Dr. Bates Method - Cures poor Eyesight, anyone tried this?

Question

I was reading up on Dr. Bates method and theory of how the eye works. Anyonetried it, and has it worked. It has been promoted on mercola.com, mercola is a great doctor.

The main excerise involves palming the eyes and relaxation techniques

Answer 1

I guess it works for some people http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthre...

I personally have the book by Bates (if u want, I'll send it to you as i don't use it) and I thought I would get down to fully practising the techniques but just don't seem to get down to doing it.

basically i find that the technique takes too much time and commitment for me to improve my eyesight to any significant degree.  and since life is short and time is precious, i'd rather wear glasses than give up my time.

although reading a book by Barnes on the method has made me appreciate how much better it is to not wear glasses if u can avoid it, and i haven't worn my glasses for more than 2 years now (except for driving), i find that it is an impairment to the quality of my life in some ways to deliberately keep myself shortsighted and not be able to recognise people across the street when i could just put on my glasses.

generally i do find that when my eyes feel tired, that just covering them up (palming) for a few minutes helps and in fact i can see clearer after that, but that's just a short-term temporary relief to my tired eyes rather than an improvement in my eyesight as it is.  but if the principle is there, i guess if i practised the technique properly, it could improve my eyesight.

i also totally accept the premise by bates that our eyesight isn't static. i know this because when i went on holiday, away from the uk to a nice sunny place in asia, where i ate better food, spent more time outside, more time resting, less time on the computer / watching tv / reading books, my eyesight had improved very much when i returned to the uk.  but then i picked up on my usual routine again and my eyesight went back to as it was.

also i was part of a dr. bates fan group on yahoo or msn (i can't remember which), and they did a poll to ask whether the method had worked for your shortsightedness and for most people on there it hadn't.

Answer 2

Mercola is NOT a "great doctor"!!  He is an idiot and a quack.

The Bates method is useless nonsense and does not work.

Answer 3

This scam has been around since the early 20th century.. Every few decades somebody re-introduces it as " groundbreaking new treatment, throw away your glasses."  Bates was actually an opthalmologist who had a head injury, suffered amnesia and disappeared for a while and then reappeared with his "system" if my memory serves me correctly (so many health frauds and scams to keep track of, I may have the details wrong)

There is no evidence it works at all, and no reason to think it would help if one actually understands how the eye sees.

It is a classic case of quackery.  Quackwatch has a good summary article on it, and Martin Garnder has wriiten about in a few of his books on health fraud

http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/bates.ht...

FYI...Mercola is a quack too