affects the eyes where the eyes can kind of bulge out called XL thalamus and there can be dryness associated with that. And so, do you are you so post your post right so what did you do to to move out of it?
54:19
I had my thyroid you had your
54:21
thyroid, okay, so at this point, any residual symptoms dry or a little bit? So I mean it could be as simple as you know, take a little more omega three fats and oils. It could be using eyedrops a little bit more could be trying to castor oil eyedrops. You know make sure you’re you know, not staring at your screen for hours and hours that you’re taking breaks. Get plenty of sunlight. Check your adrenal health see what’s going on there. Sometimes dry is related to There are Hormonal Health. Studies have shown low estrogen and high estrogen, both of those can create a dry eye scenario. So I think it’s again a holistic picture of how can I find a deeper balance? And within that maybe I need a little support with some natural eyedrops or something like that. But it sounds like you’re doing pretty well.
55:24
Well, I guess what I’m curious about is, when I’ve had my eye exam, they’ve talked about like that the pushing outward is happening again. And so that’s peculiar to me. So I guess ultimately, my question is, is it typical that if I’m taking the Synthroid or whatever, that the I won’t move forward anymore,
55:46
it can happen both ways. So one of the things I would look at is, if you haven’t already, I would get a little cranial sacral therapy, and see if the relationship of the bones around the orbit of the eye could help you have more resiliency, flexibility, and muscular relaxation. cranial sacral can really do that well with the eyes. And this is another thing that came up at that glaucoma meeting. And I bring it here just because of the cranial sacral. And that is they said that if you can control the cerebral spinal fluid, if you can reduce it, you can bring the eye pressure down, like the eyes won’t get better. Now, they stopped right there. What do you what do you do for that? People ask? And I was in the back going? Well, you could, you know, I was I was 104. So it wasn’t my meeting. But I think the cranial work can help and see where that takes you. Because there’s a lot of malleability in the orbits of the bony orbit, and the jaw and the bones that breathe in the skull and the cerebral spinal fluid that could give you more, say, I don’t know, regulation with
57:10
Would network chiropractor be I’m not too
57:13
sure. You know, again, it can be it’s less about the modality I find and more about the practitioners energy and how intuitive they are. So it’s good question, though, because grades is a big issue and the fact that you’ve kind of move forward. But now the X up thalamus is coming back a little bit. I would try something in the in the more structural manual world that could really open things up for you. In the back. I
57:43
was curious about living in Santa Fe for a long time and being so close to the sun with the UVs are they beneficial or detrimental if you’re not wearing sunglasses, or should you be wearing them or not be wearing them?
57:58
So there was a book that was written a few years ago called sunlight by a guy named Zane Kine MD. And he talked about the benefits of ultraviolet light. Like it boosts the immune system. Again, it’s part of that resetting of the circadian rhythm. And so we do need trace amounts of UV. We do need morning sunlight and and to be moderate about if you are feeling there’s too much brightness or glare. It’s okay for you to wear sunglasses you should or wear a hat. And especially in this altitude. If you’re feeling it, protect yourself. So that’s the sensible grounded moderate way. Yes, can
58:50
you speak about what kind of lenses are best to wear if you’re trying to protect yourself from you?
58:55
Sure. So all lenses now have UV protection, that’s part of the FDA. So they all have UV protection. If you’re going to do a sun lens, I like to do a lens that doesn’t create a discolored like you know, a neutral brown or neutral gray seems to be the best type of Sun lens to wear. And again, it depends on how much tint you want you want a little bit you want moderate Do you want to do you need a really dark and if you’re suffering some type of glare, you can also get a glare coating on it as well. But try to find something that when you put it on your eyes feel pretty relaxed, and it’s not creating some weird distorted color. And I would encourage you to wear the sunglasses when you need them. And at the same time, sunrise sunset, good time to go without I mean, you don’t need to look directly at the sun, you put your back to the sun. You know, there’s this practice called sun gazing. People, you know, they stare at the sun. And, you know, when we used to go to Hawaii, and we used to do that at sunset, and a lot of times people couldn’t look at the sun. So if the sun was setting there, they’d be here, or their eyes would be closed, and they might be doing some swinging, which is a Bates method. Some people were so sensitive, they, they’d have to be this way, the sun there, so that indirect light can work very well. And you don’t have to stare at the sun. In fact, I don’t recommend staring at the sun. So does that help to give you kind of a balance? Protect yourself and also get a little natural vitamin D? Yes, sir.
1:00:54
Here’s one of the anti freeze of the Healthy Heart
1:00:58
tears or the anti freeze and that I learned today
1:01:02
that it’s also for your eyes as well.
1:01:06
Yes, I wouldn’t make a t shirt. Thinking about making a t shirt. You know,
1:01:13
I have the ability to have short words. Short words. Okay, maybe we need. So yes. And I love me up. Come to me. There you go. I’ve come to the US hard at this particular time in history. Yeah. So we need you. We need you over Yes. How do you go up on them? Of course. Thank you. Yes.
1:01:47
Just recently, I’ve started getting treatment for macular wet macular in one eye in the mother eye, which is very disturbing to hear tonight about that. And that was what is? Yeah. Oh, God really again. And I’ve just, I realized as a I’m a body worker and a naturopath. And I’ve just sort of surrendered to standard medicine. Because they say, Oh, God, you’ve got to do this. And you’ve got to do this now. And you’ve got to keep doing this and everything. And I can’t believe that I have let that happen. So I think I probably need to come and see you and talk and find out about alternatives if there are any. And is there a way to work with these horrible injections or, or not, but I just don’t know anything about? So how long have you been getting them? Since? August? I think or do you get them once a month? Yes. And do they help? Do they give you more lined out in a couple of weeks? Okay, about the second medicine that they using the really expensive one? Yes. Because the first one apparently didn’t do too much. Although immediately after the first shot, the wiggly lines became straight again, which was very exciting for me. Yes. That they said, Oh, no, you need to so I just don’t know what’s happening anymore.
1:03:13
It’s difficult. Yeah. So definitely. Couple things to check off your list. And you could do that before we even talk. And they may be completely irrelevant by let’s just have the list. So number one, it would be if you’ve been exposed to mold. mold, mildew, D Yes. Mold. Yes. Yes. So if you’ve got a level of dampness in your body, a lot of times it will coalesce behind the macula. Wow. So they’re not going to tell you that. But they’re there that isn’t one correlation. Number two, I would probably consider maybe finding a really good acupuncturist and seeing what’s going on in your liver and your gallbladder. I would be willing to bet there’s a lot of stuff gaining energy there. And acupuncture could do the same thing as that injection. Just by putting needles in the meridians. Yeah, that’d be amazing. would be really cool. Yeah. without the side effects of that drop. Number three. And I want to be careful about this because this is not for everybody, but people that ingest a lot of dairy tend to have more wet macular degeneration. So you can take a look at that number for wet macular degeneration is a precursor for possibly a pre diabetic or diabetic condition. So what’s happening is that, again, the sugar is doing a very similar thing that happens in diabetic retinopathy, which is the blood vessels become weakened. And they’re starving, the macula is starving. And so it’s creating these new blood vessels that are fragile. And it’s that bleeding behind the macula. That’s creating this wave Enos. So, really taking a look at from a functional medicine point of view, what’s going on with the gut? What’s going on with your glucose levels. And if you do work with a functional medicine person, one of the blood markers I look at is something called homocysteine. So when our homocysteine levels are high, we’re into the danger zone and inflammation, and what macular degeneration loves living in inflammation. So the last thing that I would do, before you come to see me is start doing some red therapy, red line, stuff that can be really helpful. And this is a commercial, I’ve made red glasses that you can put on that are fantastic. And you could treat yourself with red license. Last thing is make sure you’re getting 16 milligrams a day of lutein. six milligrams a day of Xia xantham. Those are the plan Rondo, Xia, Xanthan, ze AXANTH, i n. And ask the xantham asked it. Yeah, so about six milligrams of that. That’s good. And I’ll give one more, which is something that I learned in my functional medicine training is that in our liver health, our liver produces bile and the gallbladder stores. And if we are not absorbing vitamin A, which is a fat soluble vitamin, and lutein and zeaxanthin, it’s because there’s a congestion in the gallbladder. So if we supplement with a bile salts, and it also could be related to pancreatic enzymes, if we supplement with that, then we’re absorbing our eye vitamins better because they’re fat soluble. So it just so happens, I have products now that are gallbladder and pancreatic enzymes. So if you think that your liver gallbladder are congested, then you could check that out as well. So there you’ve got seven or eight things. I would go for it and get off those injections as fast as you can.
1:07:58
How wonderful I mean, the way they talk. It’s like okay, kid, you’re doing this for the rest of the girls the
1:08:03
way they talk, right? Yeah. Great. Yes. Fear, fear, fear. Fear. Yeah, yeah. Okay, we’re coming down to the end. I’ll take a couple more questions. Yes.
1:08:17
This is kind of everyone also, I recently developed. It’s almost like a bubble on the white of my eye. And then I suddenly noticed within a week, there was another one on the inside. Okay, so it doesn’t affect my vision. Okay, so the eye doctor recently I just thought, oh, maybe they’ll give me drops like this is just some temporary thing and she said 90% of the people we see in Santa Fe get these I did bothering you. And I said Not really. I don’t remember the word she is but it’s especially the PE I believe.
1:08:58
It’s probably what they call a pinguecula. So it’s a collagen imbalance. I would get into my MSM jobs are great for collagen balancing and the castor oil and hydrate more hydration, both on the eyes, and maybe hydrating in your body and think collagen, like systemic collagen. So it could be bone broth, and it could be you know, collagen supplement. So that part of the eye is all about collagen.
1:09:29
So CDs go away because it was very interesting. Surely not say that to me. When people do in high winds high altitude
1:09:39
exacerbates
1:09:40
it Yeah. And then she said it’s permanent. It’s related
1:09:43
a lot to dryness. So you need a lot more hydration. And let’s see what happens. Yeah. Dr. Sam berne.com and don’t be on my book and Dr. Sam berne.com Yes, hello with Dr. Sam berne.com So you can always email me so and I’ve signed a bunch of books so they’re all at the at the front of the desk. So I think I’m gonna end here
1:10:26
thanks for coming everybody
1:10:33
thank you very much
1:10:43
to sunrise
1:11:07
Thank you very much yes
1:11:17
yeah, yeah. See everybody okay. Yes. Transformer medicine
1:11:36
they cannot allow the candidate anything Yes. Does it really matter but it’s Charlie Are you Charlie? No, I am Thank you. This was great. Somebody very close to talk to you all the time. Yes. Say my wife uses print again. Okay, just ordered off. Here
1:12:05
we go living in Santa Monica.
1:12:09
Because I desperately desperately need time to come in. I would like you know
1:12:29
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.
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