The See Clearly Method:
Do Eye Exercises Improve Vision?

The first thing you want to know about a self-help program is whether it works. Before you spend time and money on a program of eye exercises such as the See Clearly Method, which once was widely advertised on radio stations and the Internet, you want to find out for yourself the likelihood that such methods might "eliminate or reduce your need for glasses and contacts."

In November 2006, an Iowa district court halted all sales of See Clearly Method kits that for several years were marketed as a way of using eye exercises to improve vision. The court ordered the Iowa company selling the kits to pay $200,000 into a restitution fund for consumers allegedly duped into buying the kits through misleading advertising. The Iowa Attorney General's office currently is developing a method of paying out restitution.

"We are confident this puts an end to this Iowa-based program of consumer fraud," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said in a press release. "It prevents there being any more victims, and it fences in the perpetrators so they cannot perpetrate similar consumer fraud in the future with respect to eye products or any other kind of products." (See more in the news update below)

On the See Clearly Method's website (seeclearlymethod.com), you searched in vain for any statement that the program actually worked. No word promoting the product — a regimen developed by four doctors from the American Vision Institute (AVI) — promised anything. (AVI licensed the See Clearly method to Vision Improvement Technologies, Inc., which in recent years marketed the program.)

Yet, the website also told you that the do-it-yourself vision-improvement plan was a "safe, healthy alternative to glasses, contacts and even laser surgery." But then a disclaimer on the site noted, "The rate at which your eyesight improves as a result of the See Clearly Method and the extent of that improvement, if any, will vary among individuals." This was the most definite statement to be found on the site.

With no way of knowing whether it worked, purchasers bought the product on faith. The Iowa Attorney General's office said the company charged customers about $350 retail for each of the 5,000 to 10,000 kits sold monthly. People wanting to return the kits for a refund encountered difficulty getting through to a company representative. In the aftermath of the See Clearly Method investigation and details revealed about the company's business practices, even the most fervent of the faithful devoted to eye exercises would be well advised to learn all they can about any programs making similar claims without solid scientific basis.

The basic version of the See Clearly Method included three videotapes, three audiotapes, an instruction manual, a daily progress chart, and other materials. The deluxe version included a CD-ROM.

You supposedly could get your money back within 30 days of your purchase if you were not satisfied. Presumably you were supposed to see some improvement by then.

A fundamental premise of vision therapy is that refractive disorders such as myopia (nearsightedness) and hyperopia (farsightedness) have both hereditary and environmental causes, such as nearpoint stress from reading. Certain eye exercises are designed to relieve so-called spasm of accommodation, believed to be an environmentally induced disruption of the eye's focusing capacity. Other exercises are said to improve the eyes' coordination or to straighten misaligned eyes. It's important to note that while many people think of such eye exercises as vision therapy, most vision therapists do not wish to be associated with self-directed programs. [Read more about vision therapy]

The "tromboning" exercise had you hold a small object at arm's length, inhale, then move the object in to touch the tip of your nose. You would then exhale, look at the object, and move it back out. "Tromboning exercises the focusing mechanism, improves control of the extraocular muscles and stimulates the flow of nutrients inside the eyes," according to the manual.

The See Clearly Method had you do 30 minutes of exercises a day to strengthen and enhance the flexibility of the muscles that govern the eye's focusing power and control its movements. Six of the activities were described as "new visual habits." One, for example, had you hold a finger up as you varied your focus back and forth from the finger to a distant object.

Then there were 10 "booster techniques," designed to "address problems or encourage faster progress," according to the instruction manual. The "blur reading" technique, for example, had you turn a magazine upside-down at a distance from which the words were blurry. You were then supposed to select a word and run your gaze around it, and if you could pick out any letters, run your gaze around them. Each of the exercises might take two to four minutes. You recorded your progress in the journal that came with the kit.

The instruction manual recommended personal affirmations to help you along. You might remind yourself, for example, "I am seeing better each day." If you were having any doubts, you might declare, "I can see without my glasses." For a vaguer standard of success, you could simply say, "I feel positive changes in my vision taking place."

The "clock rotations" exercise was one of the six "new visual habits" of the See Clearly Method. You would imagine a giant clock and move your eyes from the center to each of the hour positions and back again. This was meant to "improve control of the extraocular muscles and stimulate the flow of nutrients around the eyeballs," according to the manual.

"Visualization" also came into play. Three of the booster techniques were holdovers from a vision-therapy regimen developed in the 1920s by maverick New York City ophthalmologist William Horatio Bates, MD. Light therapy, a takeoff on Bates's technique of "sunning," has you sit with your eyes closed and your face six inches from an unshaded 150-watt bulb, just far enough to make your eyes "pleasantly warm but not too hot," according to the manual. Meanwhile, the manual suggested that you "repeat your affirmation and visualize your inner lens becoming more flexible and the ciliary muscle more powerful. Visualize the eyeball transforming into a better shape."

The "palming" technique had you close your eyes and rest them against your palms, while "hydrotherapy" had you alternately placing hot- and cold-water-soaked towels against your eyes. Affirmations and visualization were said to help with these techniques as well.

As (or if) your vision improved, you were encouraged to obtain progressively weaker corrective lenses until you no longer required correction or you enjoyed the maximum improvement. You were advised that patching one eye could be necessary if the fellow eye lagged in its expected improvement.

A long-standing criticism of eye exercises, coming from both mainstream optometrists as well as from eye surgeons, is the absence of reliable evidence that eye exercises can reduce your reliance on corrective lenses at all, let alone eliminate it. The medical literature lacks well-controlled clinical studies — with strict scientific criteria including carefully matched comparison populations — showing that they effectively treat myopia or hyperopia.

David W. Muris, OD, one of the four doctors who developed the See Clearly Method, himself conducted what he called a "clinical evaluation" of the product in his Sacramento, Calif., practice during the fall of 1999. "The investors just wanted some due diligence and some people to actually go through this," Muris said in an interview. "They didn't want to require anything scientific."

According to Muris, the evaluation involved 21 people ages 14 to 80 with mild myopia (less than -3.00 diopters). After six weeks of therapy, nine of the 21 had "significant" improvement and 11 had "moderate" improvement in visual acuity. Seven eliminated their need for glasses or contacts, he said, while 11 had "reduced dependency," meaning they needed their corrective lenses for less time than before. AllAboutVision.com conducted its own decidedly unscientific evaluation of the See Clearly Method when a staffer gave it a try and experienced no vision improvement.

Eye exercise programs occupy a nebulous space somewhere between medical science and folk remedy. Most optometrists and ophthalmologists are dismissive of them.

The See Clearly Method's advocates not only acknowledged the fringe status of the program, but they regarded that position as a virtue. From the instruction manual, we learned that, "In the history of medicine, new ideas have often been resisted by those schooled in traditional methods." We were told that the decision to wear glasses or contacts — for the present purposes defined as "crutches" — borders on the mentally unsound: "Certainly, except for diseases and injuries for which there is no cure, nobody in their right mind would willingly accept a condition that compromises the ability to function and enjoy life, or to be dependent on crutches forever."

The number of corrective-lens haters is open to debate, but Levi Meeske, a 25-year-old job-placement counselor in Atlanta, found his contact lenses sufficiently loathsome to give the See Clearly Method a try. Six weeks after starting the program, he was delighted, he said, with his visual improvement. The refractive error in his right eye had improved modestly from -3.25 to -3.00 diopters, while his left eye remained stable at -3.75 diopters.

Meeske still needed contacts lest his world appear blurry. "But when they are in, I can see farther — as I'm looking at buildings or at trees, the amount of detail that I'm able to pick up has greatly increased," he said. "Looking at grass, looking at flowers, the colors are much more vibrant."

Keep in mind, however, that the Iowa Attorney General's office found in company records that far more unhappy customers wrote in about their results, and that positive letters were "relatively scarce."

Anyone wishing to market a self-improvement program has to strike a delicate balance between attracting buyers and overselling the product's benefits. As a consumer, it pays to be careful. Do your homework by reading up on the program and others like it.

If you're interested in a home program like the See Clearly Method, it makes sense first to get an evaluation and professional opinion from an eye care practitioner to see if you might benefit from this approach.

The best advice with any self-directed eye exercise program may be to keep your expectations in check — and, as the court has directed in the case of See Clearly, your money in your wallet.