I'm in my late forties and my eyesight has been deteriorating for close work and reading to the point where I needed glasses to read GAW on my 24 inch screen and I was holding my flip phone at nearly arm's length to read texts. I do have glasses of about 2.5 diopters but I find that my depth of field is gone so that I have to keep taking them off to attend to my son who needs constant supervision. I also have a bit of astigmatism so when out of focus, text is doubled and offset diagonally in both eyes.
I was researching LASIK eye surgery to try to fix the problem, at least the astigmatism part, but I can't afford to be out of action. Anyway, the problem is the flexibility of the lens reducing with age so corneal surgery doesn't really help with the loss of focal accomodation. Surgical replacement eye lenses, usually a cataract treatrment, might do the trick, but I feel too young for that and again, I can't be out of action due to my caring responsibilities.
After a little background reading, I found that presbyopia is caused by age related stiffening of the lens caused by chemical crosslinking between the long chain molecules in the lens. The crosslinking is -S-S- bonds, which are sulphur linkages, but may be thought of as oxidative damage for the purposes of treatment.
My medical experiment No.1 which I posted on on GAW was taking nattokinase, a clotbuster and fibrinolytic drug, which helps the body break down clots and scar tissue. I take nattokinase so that I can, in good conscience, mention it to vaxxed people at risk of blood clots. *Please note, there are contraindications to taking the supplement nattokinase such as interactions with other drugs and supplements and increased risk of uncontrolled bleeding. This paragraph does not constitute medical advice and is for curiosity value only.
Here's the post: https://greatawakening.win/p/142AwMNxDv/im-taking-the-clotbuster-supplem/
I reasoned that it might help with stiffening of the lens as it does with other tissues, but it doesn't seem to do this so I searched for an oral supplement which might reverse the stiffening and I found that there had been medical trials of eye drops to reverse the stiffening and the trials had gone well with no ill effects. The eye drops contained unspecified amounts of lipoic acid, an antioxidant which is the main active ingredient and choline, the purpose of which in the drops isn't known to me,
Here's an example:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33514891/
Anyway, you can get lipoic acid (600mg of nature identical alpha lipoic acid in oral capsules) as an antioxidant and health and beauty supplement.
I ordered some and dissolved a tiny bit of the white powder in the capsules in hot water and applied it as warm solution in a tissue to my left eye, letting the eyelid open a bit. It was not uncomfortable and did not seem to have an immediate effect of any kind. I continued this for a few days and imagined that I might be seeing a bit better with that eye. Rather ruining a controlled experiment, I started applying more and more powder as stronger solution to both eyes. When you dissolve half a capsule in a little cold water, it makes a strong milky liquid and at his concentration it stings a little and if you apply it at night, your eye is a bit gummed up in the morning due to the minor irritation.
I have a fine print copy of "How the mind works" by Steven Pinker and I absolutely couldn't read it in any way without glasses before I started my eye treatment. Now I can read it unaided in good light, and I hardly wear my glasses, I'm not wearing them now. The improvement could be coincidental for some reason, or it could be some kind of mind-over-body placebo effect, but the improvement is there.
I'm very happy with my experiment so far. Is this interesting? Any questions?
Important edit after something that came up inthe comments:
I don't think this will work for myopia, although maybe I'm wrong. The myopic lens is too rounded already and the muscles squish the lens to focus I think. This treatment might make myopia worse by making the lens more pliable and rounder due to the resting muscle tension.
I expect this treatment is irreversible so please don't try it for myopia.
This is awesome. Thanks for sharing. Did you first try taking it orally, or dissolving some under the tongue? Is there a reason not to do that? Did you use any special cloth, or simply a clean handkerchief?
Long ago, in the 90s, I read a study about how artificially dilating the eyes of young children protected against myopia later in life. I have searched for that article many times later without success, but I have a pet theory that myopia is caused by poor development of eye muscles, due to not getting enough darkness. I've personally observed that kids with night lights tend to get it worse and sooner than kids without it. Something to think about.
Apparently, belladonna was used in ancient Roman times to dilate the pupil. And you can buy belladonna eye drops; Similasan is the brand.
I was just thinking that that might be what the choline was for in the medical trial eyedrops.