dave's blog

Dave's note: I'm really looking forward to seeing Townley race against Reed and Stewart in the future. In Europe, Townley proved that he had the speed to run with Stefan Everts. Everts is one of the few riders in the world who could compete with Ricky Carmichael. Does that mean Townley might have the speed to run with Reed and Stewart next year? I'm excited to find out. Of course, I don't believe anyone can match Bubba's speed, but I am inclined to believe that Townley has the speed to make the podium in the premier class.

Michael Wiederholt says, "Research in this laboratory has demonstrated that trabecular meshwork has contractile properties, is actively involved in outflow regulation..." Below is an abstract of one of the studies on this topic he helped author.

I have recently started consulting with Alan Tillotson, R.H., Ph.D., at the CHRYSALIS NATURAL MEDICINE CLINIC. I'm impressed with his knowledge of Ayurvedic and Chinese herbs (as well as Western herbs). I had a one hour consultation with Alan yesterday and I will definitely be following up with him. (Later in this post, I will share something he has written on glaucoma.)

Glaucoma is an optic neuropathy in which retinal ganglion cells die probably through an apoptotic process. Apoptosis is known to involve free radicals in several systems including the retina. In this context, the aim of the present work was to analyze retinal oxidative damage in rats with glaucoma induced by the chronic injection of hyaluronic acid in the eye anterior chamber. The results showed a significant decrease in total retinal superoxide dismutase and catalase activities after 6 and 3 weeks of treatment with hyaluronic acid, respectively.

One of my [update: former] ophthalmologists is a homeopath. He initially prescribed homeopathic phosphorus for my glaucoma. Unfortunately, that had side effects, so he switch me to homeopathic mercurius aceticus.

 Mr. Bill Sardi, who has collected and studied a great deal of research on our eyes, spoke at a NOHA program on "Nutrition and the Eyes," October 15, 1997. He pointed out that our eyes are subject to radiation from light and that in the act of seeing they use a great deal of energy. As we know, in order to live we produce energy by using oxygen; this process produces many harmful free radicals, which then need to be quenched.

I think this one image tells a great story. It presents new data and it presents it in a way we haven't seen before on my blog.

In the recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA 2007;297:842-57), a meta-analysis on anti-oxidant supplements concluded that vitamin E may increase mortality. (The same conclusion was cited for other anti-oxidants such as vitamin A, as well.) This is part of a continuing debate. For anyone interested in this subject, I have listed some links below that provide useful background information.

Here you will find some of Dave's top food recommendations for great vision, and ghee is one of those!

Glaucoma specialist Dr. Robert Ritch has been in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) recently. India, Pakistan, Thailand and that whole region (Myanmar is next to Thailand and close to India) have been on my mind a lot lately, for a variety of reasons. I'm reading more about Ayurveda recently and I have also been in frequent conversations with people in India. I asked Dr. Ritch for some photos from his trip and he sent me a couple. In the photo below, he and his colleagues are at the head of the parade. 

 I was asking about glaucoma and Ayurveda on a newsgroup recently. I explained that glaucoma is no longer viewed simply as an eye disease defined by increased intraocular pressure.

 For the first two years after I was diagnosed with glaucoma, I had my eye pressure checked once every six months. I was under the impression that eye pressure is fairly steady and that large fluctuations are unusual. I certainly did not expect that I would experience very large fluctuations in eye pressure within very short periods of time (such as minutes). However, fluctuations in my eye pressure are something I have observed frequently over the course of collecting more than 18,000 eye pressure measurements.

 I've written several articles about the very clear relationship between my eye pressure and my stress levels. As I pointed out (in the comments to that article), the standard medical opinion is that stress does not affect eye pressure (intraocular pressure).

Happy Valentine's Day!

I received some nice feedback about yesterday's blog article on how nasal conditions affect eye pressure. Thank you for your emails (and I would appreciate it if more readers will leave comments on my blog too).

Sinus conditions affect one's eye pressure. This is particularly important for glaucoma patients. Nasal blockage can have a strong effect on eye pressure and there are subtle effects as well. In addition, I speculate that the nose may offer an effective way for glaucoma patients to improve the long-term health of their optic nerve. The nose can be the doorway to the optic nerve as well as being intimately connected with eye pressure. In this blog post I'll touch on both areas.

I haven't blogged much about my daily eye pressure records lately. However, I am continuing to collect data and work with my medical team. As of right now we have recorded 16,785 intraocular pressure measurements over 205 days. In the last 47 days my eye pressure has consistently been under 15 during the day. The most interesting (and fruitful) research seemed to be related to my eye pressure during the night.

This is my plan for overcoming glaucoma: embrace, evolve and exceed.

I had to start embracing my glaucoma because to do otherwise implied aversion. Aversion is defined as "antipathy: a feeling of intense dislike." Obviously, we resist that which we dislike. And that which we resist persists - this is a law of health. This law is the basis for the radical acceptance paradox: radical acceptance is the first step toward change.