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Eye Health w/ Dr Sam Berne - Connecting Minds Podcast Ep31
185 Plays5 years ago
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_NIP9qRQrw0
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On this episode of Connecting Minds..
Dr. Sam Berne has been a thought leader in the field of Behavioral/Holistic Optometry and Vision Therapy for over thirty years. He is an internationally-known author, researcher, facilitator, and teacher who uses a multidisciplinary approach applying a diverse variety of disciplines some of which include vision therapy, child development, nutrition, traumatic-brain-injury, Continuum Movement, medicinal essential oils, craniosacral therapy, dolphin-assisted therapy, and color therapy biofield analysis, with respect to expanding human potential. Via his successful private practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he developed innovative methods for healing the mind-body-spirit through eye therapy. Dr. Berne has promoted his unconventional philosophy of “throwing out labels, letting go of cookbook solutions and treating patients from the present forward.” Opposed to measuring a patient’s problems based on only mainstream ideas, Dr. Berne has historically treated patients on a case-by-case basis. Visit him at: www.DrSamBerne.com
Links to Christian’s book and social media:
My first book Autism Wellbeing Plan: How to Get Your Child Healthy - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084GBBDL9
Website: https://christianyordanov.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Dr. Sam Byrne
00:00:00
Speaker
Today on the podcast, I have Dr. Sam Byrne, and what a wonderful conversation this was with what is an incredibly interesting individual. He's got, I don't know, this energy about him that is super
00:00:17
Speaker
you know, hard to explain, but super amazing energy he has. And the topic of the conversation is eye health, but it's so much more than that, as you will find out very
Holistic Optometry and Vision Therapy
00:00:31
Speaker
shortly. A little bit about Dr. Byrne. So he has been a thought leader in the field of behavioral holistic optometry and vision therapy for over 30 years.
00:00:40
Speaker
He is an internationally known author, researcher, facilitator, and teacher who uses a multidisciplinary approach applying a diverse variety of principles, some of which include vision therapy, child development, nutrition, traumatic brain injury, continuum movement,
00:00:56
Speaker
medicinal essential oils, cranial sacral therapy, dolphin assistant therapy, and color therapy biofield analysis with respect to expanding human potential. So he has a successful private practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has developed innovative methods for healing the mind-body spirit through eye therapy.
00:01:17
Speaker
And Dr. Byrne has promoted his unconventional philosophy of throwing out labels, letting go of cookbook solutions and treating patients from the present forward. Opposed to measuring a patient's problem based on only mainstream ideas, Dr. Byrne has historically treated patients on a case-by-case basis. And you can visit him at drsamburn.com.
00:01:42
Speaker
I'm just going to let this conversation speak for itself. I was going to say such an eye-opening conversation and I completely didn't mean for it to be a pun or anything like that. But anyway, we'll have Dr. Burns links to his website and his resources, social media, etc. So do check out. He has a lot of free resources. He has a podcast. So if you or your children, if you want to take care of your eyes or their eyes, improve their vision,
00:02:12
Speaker
Definitely check out his stuff. What an amazing individual and what a pleasure to converse with him. So here you are. Without further ado, Dr. Sam Byrne. Dr. Sam Byrne, thank you so much for joining us on the Connecting World Podcast. Thank you, Christian. It's great to be here. Great to
Innovative Eye Therapy Methods
00:02:30
Speaker
have you. Can you tell the listeners what is your background and your specialties? I was trained as an optometrist.
00:02:39
Speaker
and studied things like child development. And early in my career, I worked with kids who had the spectrum disorders. I actually trained at an institute called the Gazelle Institute in New Haven, Connecticut. And this was a multidisciplinary facility. It used to be affiliated with Yale University and learned how to evaluate and treat all kinds of children and adult with learning problems.
00:03:08
Speaker
I also developed programs in hospitals to work with traumatic brain injury, did research in that area, and developed a form of physical therapy for the eyes. I also studied and became a craniosacral therapist because I saw the connection on a muscular skeletal level to the eyes. We could talk about that. I also studied aromatherapy, naturopathic medicine, Chinese medicine, and energy healing.
00:03:37
Speaker
So as an optometrist, I look at the options as a whole body system. Right. That's fascinating. I am interested in all of those things that you mentioned. And I hope one day to have some capacity and time to delve into each one of them in more
Factors Affecting Eyesight Development
00:03:57
Speaker
depth. But to start with, I suppose, actually, I'd like to touch the
00:04:06
Speaker
child side of things. Let's start at the beginning. In a human being, what prevents proper eyesight from developing when growing? Well, it really starts in utero. One of the things I've learned is what happens in gestation, what happens at birth, and what happens in bonding critically affect the sensory motor development. If there's been any birth trauma, for example,
00:04:36
Speaker
This has a huge effect on our visual development and our overall brain motor integration. Some other things that affect our eyesight would be nutrition. So if there's a biochemistry imbalance, if we've been exposed to heavy metal toxicities or other toxicities, these are all impediments
00:05:03
Speaker
that don't allow the normal developmental arc that young children need to go through. And of course, today with the digital screen time exploding, children are not able to do the same playtime where they're exploring their body in space. They're just given a screen, a phone, and they look at it. And this prevents the spatial visual development, peripheral vision, depth perception,
00:05:33
Speaker
inquiry that you and I probably grew up in. And I think this is a huge issue in terms of normal sensory development.
Vestibular System and Visual Health
00:05:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You know, this is, I recently stumbled upon something called, it's called Zing performance. And basically it's designed, you do a, you do like a test for visual acuity and so on. And the outcome of that is you get
00:06:04
Speaker
individualized exercises that you perform that stimulate the vestibular system and cerebellar development. So I read that that's really good for kids. And a lot of them have to do with eye tracking and balance. So could you maybe explain how, as a child is growing up, if the vestibular system, if that's not stimulated, how can that actually create impediments in the acquisition of other skills?
00:06:32
Speaker
talking about one of my favorite topics, vestibular health. And the inner ear is made up of these little tiny stones or bones that are part of the triangle, which I talk about called the eyes and the ears and the feet are proprioception.
00:06:48
Speaker
And when we become over-focalized in our vision, this begins to desensitize the vestibular processing. That is why we do a lot of vestibular stimulation, rolling, spinning, swinging. And in doing that, it stimulates the vestibular functioning, which then helps connect our visual tracking and our reading.
00:07:15
Speaker
And so the vestibular dysfunction, I call it vestibular insufficiency, occurs when we don't get enough active movement, especially in gestation, when we're floating in the amniotic fluid and our peripheral vision is stimulated. So any program out there that stimulates the vestibular function is going to improve our visual processing. And a lot of people, a lot of kids,
00:07:44
Speaker
If they don't access that kind of movement, it really shuts down their visual development. So vestibular visual have this very intimate marriage that then goes in with proprioception. And this leads us to a really full life of understanding and processing ourselves in the world. Interesting.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah, I've been doing this program for maybe three weeks now and some of the exercises were quite challenging, not the eye tracking ones, but around coordinating movements like spinning your one arm forward, one arm backwards and so on.
00:08:21
Speaker
And I'm not sure if it's the placebo effect, but I have a feeling there's some type of improvement already. I feel it. It's like a qualitative, very qualitative type of improvement. Like for example, I was driving the car and I seem to be a lot more aware of the road, but without that internal anxiety as normally I would have had before, for example, right? So which kind of brings me to the next question. So what kind of, what should a parent know
00:08:48
Speaker
for you know when their kids are growing up how can they know what the right type of the stimulus stimulation exercises are for their child will part of it depends on watching their infant or toddlers behavior.
00:09:02
Speaker
I feel it's important to do a lot of tummy time. I know that's controversial, but there's a whole set of movement patterns called the primitive survival reflexes. And these are movement patterns that actually start occurring in utero. And one of the main purposes of the reflexes is to help the newborn adjust to coming out of the birth canal.
00:09:23
Speaker
These reflexes are controlled by our brainstem, our survival brain. One example would be the moral reflex, which is our startle reflex, being able to go into different environments and be able to handle all the changes that are going on. So if there's been any birth trauma, C-section, forceps delivery, stress at birth in any form,
00:09:48
Speaker
I would take your child to a developmental specialist, maybe an occupational therapist or a developmental or behavioral optometrist like myself, and we can evaluate the visual system as it relates to the whole body. So some movements that are really important would be creeping, crawling,
00:10:08
Speaker
lots of crawling, and then doing the things like swinging and spinning, you know, going to the park and sliding. So in other words, I call it adventures in gravity, where you're stimulating the vestibular system by different postural situations. And if you do those things, most likely your child is going to be very curious
00:10:36
Speaker
And I know that can be stressful for parents because they're going over here and going over there, but it's precisely what they need to be able to control their body in space. And I define learning in school as partly being able to control your body. And in doing that, you have to go through these developmental motor processes that start with the primitive reflexes, and then they go into vestibular exploration, bilateral integration,
00:11:05
Speaker
And then finally, the visual motor skills.
Vision in Autism and ADHD
00:11:08
Speaker
Those come a little later. So that hierarchy of development of reflexes, motor, fine motor, is mapping what you're talking about, cerebellum, prefrontal cortex. And, you know, when you stimulate the neurons,
00:11:25
Speaker
When you refire the neurons, you rewire them. So there's a neuroplasticity that's occurring when you offer these new movement patterns to anybody. This is what I've seen in my therapy that creates incredible improvements in people's vision because we're offering them new
00:11:45
Speaker
patterns outside their normal, repetitive, deteriorating closed system of what we do robotically. So I hope that's helpful and understanding.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's fascinating stuff. Before we move on to the next topic, I have a great interest in autism. I've written a book on the topic and peripherally from that, also some of that is extending into ADHD and other children's health issues. So in terms of your work with kids on the spectrum, with kids with ADHD, can you tell us what
00:12:21
Speaker
How does improving the eyesight affect the other conditions? You know, I consult at an autistic facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico called Kid Power. And it's an institute that they were seeking me out because what they felt was the eyes were the missing link in connecting the brain to the body.
00:12:49
Speaker
Now, this is different than a regular eye doctor where you go for an eye exam and you read the distance chart. That's actually called your eyesight. But what I evaluate is vision. And vision is how, developmentally, the eyes and the brain and the body work together. So what I've learned at KidPower is I'm evaluating the visual system in the context of the overall child's
00:13:15
Speaker
processing, auditory processing, motor processing. And in bringing the visual system into it, because it's one of our most dominant senses, it turns a switch on. It connects them in a way where they go, oh, I actually see something in front of me. Oh, I can actually start recognizing letters and words. Oh, I can start engaging my vision as it relates to my balance and movement.
00:13:41
Speaker
So it's phenomenal that within a few minutes of my activating their visual system, it's kind of like I'm turning it on, that they get so engaged in a very different way. So I'm here to say when you see autism, there are so many different kinds of autistic behaviors. And they're in that spectrum, like what you say, autism to ADHD, Asperger's is in that.
00:14:06
Speaker
So my piece is bringing in the eyes. It's not the total answer, but it's part of what is missing. And I think in the education with OTs and PTs and so on, bringing the vision into it, not eyesight. Vision can be a game changer.
00:14:25
Speaker
in getting that autistic child more online with engaging to themselves and engaging with the world. I mean, it makes complete sense because from some of the research, we know that
00:14:41
Speaker
autistic children's brains develop in a different way, you know, in utero and when they're growing up. So if you can, certain regions are more wired together, others are more disconnected. So if you can, any intervention, be it, you know, with vestibular stimulation or anything with division, if you're re-patterning and rewiring regions of the brain, I can see that better connection in between specific regions can have,
Epigenetics and Eye Health
00:15:10
Speaker
immediate effects, positive effects. Let me just briefly set the context. I have a lazy right eye, so astigmatism in the right eye.
00:15:26
Speaker
And I'm farsighted. Same as my mother. She's got a lazy right eye. Same as my grandmother. She, you know, God rest her soul. She passed away two months ago. She also had a lazy right eye. Now, my dad's vision is perfect. My sister's vision is perfect. So how how much of this is hereditary? How much of it is not Dr. Byrne? It's a great question.
00:15:52
Speaker
I think I'm going to bring in the work of epigenetics, which says that environment informs the genes to express in a certain way. I also think Rupert Sheldrake talks a bit about something called the morphogenic field. And what this is about is that ancestrally, and especially on the mother side, many of these eye conditions are passed down energetically.
00:16:20
Speaker
You were living in your mom for nine months. She was informing you in a certain way and you picked up on that. And then the grandmother is also influencing you in utero as well energetically. And so it's partly environment. There is a genetic predisposition. There's a morphogenetic. There's an epigenetic.
00:16:47
Speaker
And it's also based on mirroring and watching what your mom is doing, what your grandmother is doing. So it's all of those things. And it's difficult to pinpoint, but that's how I think about it. And I want to also say you can improve your lazy eye and farsightedness and astigmatism at any age. Age is not a deterrent.
Understanding Laser Surgery and Eye Exercises
00:17:16
Speaker
And we can get more into some strategies on what you could actually do to re-educate how the two eyes and the brain and the body are working together based on this adaptive response that you have absorbed in the astigmatism, farsightedness and lazy eye.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love to explore that further, but let me just say before you discuss that at length, I love Rupert Sheldrake's work. In fact, the reason I asked you how much of this is hereditary and not genetic is because he's convinced me that heredity is not solely
00:17:55
Speaker
based on genetic material, heredity can be these morphogenetic form-giving fields. That's why I've stopped saying genetic so much, and now I say hereditary. So that's fascinating that you weave that Sheldrake's work in there. But yeah, so please discuss that further. Because I had laser eye surgery maybe, I don't know, five years ago or so. And just in the right eye.
00:18:25
Speaker
And my vision has improved a little bit, but I still am very dominant with my left eye. So how would I go about rebalancing their dominance? We want to blame faulty vision on the eyeballs, the eyeballs fault. And really, it's the programming behind the eyes that causes the eyes to change. So function changes structure. You've got a couple of things going on here.
00:18:54
Speaker
When you do any kind of refractive surgery, you're changing the prescription in the eye, but you're not changing the programming that caused the prescription. And sometimes this can create a little confusion in the brain. But no worries. You can still overcome the laser surgery. But what it's going to take is for you to do some stimulation with the right eye that
00:19:22
Speaker
engages your brain and your body in a self-awareness process. And when you do that, initially, what's going to happen is you might actually start seeing better out of the right eye. And then if you continue with some of the physical therapy exercises, the left eye and the right eye are going to match up in a different way because both eyes are going to be now in a different relationship with each other.
00:19:52
Speaker
So in terms of the specific exercises, there's an exercise that I use, which is more in an internal exercise called eye dialogue. I developed this many years ago. And what it is, is that you talk to each eye separately and there's certain questions you ask each eye, like how old does each eye feel? What's the marriage between the two eyes? Like that would be an interesting question for your right eye to answer and your left eye to answer.
00:20:21
Speaker
They may not even be married. Internally, if they're not married, the external vision is going to represent that. And it isn't like you're just wearing a patch eight hours a day. That doesn't work, by the way. That is a caveman medicine type of thing that I never recommend. It's very traumatic. But by wearing the patch over each eye a few minutes and doing some internal questioning,
00:20:52
Speaker
And then when you take the patch away, you're going to notice that the two eyes may be trying to work better together. We could also do some things like color and light therapy on that right eye. We could also think about maybe adding a lens part-time in a contact lens possibility that might give you better acuity, and that could help match up the left eye.
00:21:16
Speaker
Uh, there also may be some vestibular stimulation things you could do while patching the left eye. So there's a lot of territory you could use and, you know, improving the lazy eye does not have a statute of limitations. You know, in the old literature, they say, well, by a certain age, if you don't improve the vision in the, the lazy eye, it'll never get better. That is a myth that is completely false.
00:21:42
Speaker
So if you started to really some active stimulating with the right eye connecting your inner vision with your outer seeing, you would profoundly see some changes and improvements.
Language Impact on Eye Conditions
00:21:54
Speaker
But I would caution you that some emotions may come up, some memories may come up, some traumas may come up, and that's all normal energy that's being stored in that right eye. And also, you might want to change the label of instead of calling it a lazy eye,
00:22:11
Speaker
you might call it the more sensitive eye or the eye that sees in a more intuitive way. You know, we get labels and then we live out the diagnosis of the label. And so maybe it isn't lazy. Maybe it's the eye that see is the more visionary eye. We don't know. So there's a lot here to unpack, but boy, the upside would be incredible for you.
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah, you know what? I absolutely love this kind of not labeling people like someone is autistic or is diabetic. I actually prefer, and I know many people may disagree, that I would prefer to say someone has something, has a condition rather than they're defined by the condition. Now, I know in the autistic community, there's a lot of disagreement with that.
00:23:00
Speaker
A lot of people would prefer to be just called autistic, but in general, with anything like this, diabetes, whatever, I think you're right. Because when you label someone or yourself as something, you tend to live out. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I just wanted to add that there.
00:23:21
Speaker
Okay, so there's quite a lot of stuff to go here. What would... Okay, so you have some exercise on your website now that you already discussed the eye dialogue, which I definitely am going to look into. How would one know which... Because there's quite a lot of exercises. How would one know what are the most bang for their buck in their particular instance? Well, the good news with that is that when I created my brand and my website,
00:23:50
Speaker
What I took is 30 years of my physical therapy exercises and I created 90 day programs, three month programs for every major diagnosis.
Tailored Eye Health Programs
00:24:03
Speaker
And so if you go on my website and you type in lazy eye, you're going to come to a page that will have video blogs on lazy eye, just philosophy and how to do the exercises.
00:24:15
Speaker
But then you actually have the 90 day program. So you do like three exercises a week, and then you move on to the next three. And each program is specifically tailored for the diagnosis. And it's all free. It's all available. I've done hundreds of video blogs. You could even Google lazy eye.burn. You'll get a lot on Facebook and Instagram. And, you know, I felt about four years ago that I want to take, I wanted to take this.
00:24:44
Speaker
on social media and so I studied how to do that and through my podcast through video blogs you know through all different kinds of avenues I've created you know probably thousands at this point where you can just go online and learn about a condition
00:25:04
Speaker
And so it's all there for you. And also if you have any questions, I do a Facebook Live Q&A. I do a Clubhouse. Clubhouse is a new social media app that I'm on. I do a room every Tuesday mornings. So there's lots of access to me that's free if you have questions and I try to answer them online if possible. That's awesome.
00:25:28
Speaker
So talking about, so they already kind of dispelled a couple of myths around, you know, for example, patching the eye or that there's an age limit at which point that astigmatism can be improved. What other common misconceptions are there that folks need to be aware of? Wearing your glasses full time weakens your vision. That's a myth. It's really important to take your lenses off in non-danding and non-threatening situations.
00:25:58
Speaker
and experience the world of blur, especially from an emotional attitude place. But you're obviously doing this where there's zero visual demand so that you are safe. Another myth is that just because you get an eye diagnosis like cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, or dry eye, you don't have to live out the diagnosis. There are so many natural integrative holistic methods
00:26:26
Speaker
to reverse eye conditions. Another myth is that you don't have to live out your eye diagnosis and you can improve your vision at any age. I've got so many patients in their 70s and 80s that are reversing wet macular degeneration, cataracts, reducing the need on bifocals, and so on. The last myth I'll talk about is that diet has absolutely nothing to do with your eyes.
00:26:55
Speaker
Just the opposite. If you clean up your diet, if you do a cleanse, if you eat mostly plant-based where you're getting a lot of antioxidants, you boost your microbiome, your eyesight is going to get better. No question about that. Right. We're going to discuss that later. What are some of the most important nutrients for eye health?
Diet and Supplements for Eye Health
00:27:19
Speaker
Well, it's really simple. We just do the rainbow diet of vegetables.
00:27:23
Speaker
and the berry family in the fruit world. So when you're talking about the rainbow, you're talking about, you know, ABCDE, things like avocado, asparagus, you know, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots. You know, so it's basically looking at the rainbow and what is in season. You know, I put red and orange and yellow bell peppers.
00:27:53
Speaker
the green leafy vegetables, kale, spinach, and chard. The berry family is so helpful for retinal circulation, healthy fats and oil. So I like to dehydrate and use raw nuts and seeds. Again, if you're eating animal products, getting some kind of seafood, the salmon, very good for astaxanthin, which is an important carotenoid for the macula.
00:28:21
Speaker
So if you follow those general guidelines, you know, even the Mediterranean diet, there was a study that came out in the American Academy of Ophthalmology that said that eating a Mediterranean diet reduces your risk for macular degeneration, including foods that contain glutathione and vitamin C can reduce your risk of cataracts. For dry eye, making sure you're getting collagen boosting nutrients.
00:28:48
Speaker
enough fats and oils, checking in with your thyroid health. So there's lots of connections. And I'll say one more that in Chinese medicine, I've learned that the liver meridian affects the eyes. So if you're dealing with toxicity, mercury amalgam from dentistry, head trauma, you know, all of these things are going to impact your eye circulation. And the name of the game is improving your oxygenation and your hydration
00:29:18
Speaker
in your eye tissue from the front of the eye to the back of the eye. If you can achieve that goal, you're going to avert any eye deterioration and eye disease. That's what it comes down to. Fascinating. So in terms of actual supplements, for example, I take a
00:29:37
Speaker
absolute crapload of supplements just looking around the house. There's supplements everywhere. But I noticed since starting to take lutein and astaxanthin, I am pretty sure it's not a placebo effect. I've been doing it maybe now four months at this point. I definitely feel an improvement. So maybe would you discuss what would be like your top five supplements for eye health?
00:30:01
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I've done research over the years. I have had 30 years of experience with patients, and they finally begged me to create an eye supplement. I've created two. And there are two things you look at. You look at, obviously, the quality, and the second is the dosage. So I would say the top three for macular health would be lutein. You want to get about 16 milligrams a day of lutein.
00:30:30
Speaker
You want to get about six milligrams a day of zeaxanthin. Those are the plant carotenoids. And then astaxanthin, you want to get 12 milligrams a day. And that's an animal, seafood. You can get it through microalgae. That's going to be 12 milligrams a day. For vitamin A, you're looking at somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 IUs. Actually, the B complex, I've put that in my eye vitamin because it's really helpful for corneal health.
00:31:00
Speaker
And then you've got the herbs like bilberry, which is great for eye circulation, taurine, which is an amino acid, ginkgo, which is really important for vascular health and optic nerve health. So if you're suffering glaucoma or optic nerve inflammation, ginkgo, taurine, and of course then your omega threes are critical. You can add things like quercetin and resveratrol, those are also
00:31:30
Speaker
antioxidants, they're very helpful. And don't forget the trace minerals, magnesium, selenium, chromium. Okay, the trace minerals are so important for our eye health as well. So that's just a broad brush, you know, but certainly, again, I've created lots of video blogs where I will spotlight, say, for example, glutathione. So glutathione is the master antioxidant in the body,
00:31:58
Speaker
It helps us with detoxification. And when you have low levels of glutathione, it affects many negative things, but it really affects your eye health and you have a higher risk of developing cataracts. Eliminate sugar. This is another one that really wreaks havoc on your eye health among any other things. Eat a diet that's anti-inflammatory. So stay away from those foods that create more inflammation because if you're in stress,
00:32:26
Speaker
It's going to feed that inflammatory response and create more free radicals. So those are again, some of the generalities. Uh, and you know, if people follow those, they're going to boost their eye health, just like what you're experiencing. That's not a placebo. You're getting better circulation to the focal part of your eye that's involved with detail. And that's probably why you're feeling and seeing a difference.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think so. In my case, I'm probably thinking of upping the dosages because I'm at the computer so much. But you also, I also noticed you have an MSM eye drop product. What is the, I know it's a sulfur containing compound. What is the difference between taking that in the eye as opposed to as a supplement?
MSM Eye Drops for Inflammation
00:33:18
Speaker
You know, I made this discovery about 10 years ago.
00:33:22
Speaker
because I was using MSM powder to help people with their inflammation, their joint health, their collagen health. And I said, well, what about if we put MSM in an eye drop? You know, this sulfur, it's an organic sulfur molecule. We know that sulfur is the third leading trace mineral found in our body. It's really important for many cellular reactions. And it's like sticky fly paper. So anything that attaches to sulfur gets flushed out of the body.
00:33:51
Speaker
It's anti-inflammatory. It is lubricating, moisturizing, and brightens. And I wanted to use an eye drop that actually had some therapeutic value. You know, most of the eye drops that are on the marketplace actually make your eyes worse. You know, there's a lot of preservatives, chemicals. You know, if you get into pharmaceutical eye drops,
00:34:15
Speaker
It has a lot of side effects. So I was able to create to build this eye drop and I started using it on my patients and I created two percentages and the lower percentage helped with eyelid inflammation. You know, that's one of the major causes of dry eye. When our eyelids become inflamed, this inhibits the glands to produce the proper tears that cover the cornea. And because I'm a somatic therapist, a body worker,
00:34:44
Speaker
I would have people wash their hands, put a little MSM in their eye and massage their eyelids. Who would think you'd actually touch your eyelids? But that combination helped reduce the eyelid inflammation. And then in the lower percentage, I would do something called the eye bath where they would put the MSM in the eyes and they would actually do several drops. And that was incredibly lubricating and moisturizing to the cornea.
00:35:12
Speaker
And then on the 15% MSM, because it's so collagen producing, this was a game changer for people who suffered floaters. So when you suffer floaters, this is a collagen imbalance in the vitreous gel. And as we age, the vitreous tends to shrink, it dehydrates. So if you add some collagen boosting eye drop like MSM 15%, you have a chance
00:35:40
Speaker
to dissolve the floaters. And I'm saying a chance because floaters are, there are a variety of different reasons why we develop floaters. We can't just say it's this or that. And so it's not the magic bullet, but certainly I saw hundreds of my patients come back to me and say, you know, my floaters are less using the 15% MSM. So I'm at the stage now where, you know, MSM is valuable in supporting optimal eye health.
00:36:07
Speaker
From an FDA standard, I cannot say that X is Y because it's not approved by the FDA, just like a lot of these natural products are. But what I've observed is it does support better lubrication, moisturization, and reducing inflammation. Try it out. It's pretty potent. And all my customers on my web store get very nervous when I sell out.
00:36:35
Speaker
because they wonder, am I going to be able to get more? But don't worry. I've got a great lecture or so. I've gotten my customers and patients addicted to the MSM drops, but they're super great. So thanks for asking that quote. Do you ship? Yes, I do. I ship internationally. And so we've got a great web store manager and
00:37:04
Speaker
She's awesome and we've got a great team. So we do our best with customer service, but yeah, we do ship internationally. So if people want to order, uh, yeah, just contact us and we're running sales all the time. So want to, want to get those to people. And, uh, can you take the, because my, my fiance, um, where's contacts? Can you actually take those with contact lenses for contacts with contacts in, if you're taking glaucoma medication, just wait 15 minutes.
00:37:34
Speaker
before you put the MSM in. If you've had cataract surgery, the MSM is totally safe with the new lenses that are put in the eye. So as long as you are not allergic to sulfur, and most people, what they get confused with is sulfur and sulfa. Sulfa drugs are different than the sulfur molecule.
00:37:58
Speaker
But I always say start slow, you know, start with the five percent, maybe just put a drop in the eyes, see how it feels and they can sting a little bit. So you have to get used to that. The stinging is only three to five seconds. But, you know, if your eyes are oversensitive, then, you know, start slow. That's that's the way to go with it.
00:38:21
Speaker
Okay, I'll definitely give those a try. On another podcast that I heard you on, you were talking about grounding or lack thereof as contributing to
Grounding and EMF Mitigation
00:38:34
Speaker
floaters. Could you maybe tell folks what is grounding and how can that contribute to floaters? It comes from the work of Earthing, earthing.com.
00:38:43
Speaker
When we are inundated with wireless and EMFs all day and all evening, and now we've got the 5G, which is really packing a lot of information in a very concentrated way, this definitely, well, we'll just say it could have a negative impact.
00:39:02
Speaker
on your health, your wellness, your circulation, and your eyes and vision. So in the grounding, because most of us are not getting out in nature, going outside in your bare feet and sticking your feet in the dirt on grass is really important as a way to ground yourself from all the EMF absorption that we're all dealing with. And another
00:39:30
Speaker
technique is called Earthing, and it's from a company called Earthing.com. And they actually sell things like sleeping mats and grounding mats. So for example, I have a grounding mat below my computer, and I plug it into the wall. And when I put my feet on that, it actually helps release some of the EMF pollution that I might be absorbing as I sit in front of my desktop all day.
00:39:57
Speaker
So I think that getting back to nature, grounding into the Earth, and we then return to something called the Schumann Way, the Schumann resonance, which
00:40:10
Speaker
is about 7.8 hertz. It's a very slow waveform, and it runs from the Earth's ground up to the ionosphere. And it actually helps regulate our endocrine system and our nervous system. Now, if you don't want to know about the Schumann wave, just go take a walk in the park or take a walk in the woods and notice how your nervous system and breathing start to return to a more harmonious state. That's the Schumann resonance or the Schumann wave.
00:40:38
Speaker
This earthing is sometimes a way for us to also help remind us to get back to that slower wave. You see, with computers, we're going at the speed of the computers, and in doing that, it's compressing our tissue. We are going to the speed of the email, of the reaction, the response.
Reducing Screen-related Eye Strain
00:40:59
Speaker
And we lose our own internal compass of slowing down. And this is where earthing going into nature, not only does it balance our nervous system, but it also may contribute to a healthy microbiome, which is our bacteria.
00:41:14
Speaker
in our gut which reflects our immune health, our lymph health and again our ability to de-stress. That's so powerful because especially in terms of eye health, we only are kind of conditioned to think it's mechanical and the machine is just getting worse with age. That's it.
00:41:35
Speaker
But we were away for a few days up in close to the mountains here at the hills. But we went hiking and stuff. And I'm coming back from that environment to this computer environment. And even just the whirring of the air filter, my computer, the humidifier. Just those frequencies, they're kind of
00:41:59
Speaker
jarring and disturbing for me, at least today. Maybe I'll probably get used to them over the next few days again. But it's amazing how much things open up, being more in that natural environment. Even my eyes, I felt like they're better today. And today, I'm already squinting at the computer for the last four or five hours. I'm already feeling pressure building up. It's crazy.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah, so being stuck at the computer, so looking at things constantly on screens, what can us folks that work on a computer all day, what can we do in between, let's say, every hour or every day to kind of reset some of the damage that is occurring? There are several things that you can do. Number one, make sure you're wearing blue blocking glasses after 6 p.m. because that will help block that chaotic, high-energy
00:42:50
Speaker
blue light that's coming at you constantly. You can even get a blue blocking screen protector on your computer and phone. But you want to make sure you're hydrating enough because there's a tendency to get dehydrated. And on a visual level,
00:43:08
Speaker
It's really important to look up and out, you know, at least every 15 to 20 minutes so that you have a window that you can look out because that relaxes your eyes and releases them from being in that visual confinement state. The MSMI drops are great to use throughout the day. That's another great hydration. And there's an exercise that I recommend that people do called the Palm Hum. And what it is, is you rub your hands together for about 10 seconds.
00:43:37
Speaker
You cup your hands over your eyes. Your eyes are closed. You breathe in through the nose. And when you exhale, you make a humming sound and you keep your mouth closed like this. And you do six or eight of those. What that's going to do is that's going to put the sound right into the eyes.
00:44:03
Speaker
and it's going to open up the compression in the eye muscles, and it's also going to moisturize the eyes. Your breathing is going to be deeper after you do those six or eight hums. Sound is one of the best ways to open up compressed tissue, and your hands are like tuning forks that are directing the sound into the eyes. So doing that several times a day will reset you
00:44:30
Speaker
from the intensity that you're in. And then last but not least, get 30 to 60 minutes of natural sunlight every day. Get out there, walk, breathe. There's an exercise I do called sun gazing, where we do that at sunrise and sunset, where you allow the sun to
00:44:50
Speaker
absorb into your eyelids. You can do it with eyes closed. Natural sunlight, not only do you get the vitamin D, but it also changes your mood and it resets the light in the eyes. You know, light is a food and we are heliocentric. We go towards the light, just like the plants. And we're told to be afraid of sunlight. And that's another myth. You know, obviously if you're out there eight hours a day,
00:45:14
Speaker
You want to wear a hat, you want to wear protection, but you need to get 30 to 60 minutes of natural sunlight every day as part of your overall health and wellness protocol. So those are some of the broad brushes. Again, I've done lots of video blogs on how to take care of your eyes with digital time, but that's a broad brush there that will help people. Go ahead.
00:45:41
Speaker
Yeah, of course we have the links to your podcast and your website for folks that want to delve into it a little bit further. But just on that topic of sun gazing now, that's maybe another misconception you can dispel if needs be. Is it actually dangerous to look into the sun, let's say at sunset or sunrise? Well, you need to tune in to yourself to see what is your sensitivity level.
00:46:11
Speaker
I just had a great time. I went to Hawaii. Hawaii is like my second home, so I was able to go there last month. And I did a whole video on sun gazing while the sun was setting, which was really fun. And one of the things that I brought out in that video was that when you start to go outside at sunrise or sunset, first of all, you're greeting the day. It's matching your circadian rhythm.
00:46:40
Speaker
You know, in the morning you're saying hello, in the evening you're saying good night. So just being in that circadian rhythm is really helpful for your overall health, your pineal gland and so on. But what I recommend is going out there, sunrise, sunset, and maybe at first put your back to the sun.
00:47:01
Speaker
You're still going to get the benefits of the sunlight and then as you begin to acclimate maybe turn 45 degrees towards the sun with your eyes closed. See how that feels and then maybe completely turn towards the sun with your eyes closed and start there and then if that's okay.
00:47:22
Speaker
maybe open your eyes for five or 10 seconds and look indirectly towards the sun at sunrise and sunset, and then close your eyes and see how that is. So you build up slowly. And if you do it that way, you're going to get the benefits of the sun without damaging your eyes. Only after you feel like, okay, I'm used to this now, then you can start doing the sun gazing with the eyes open, maybe 30 seconds, see how that goes.
00:47:51
Speaker
I did a video blog a few years ago where people looked directly at the solar eclipse and I got a lot of, oh my goodness, I'm losing my eyesight. You really have to look for a long period of time to do permanent damage. The eyes and the retina have resiliency. We do have resiliency in our eye tissue.
00:48:13
Speaker
But it's your lifestyle, your diet, your nutrients, your stress, your trauma, your toxicity that then creates that lack of resiliency in the eyes. So it's a total lifestyle perspective in taking care of your eyes.
Light and Non-Visual Health Pathways
00:48:28
Speaker
It isn't separate like we're told by the eye doctor, which is a reductionistic model.
00:48:34
Speaker
our eyes are interrelated and interconnected to our emotions, our psychology, our spiritual energy, and so on. So we need to treat them as part of an integrated whole.
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think just looking at the English language, the way we say I, as in myself, and I is so similar as well, that has to do with how we perceive the world. That's a little bit deeper, though, than I intended to go. But regarding actually looking at the sun, regarding that light coming into your eyes, is it like an epigenetic benefit? What actually happens that's so beneficial?
00:49:16
Speaker
25% of the light that enters the eyes goes to non-visual pathways. That means part of that light is being stimulated by the blood flow, the arteries and veins in the retina, so that light is going to be transported throughout the entire body. That takes about 40 minutes. 25% of that light that goes to the non-visual pathways
00:49:43
Speaker
We'll go to the hypothalamus, the pineal, the pituitary. So it's activating not only the endocrine system, but also the nerves. So all the nerves are getting the stimulation of the light. Now that 75% of the light that's stimulating the retina, part of the reason why we develop light sensitivity is because those retinal cells become desensitized to the light. And it could be due to stress,
00:50:09
Speaker
It could be due to how functionally we're using our eyes. And so by using color therapy, breaking the white light down into different colors, you slowly can begin to resensitize the photoreceptors to the light so that you don't have the light sensitivity anymore. One more point I want to make.
00:50:31
Speaker
Light is a two-way street. So when we absorb light into the eyes, there's eventually an output of radiance. Part of our health is how light our light bulb is. You see people go, wow, you're glowing, you're radiant. That's because they're able to absorb the light and they're able to radiate the light out. And that's a reflection of our overall health and wellness. That's our bio field.
00:50:59
Speaker
which then informs our physical health to have good circulation and so on. So I don't know whether that answers, but that's kind of why light is the main entry point into the body. It's funny you should say that what we absorb, we emanate because
00:51:19
Speaker
That's literally what I was looking at you today. I was looking at some of the pictures on your website and like this dude like looks like he is, you know, he is radiating, you know what I mean? This, this kind of the energy I got about you. So you definitely are probably eating your own medicine there, what you're talking about and talking about now, I don't know anything about color therapy.
00:51:42
Speaker
But I do have a red light here that I don't use as much as I used to in the new office, but I used to use that daily and I would even look at it and keep it close to my eyes. Can you tell folks, excuse me, can you tell folks listening? What, if any, are benefits are there to red light and what other color therapies should
Color Therapy for Vision
00:52:03
Speaker
one consider? Well, red light therapy, as you know, produces
00:52:08
Speaker
health and the mitochondria and the ATP so it does many positive things and
00:52:15
Speaker
Depending on the type of infrared light source and the manufacturer, it can be very beneficial for eye conditions. Again, you have to start very slowly. You have to check with your manufacturer and see if you can actually use it. But infrared light is awesome. I love it. And not only just for the eyes, but for pain, inflammation, so many things. What I'm referring to is something called the rainbow method in color therapy.
00:52:44
Speaker
And this is where we have color machines or color masks where you look through these different colors. And it's interesting, the colors that you don't like, you have an allergy to the color. And what I mean by that is you have an allergy to the vibration of the frequency. So if you start spending more time with the colors you don't like, it's like a homeopathic healing where it opens up something in your health
00:53:13
Speaker
that vibrationally you were allergic to, that you were deflecting. It could be a trauma, it could be stress, who knows. And so we do something called the rainbow method where you look through all the main colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, asking yourself what you see and what you feel. For you, I would patch your left eye and I would do that rainbow color through your right eye.
00:53:37
Speaker
I think it would be profound to ask your right eye, what I see, what I feel, how do I relate to each of the colors? That in itself could be a game changer for you. So the color therapy has been around for thousands of years. The Greeks, the Romans use them. And so using it on the eyes, what it does physically is it opens up your peripheral vision. It can prove your depth perception, your memory, your balance, your focus, your cognitive health.
00:54:06
Speaker
It's a powerful medicine that can improve your vision and health. You know, I just remembered that I use an app called Iris that reduces a ton of the blue light and as the night approaches it even more, it reduces the brightness and the blue light even more.
00:54:27
Speaker
I remember there was a setting on the app to do, like to tint your screen. It's like to do color therapy and you can do like a tint of a certain color. So I'm actually going to try that to see if I can, I can integrate that into my daily work. So thank you so much for that. I'll definitely do that. Do your right eye day one, your left eye day two, both eyes day three.
00:54:55
Speaker
And not all blue light is bad for you. It's the blue light between 405 and 455 that comes off digital screens is the high-end energy damaging light. But once you get higher than that, 480, 470, 480, we actually use blue light as a way to reduce inflammation, pain, open up the peripheral vision, release trauma. So you need to know the distinction between the different frequencies of blue. Not all blue light is bad for you.
00:55:25
Speaker
I'll definitely be looking more into that. And just one more question before we kind of wrap up. You said earlier that the thyroid can affect eye health. Can you maybe, I know it's a massive topic, but can you tell us how can hormonal imbalances contribute to eye problems?
Hormones and Eye Conditions
00:55:44
Speaker
So in terms of the thyroid gland, if you either have low or high thyroid, what it can do is it can cause a dry eye condition.
00:55:54
Speaker
It can also cause a condition where the eyes bulge out. If you've got Hashimoto's disease, you probably know that your eyes are dry. And so you need to take extra care of what are some of the things I can do to support better eye moisturization on a natural basis.
00:56:14
Speaker
Another connection is adrenals. So if you have high cortisol levels, your adrenals are working too hard. Your peripheral vision is going to start tunneling and your pupils are going to be too dilated. So that's the sympathetic nervous system overworking. You're going to have light sensitivity and narrow vision. So those are two connections. Third one would be low estrogen levels in women who have a higher incidence of dry eye syndrome.
00:56:42
Speaker
So that's another connection. So your endocrine system highly affects your eye health and, you know, you connect the dots there if, you know, your endocrinologist or your eye doctor is not putting it together. Believe me, they're connected.
00:56:57
Speaker
Yeah, when you talk about the high, let's say if your sympathetic system is an overdrive, i.e. your adrenaline and your cortisol are up, it makes sense that your peripheral vision would be diminished because you're more around...
00:57:16
Speaker
running away from something, which is you need tunnel vision for that or running towards something to kill it, you know, like a, like a deer or whatever. So it completely makes sense that that would kind of wreck, wreck, um, you know, peripheral vision and other kinds of aspects of, of, of, you know, more exploratory vision, for example, seeing kind of the details in on the trees and the flowers totally makes sense to me.
00:57:41
Speaker
Okay, Dr.
Conclusion and Resources
00:57:43
Speaker
Samburn, I want to thank you so much for joining us today. Before we go, can you tell the listeners where they can find your resources on the internet, please? Website, www.drsamburn.com. Dr. Samburn on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Clubhouse. You can DM me, you can email me. Happy to answer your questions.
00:58:09
Speaker
And you can take a look at my workshops. I have a workshop coming up May 4th that is a month-long intensive. And so lots of ways to connect with me. Christian, I want to thank you for all the great questions and your interest. And I hope we see each other again down the road. Thank you very much for having me on your show. Absolutely.
00:58:31
Speaker
Yeah, we'll have all the links to your stuff in the episode show notes and on the website. And you know, again, like you've opened my eyes to so many things. Um, I'm definitely, definitely be doing your 90 day, uh, course 30 day challenge with the color therapy. I know this is, this is something that, you know, the, the eyes are like such a pivotal way to experiencing the world, you know, so it's, it's so important we take care of them. So thank you for the work that you do. All right, take care.