Here is a session where I worked with a mother with a 12 year old who had one year of vision therapy with another clinic, and she wants a second opinion because her child still has eye fatigue and eye pain after reading. Enjoy the show!

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

therapy, vision, test, primitive reflexes, eyes, point, cellular level, reflex, hair, moro reflex, absorb, morrow, visual, bilateral, stress, problem, adaptive responses, motor, big, burned

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.

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Hey everybody, its Dr. Sam, and I’d like to welcome you to another EyeClarity podcast. Well, today, I’m going to give you a bird’s eye view into a session I gave to a mom who’s got a 12 year old. And the dilemma is that she’s got some vision problems progressive myopia, a visual coordination problem called Convergence excess. But the big thing is, she has been doing physical vision therapy for over a year with some other doctors. And she still has the symptoms of her eyes getting really tired, sometimes her eyes feel painful, and she’s exhausted by the end of the day. So when I talk to the mom, you know, we go through things like the prenatal period, the pregnancy, the birth, the first three years bonding, and everything seemed to be pretty normal. And yet, here we are at age 12. And there’s still unresolved vision problems. So what do you do? So in this session, I bring in the whole body, and I talk about cellular biochemistry, and how we need more energy to be able to absorb any therapy that we might receive. You know, one of my mentors, was a world known developmental optometrist, he was practicing in Miami Beach professor at Berry College. And I studied with him for a long time.

And one of the things that he taught me, which I still use today, is the fact that before we start with any child, in any kind of physical therapy program, we want to get an assessment of their nutrition. And if we can order a lab test, where we can see what is the nutrient absorption, like, Are there any heavy metal toxicities. And in figuring that out first, that is number one, if you can improve the energy and the biochemistry on a cellular level, then the child is more available to receive the therapy and make the changes developmentally that we’re asking that they need to do, because it takes an incredible amount of energy to go through any kind of therapeutic process. And if you’re depleted, you’re just not going to get very far. So in this session, I talked to the mom about some different ways to go about, you know, helping her her child. And for any parent out there who’s got a child and they just don’t know what’s going on, this could be really helpful. So I hope you enjoy the show.

Thanks for tuning in. I see it is that especially in children, and learning in school, we have the sensory motor systems. And there’s a developmental arc where we as kids, kids, we learn through movement, how to integrate our sensory motor development, our eyes or ears or proprioception, you know, and then that leads to spatial decision making. And, and then some of the cognitive skills, you know, executive function, memory, and, you know, spelling and math and all that stuff. And it does start with the primitive reflexes, those are kind of the foundation. And, you know, there’s the morrow and the fear paralysis reflex, they tend to go together. And then you have the TLR and the spinal gland.

There are about five or six of them that profoundly affect vision development. And so there there’s that piece, the reflex work, the vestibular work the the bilateral integration, which you talk about. And so when there are eye problems, at some level, on either primitive reflex or gross motor, level, vestibular as well, there’s some delay, there’s some developmental delay, it’s interfering with the visual development to really click in and it sounds like she’s got some of the visual skills. But if she’s still having the, you know, the visual symptoms, then at some point, the fan Additional motor, whether it’s reflex or gross motor, are not really solidified. So there’s that piece of it, that’s happening. And so things like convergence excess or myopia, are muscular and stress reactions, adaptive responses, because the demand that’s been placed on her is too high based on her skill set. Right. So she’s got a, she’s got to compensate in some way. And so what vision therapy is supposed to do is help fill in the gaps of where the motor development maybe is as missing, and then to improve the visual skills, so that the vision is effortless.

And that allows the brain to then absorb the information, and there’s going to output and there you go. There’s another part of it that has to do with cellular function, and I’m talking about systemic metabolic, that, at some level, if the energy is draining out, and it’s partly visual, there’s still a lack of resiliency on a cellular level of being able to absorb nutrients even better. And the better the nutrients, the more energy, the better the detoxification pathways. And without having that really strong cellular health, then all the therapies that you can offer all the physical therapy, vision therapy, they don’t work as well, because the person doesn’t have saleable energy to learn what they’re needing to learn. So the cart before the horse, you want to really make sure the cellular energy is working at a high level before you present, you know, physical therapies, occupational therapy, vision therapy. So there could be partly a cellular over lack of nutrient absorption, it’s not what you’re feeding her, but it’s just she is she absorbing as well as she could be? Is there an autoimmune thing? Is the digestive system, you know, is there inflammation? Obviously, stress is going to bring more of that. And you know, the gut and the eyes, the gut and the brain are very interrelated in a lot of ways, and then you can bring in the nervous the nervous system, you know, Is she more sympathetically nervous system focused? Again, if you’re spending more time in the sympathetic nervous system, you’re gonna, you’re gonna burn out faster? And so where’s the parasympathetic nervous system? Part of it, you know, sleep, relaxation, digestion. And so if the, if the adrenals are involved, then you know, they’re sympathetic overdrive. And now again, there’s this whole syndrome of too much overload in the system. And then, and then there you go, it creates some obstacles in in the reading and learning. The thing is, at this point, she’s done so much vision therapy, she’s probably kind of burned out from it.

08:37

Yeah. And say,

08:40

Here’s more, you know, well, we won’t really have a willing participant, you know, it’s like, she’s not going to buy in very easily, because she’s done so much of it. And so we have to bring that into the, into the equation, because for me to say, okay, here are more exercises to do. This is what you need to do. I don’t think you’re gonna get a button from her. So the question is, how do we solve the problem? How do we inspire her to move to the next level, in her development, her performance, reduce the stress, have her learn more self regulation? You know, it’s all those things. It’s a part of part biochemical, probably. So that’s going to be how do we figure that out? Right. And you and I are going to work together and brainstorm that. And we’re going to navigate the least resistance. So that’s kind of how it’s what’s happening.

But we have to be very careful and artful about what we might present. Because she’s Oh, overloaded she’s, you know, all that vision or be with think you have more results. And that’s where on a cellular level, something still is not clicking. So one of the tools, and again, there’s lots of different ways to the top of the mountain. So when I present stuff, you get to veto it, you can say, yeah, no, I’ve done that. One of one of the things that we could consider is doing some kind of a lab test. And what I would opt for at this point is something like a hair mineral analysis, okay? And the reason why is that in a hair mineral analysis, we get to see on a subtle level, the mineral ratios, and what a hair Hair test tells us, the internal representation that the person is going to show us in a hair test is how they deal with external stress, like their life, and their lifestyle that they’re living in. The hair test is going to show you their adaptive responses on a trace mineral level, on a digestive level on a heavy metals level. It’s not 100%. But it’s a subtle enough test that gives you a broad enough snapshot that you’re going to get some information, like, for example, I would probably predict that, number one, she might have some kind of sensitivity to carbs.

And when she has carbs, that kind of depletes her even more. And that would show up in the calcium magnesium ratio, or the sodium potassium ratio would tell us about her adrenal health, or phosphorus, that trace mineral tell us, okay, how is she absorbing or protein, she’s getting enough protein is she absorbing it. And then we can look at some other trace minerals like Chromium, which is sensitive to carbohydrate metabolism, or heavy metals we could see as she’d been exposed to, you know, and any of that. And there are other indicators as well. Now, if you don’t want to do a hair mineral, and maybe you have access to that you could do through me, I could send you a pocket. And it’s very non invasive, you just cut some hair from the nape of the neck, and you fill out a health history. And then you send it into my lab, and then we get a result. But it’s it’s a roadmap to some degree, we’re not guessing what is needed. She’s probably at some level on a cellular level when depleted for a while in the regular pediatrician world. Unless it’s a I have friends and colleagues are there women, they’re holistic pediatricians, they’re not in your area, they kind of get that. But in a regular ethics situation. It’s not something that they’re focused on, they’re focused more on, you know, the big diseases and, you know, blood and stuff like that.

13:17

Yeah. Anyway, that kind of stuff. But no, I mean, that sounds that sounds great. I

13:22

think we ought to start there. Because whenever, whenever I see somebody who’s done any kind of therapy, occupational therapy, vision therapy, and they’re not getting the results, then there’s a problem on a cellular level, where the person’s energetic availability is not there to absorb the level that they need to to make the changes. Because at some, at some level here, even if it’s a small situation, there’s some she’s not connecting, what to do with her body and how to use it in a way that really allows her to work optimally. Like this left side, right side thing, this is, this is a pretty big issue. And it may be she’s using more of her right side or her right eye using more for left brain. So in other words, you know, if we were going to do any vision therapy, that’s a big if probably, the two things that I would focus on would be maybe doing the Moro reflex integration. I don’t know when the last time you did that, though the morrow that I do is called the Moro starfish. Does that ring a bell? Does that ring a

14:51

bell? Doesn’t ring a bell? No.

14:55

Okay, so so just a little background from Me, I had a wonderful mentor from Florida who was a, he was a fantastic developmental optometrist. And we went to Scandinavia, he and I. And we studied with those eye doctors, who had been doing the primitive reflexes since 1975. And we really learned the importance of the reflexes as it relates to vision. And it’s been slow to distill that information into, you know, the vision therapy practices, I think it’s happened. I mean, this is 25 years ago. But I work with a lot of OTS. And so primitive reflexes are a whole part of the whole thing. And I work a lot with something called the prisms and other other things as well, color therapy. So I’m going to demonstrate the Moro reflex, because this is being recorded. And then the other one that you might consider would be doing some bilateral movement things in an obstacle course. Okay, now, have you guys done any bilateral movement in obstacle courses.

And what I mean by that is, you know, chairs and pillows and right and having her way through the world, she could kick a soccer ball, she could dribble a basketball, and then having her do say maybe some skipping, but where I want her to go with this is develop her back body, and learn to hop and skip, backwards, backwards, it’s the Yeah, it’s the going backwards, that stimulates that back body, which makes the whole brain work in the Vision Center is actually in the back part of the brain. So when we do we do a lot of motor stuff, I, in fact, I don’t even do like eye movements and things until much, much later. And we do very little of it, we do some of it. But we really spend time with kids in the reflex world in the vestibular stimulation world, and in the motoring, through spaced with having them visually guiding and directing their movements, so that they’re connecting their vision with their body as they’re moving. And with things like hopping and skipping and galloping, they have to get as proficient going backwards as they aren’t going forwards.

And in fact, if I, if we were in person, I would probably ask Evelyn to see what her skipping backwards is. And, you know, I, this may or may not be true. But it may be difficult for her to skip backwards, I don’t know, backwards, how I would be. And so that really develops the whole brain. So this obstacle course situation, you can do it with a bike. But it needs to be slow, you know, turning, you can do with a soccer ball, like, you know, kicking around different things, because we want her to get better at using her vision to move her body through the world. That’s really what the definition division is. And I wouldn’t worry as much about the reading and the handwriting and the academics, because she is operating in a different time space than, say other kids. And we have to honor her rhythm. And at some level, there might be too much demand on her I don’t know. And

18:52

there was quite a bit and then we had to pull

18:55

back. Yeah, we need to pull back on that. Because that actually does more harm than good. I’m very sensitive to that. She may be an incredibly creative individual, that that was just operating at a different rhythm and timing,

19:15

very creative, and always, always very, very creative.

19:19

So with the creativity, what I would do is that I would spotlight that one because that might actually give her some, some more juice. So what I’m going to do here is I’m going to demonstrate the Moro reflex and then I’ll send you some. And you know another thing is you’re not that far at some point. Come up here. And you know, we could do like a two hour session. I mean, I gotta tell you this point when I work with people, it’s six sessions. Okay, now I’m doing the vision therapy But going as long as you there’s crawling, there’s galloping. So this would be galloping. This will be skipping the sea, I’m really getting my upper body and my lower none of this coordinated really go. Okay, and there’s hopping. And so the key is you would be setting up an obstacle course somewhere. Again, pillows, chairs, whatever. Maybe you do it first, and then she does it. And I really want her to motor backwards, like that’s, and so she’s motoring backwards. And there’s a real engagement of the bilateral integration. So, that would be you know, if you can get her to buy in with those things, that would be that would be great.

21:04

She likes to do that. And soccer,

21:07

basketball? No, does she play tennis?

21:12

She does not play. We do play basketball and ride bikes. And so

21:23

you know, things like badminton, like getting into an eye and she say she’s good at I hand. But I’ve ever used her opposite hand.

21:30

Yeah, I was like, it’s good. I had on, you know, dominant. But

21:36

so we want to engage that left side more. So, so have you guys ever used these?

21:46

Oh, yeah, we have lots of

21:49

parquetry lofts. So one of the things that I learned, I worked with a guy named Dr. Wax wa chs. He’s not alive anymore. And I studied with Dr. Wax. He was from Pittsburgh, and he was a really great developmental optometrist. And he worked a lot with the PGA method.

22:10

But

22:11

with the blocks, I’m going to send you kind of a sequence. So let me just explain like you and she would each have the same four blocks. And you would sit back to back and you would build a design, and you would have to explain to her how to make the design, but she couldn’t look at yours, she’d have to do it from it’s very verbal. And then she would do the same thing, she would make a design. And then she would explain, describe to you how to make it. Another way to do it would be the blind folder. And I’ll send you the directions on this. I’m just giving you the highlights blind folder. And you would scotch tape, like four blocks down on a piece of cardboard, she would feel yours. And then she would make hers based on feeling yours. Visual medmen. Yeah. And so there’s a couple of ways that we can, you know, we can use those those blocks. But that would be there’s like four or five ways that are really great that you could interact with her, that might be slightly different than what you’ve been doing with the park country. And it’s very cognitive driven. But it’s also visual auditory motor. So it’s like, it’s really good. So and I would say those would be no the highlights for now, and then let’s get the hair test. And I think it’s going to be okay, we’re going to find some deficits, and then we’ll have to decide, what’s the best way to supplement here? Would it be in a morning smoothie drink? Would it be, you know, she is starting now with capsules, but there are a lot of different strategies and great companies that, you know, it’s like she almost needs like a really big boost in the morning.

24:14

Yeah, like a big boost or something. And I definitely can see that it’s, you know, deficient in something. It’s just hard to tell what

24:22

well, this is where the hair mineral analysis, we’re gonna get a test of all the minerals, and the minerals or the sparkplug of the of the cells. And it’s a much more subtle test. So we get to see things that are like a little deeper than say on bloodwork as a 24 hour snapshot. And unless there’s a you know, a huge deficit, everything is fine. Yeah,

24:43

I mean, to me, that’s really fascinating, since her dad does have Addison’s, which, you know, since it’s such a rare autoimmune disorder, I think there’s always a root cause. So that was something too. I wanted to make sure whatever she might be deficient in, doesn’t end up in something like that later on. So now that’s very interesting.

25:02

And you can put that in on the health history when I send you that, you know, Father has Addison’s. And of course, some of my patients that do the best with the autoimmune, or when they really cut out the inflammatory foods. That’s seems to be such a. Yeah, and dairy, dairy gluten and high glycemic sugar stuff. So, you know, if you think there’s a hint of auto immune, I’m not sure that there is, but

25:36

I’m not sure something is, but there’s Yeah, I’m not sure what that’s No, you’re really,

25:41

she should be farther along based on the vision therapy that was presented to her. And that’s why I think the hair mineral test is probably will will help us with some of the missing links. And then what I would like you to do, if you could email me what the computer reading prescription is, like, what is she using? And also

26:07

other readings? I do. Oh, okay. What is it? It says, oh, d plus, point five, zero in the sphere. Okay. Oh, s plus point five, zero. Okay. And then in the notes just says try Vax only no polycarbonate and blue light blocker.

26:31

Okay, that’s,

26:32

that’s a good prescription. You know, with that prescription, it tells me that they are worried about the myopia.

26:42

Because at a plus 50, if she had more

26:45

myopia than that prescription would be much different

26:50

from it seems like she seemed more concerned with the size of the eyeballs, the eyeballs the size of them,

27:03

that could well be concerned with. So size, so there’s two parts, there’s structure and function. I tend to lean more towards function like what’s the functional health as opposed to the structural health? You know, as long as the pupils are responding to light? She’s not light sensitive. You know, unless, yeah, unless the eyes are like bulging, and that would suggest some kind of a thyroid issue. I’m not, I’m not sure about that. I mean, certainly, any, no,

27:44

I haven’t seen any bulging or anything like that. You know, I’m more

27:49

interested in the balance between the two eyes, and being able to come into visual midline. And that’s where that Morrow starfish could relax that, that, you know, because IT Convergence excess, and myopia is just the muscling, I’m over muscling, the compensate, because I either don’t have the skill set, I don’t have the energy, or you’re giving me too much, or the demand is too much. So that that tells you, okay, we is what we’re giving her we need to regulate that kind of watch her nervous system, so that we’re not overwhelming her to the point where she’s completely stressed out. And

28:38

that’s kind of where we are.

28:42

Okay, so what I’ll do is I’m going to send you, I’ll send you written directions on the morrow, and this bilateral movement thing and the parquetry. And we’ll get the recording, and then you’re, I’ll mail you the hair packet. And that’s pretty self explanatory. But if you’ve got any questions, just give me a call. So we’ll, we’ll take care of that. And then maybe let’s talk again, I don’t know, after the hair test comes back. Once I get it, I can contact you. And then by that time, you might have a little data on, you know, introducing the morrow and the bilateral meter, how that mountain where it’s going, and we’ll get there. We’ll get there. Yeah, I think it’s more at this point as we need to tweak subtlety, like there’s been a lot of little the good news about the vision therapy you’ve done is there’s a really strong foundation and basis of what you’ve done. And so now, what we’re going to do is be as efficient as we can to kind of tie it up so that she’s fully integrating and absorbing what you know what she’s been doing. And part of that might be biochemical, as well,

30:02

but I?

30:06

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we can see about the color therapy, there are ways that you can do the color therapy very inexpensively. I’ve been doing color therapy for a long time. So I’ve developed, you know, you don’t necessarily have to get some big light and like, but that could be helpful down the road also. But

30:29

I’m definitely open to all the different, you know, light therapies and stuff like that, I always find a lot of that very fascinating. Like I said, though, but after a year, I was like, I don’t, I’m a little suspicious that we’re throwing that into like, it’s, you know, but

30:43

I think at that point that see, again, what the way I would see it is, I would do the biochemistry first, before you start, that covers the base, and I would do the color therapy first as well. Or what the color therapy does is it, it balances the nervous system, and it can open up the peripheral vision and relax the brain. Okay, so you know, that energetic healing can be really great. It’s just, you know, weigh in, when it was introduced was kind of like, I would have done it a lot sooner. But I don’t, I don’t do long processes anymore, because it doesn’t take that long, it’s like we kind of get to the root and we just go for it. And then some of the regular vision therapy practices. It’s a lot slower, either, I don’t know, if the doctor was in the room, or the doctor does the therapy or, or she he or she hires vision therapists, and then it becomes this whole business model. So

31:46

the business model is makes me nervous. Sometimes.

31:50

We’re staying away from business.

31:54

I, I do appreciate that I do. as

31:58

well. As parents, it’s a you know, you got a lot of expenses. So anyway, let’s let’s go this direction. And then hopefully, they email me any questions you have. And again, I’ll send this stuff to you by the end of the day, and just start exploring it you know, when you can don’t push too hard. You can do it every day, every other day, every third day, you know, you just you’re gonna have to negotiate the I totally, she’s burned out from the whole,

32:27

the whole scenario burned out. And, you know, they require, you know, homework and stuff. And that’s been a big burden. You know, because she’s at an act and Academy and they don’t require homework. It’s all very, you know, no shoes play.

32:41

Homework during stressful. There’s this next next level of division where we want to, to be more playful,

32:50

absolutely. No more

32:52

more fluid, more flow, more whole body. Let’s, let’s make it creative. Well, I’ll tell you what, if your back, you might actually take 10 steps more later on. That’s,

33:05

I’ve noticed that standard school and we took, you know, one step back, and then I looked like leaps and bounds ahead. Once I pulled her from that setting.

33:16

Yes. So that’s really what you’re looking at. She’s going to do it her own way. Oh, yeah, we’re unique. And we kind of have to just nurture that, that trajectory, and not impose so much onto it, because she’s just gonna, she’s gonna pull back she’s not going to be available. Yeah, so this is a key point, you know, before we end the podcast, there’s no cookbook approach. And sometimes when you go into these busy physical vision therapy offices, where, you know, they program you, and you go twice or three times a week, and you’re working with a vision therapist, sometimes there isn’t room to improvise, and you know, meet the child where he or she is, and in this particular case, to get to the bottom of it, it’s going to be a combination of doing some primitive reflex integration. And working with the bilateral movements with visually guided, you know, obstacle courses to help her integrate her eyes and vision with her body.

It’s amazing to me, the number of kids I’ve worked with is when I help them reconnect their eyes to their brain and body through movement that they just take off. But the first thing we’re going to do is the biochemistry and see what her body is adapting to in terms of stress. And then from there are going to do some kind of a support supplementation and or diet to see if we can really boost cellular energy. And then we’re going to do some very targeted specific physical vision therapy things. We may do light and color therapy as well. We may do a little cranial sacral therapy, we’ll just see. But anyways, thanks for tuning in today. And that’s our show and until next time, everybody, take good care.

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.