Join me for an illuminating episode of the EyeClarity podcast, where we unravel the secrets of holistic eye care. From finding the right eye doctor to making informed choices about surgery, this episode is a comprehensive guide to maintaining and enhancing your eye health. Let’s journey through the realm of eye care together and empower ourselves with knowledge and insights that pave the way to better vision. Enjoy the show!

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Hey, everybody, it’s Dr. Sam. I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. If you want to get in touch with me, you can send me your questions at hello@drsamberne.com. Before we start the show, I’d like to talk to you about my new membership platform. When you join, you get access to exclusive content that you won’t see on social media. You’ll be able to attend my live Q and A and ask me questions, and you’ll have the opportunity to join my advanced workshops. To sign up, go to drsamburnmembership.com now to today’s show.

Hey, everybody, it’s Dr. Sam, and I want to welcome you to another EyeClarity podcast. So today, I want to help you navigate the eye care system. So I’m going to take a few minutes. I’m going to talk about ways that, first of all, you can find an eye doctor that you can maybe be compatible with. Number two, how you can help your eye doctor, help you in the best possible way. And number three, if in fact, you do need surgery, what’s the best way to navigate?

All right, so let’s go to number one, how to find an eye doctor. Well, you know, the best way to do that, I think, is first of all, go on Google and type in holistic eye doctor. Now, you may or may not get somebody in your area. You may not even get a holistic eye doctor. You may get a holistic naturopath or functional medicine doctor or a biological dentist. And so at this point, I would contact whatever comes up on the Google, and I would contact that office and ask them for a referral. Is there anybody they know? And maybe it isn’t quite a holistic eye doctor, but somebody maybe who’s a little older, maybe who’s a little more gentle, a little more middle of the road. It’s kind of hard to find holistic eye doctors because in school, we’re not really trained to look at vision holistically only allopathically but many times there are doctors that at least they’re more reasonable in their attitude. And if you can find somebody like that, another way to do it is through your friends, through your community, to ask around who’s somebody that I have a holistic philosophy in my health. Is there somebody that at least isn’t totally extreme? Name that’s going to really just recommend surgery as soon as I walk in the door. And there are doctors, eye doctors out there like that, and that may be the best you can do in your area. So that would be number one.

The number two. When you go for your eye exam, I recommend taking a friend, a family member, and have a certain intention or focus on what you want to achieve. It could be, I want you to check my eye health. I want you to give me a prescription for my glasses, if that’s what you need. But I don’t want you to overcorrect me. And the way you do that is when he starts flipping the lenses. Feel it in your body, feel it in your eyes, and you’re wanting to stay as close to the current prescription as you can. And you need to stand up for yourself here and you need to say, I don’t want a super strong prescription. And most of the time, even if they don’t believe in you or believe what you’re saying, if you’re committed, because the stronger the prescription you get, the faster it is going to weaken your eyes. So you want to stay in the area of something that’s more in the middle, so you don’t have something that’s so strong that it’s going to make you dizzy, nauseous, or give you headaches.

All right, now, in addition to that, I would be very careful about going into things like progressive lenses or bifocals, especially if you haven’t done it before, you’re much better off getting two pairs of glasses. Something for distance, something for near. You want to stay away from things like monovision where they’re correcting one eye for distance, one eye for near. And you want to be conservative in what you’re wearing. These newfangled things that these guys and gals want to prescribe, they end up in disaster. I mean, people come to me and they go, I should have never gone down this road. I just had a guy yesterday and he said, you know, this is the busiest fanciest eye center in Santa Fe. And every time I come out of there, I get these glasses. I cannot see out of them. And I keep going back and they just say, Get used to it. And I’ve gone to them three years in a row. I am fed up. And so for the exam, what I did is I reduced his prescription by about 70% and he tried it on and he goes, my goodness, this feels great. I love this. This so it takes an empowerment. In your world to be able to say, I don’t want something too strong, and don’t give me all these bells and whistles. I’d even be careful about staying away from a lot of tints, a lot of coatings, because it ends up smudging the lens. It’s cloudy, and the lenses just don’t last as long, and they’re expensive. So stay with, again, middle of the road.

All right, number three surgery. So, first of all, if a doctor is recommending eye surgery, I would consider getting a second opinion. I would definitely do some research, consult with me or somebody like me. And before you enter into any surgery, you want to know what the side effects are. You want to know what the success rate is. You want to know, what can I expect from this? And in some of the side effects, you want to know things like, well, is this going to create dry eye? Is it going to create floaters? Am I going to have a retina issue? What are some of this? And really, if you can’t get those answers from your doctor, then you find a doctor who can tell you these things. And I would enter any surgical procedure very cautiously because there are side effects, especially to laser procedures and procedures that are invasive.

So that being said, as long as the condition is not sight threatening, and you’ve got even if you have four to six weeks, what I would say is start doing some of my protocols, and many times you can stave off the pattern and eventually turn the tide. So this is something, again, where you go with a friend, with an advocate, and you don’t let them bully you into something or scare you into something until you are completely informed on what’s going on. And this even includes pharmaceutical eyedrops, things like eyedrops for restasis, steroid eyedrops, antibiotic eyedrops. A lot of times, there may be alternatives that you can use, and this is where you get the information. And then you find somebody like me, and then there are ways that you can go. I mean, acupuncture can be really helpful. Craniosacral therapy, lymphatic drainage, herbal remedies, any plant based medicines, natural eyedrops eye exercises. There’s so many things that you can do.

And another aspect that we don’t discuss extensively is changing your diet. Reflect on the foods you consume. Shift towards a more plant-based, rainbow-colored vegetable-rich diet. Vegetables are highly beneficial for your retina, vitreous, cornea, and eyelids. Adopt an anti-inflammatory eating pattern. Explore intermittent fasting. Consider doing a cleanse. Seek guidance from a functional medicine doctor. Often, eye issues stem from either functional eye problems, incorrect prescriptions, eye coordination disparities, or biochemical/endocrine imbalances. A skilled naturopath or functional medicine doctor can assist you in replenishing essential nutrients and facilitating the healing of your eye tissues. For queries, reach out via email: Hello@drsamberne.com, appointments@drsamburn.com. Connect with me on social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, and Clubhouse. I’m here to support you. That concludes our episode. Take care, everyone.

Thank you for tuning in to the EyeClarity podcast show. If you found value in this episode, be sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and share your feedback with a review. Looking forward to having you back next time.