Interview with Jenna Hua

You’re in for a treat today! I was interviewed by Jenna Hua, the CEO of Million Marker. This is a company that helps people determine what toxicities they have. She is a registered dietician, environmental health scientist, and she’s done a lot of research focusing on the environmental impacts on our behaviors and health. So we had a lively conversation on Instagram, and I wanted to make it available to you. Enjoy the show.

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You can find Jenna Hau here Million Marker | Instagram

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

eyes, people, floaters, vision, patients, problem, msm, reduce, improve, brain, castor oil, helping, physical therapy, blue, health, cataract, retina, light, create, trauma

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.

Hey everyone, its Dr. Sam and I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. You’re in for a treat today I was interviewed by Jenna Hua, who is CEO of million marker. This is a company that helps people determine what toxicities they have. And she is a registered dietician, environmental health scientist. And she’s done a lot of research focusing on surrounding environmental impacts on our behaviors and health. And she’s interested in eye health and what I have to say. So we had a lively conversation on Instagram, and I wanted to make it available to you. So I hope you enjoy the show. Thanks for tuning in.

The holistic optometrist was a private practice in New Mexico. And his Instagram page has so many great tips about nutrition, I therapy and other ways to promote better vision. So we’re going to dive deeper into natural eye health today. So I see she just sent me a request.

Hello, hey. Hi, Jenna. Yeah, my pleasure. How are you today? Good, good. How are you? Doing? Great. Really? Well.

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you became an optometrist.

Yeah, it started when I was about eight years old. And I had a learning and reading problem. And my mom took me to an ophthalmologist and I got some nearsighted glasses. My eyes got progressively worse, I became a memorizer in school. And when I graduated, optometry school, I met a holistic eye doctor. And I started his physical therapy. And he said to me, the reason why you have a reading and learning problem is your left eye drifts out. And I can help you improve that skill. And also, he said, Because you’re near sighted, this is all related to stress and tension. So about six months later, I said goodbye to my contact lens prescription, and I see 2020 distance in there, and my reading problem went away. And so it inspired me, at that point to open the practice in the Philadelphia area, specializing in helping people improve their vision, and many twists and turns to now studying a lot of natural therapies, acupuncture, cranial sacral, functional medicine, aromatherapy, energy medicine, and I’m based in Santa Fe, New Mexico and discovered the internet in 2016. And started to post on social media opened an e commerce Store. And so, you know, I’ve got a nice following, and here to help people, that’s my mission to help people realize there’s another answer besides, oh, your eyes are gonna get worse when you get old. And you’re going to need bifocals and cataract surgery and you’re gonna go blind, no way, my my patients are getting better as they get older. So I’m here to share any information that your audience wants and what your questions are. And here we go.

Wow, this is so awesome. Because like natural, functional medicine based eye care, we have, like, not a lot of people are aware of that. So like, what’s the difference between the conventional and this holistic approach,

the conventional, the conventional approach is very medical based. So the first thing out of their toolbox is of surgery or pharmaceuticals, and it’s more of a symptom based disease based type care, you know, you go to your eye doctor, and he or she may spend five or 10 minutes with you at the most, which lens is clear one or two, and you get number two, and you wear it and your eyes get worse. And, you know, you ask, are there any things I can do and so the conventional doctors to busy and just treat symptoms, in my field, I’m looking at the root cause I spend an hour with each patient, sometimes more. And I’m evaluating their vision, not just their eyesight. So that’s a distinction, I say to seeing. 2020 vision is how the eyes and the brain and the body work together based on a set of skills. And the brain is very involved with this, the body the balance, the nutrition, and stress. So I look at all these different factors, and then come up with a treatment plan that will address the cause. And then the eyes get better. The vision gets better. It’s pretty simple. And it’s so effective. I’ve been doing it 35 years, and every week I get a testimonial my eyes got better. My cataract reduced my macular degeneration has gone away. And so I’ve got a lot of success stories of people who have been hitting my protocol and have improved their, their vision.

I know you’re seeing private patients, but you also have a book coming up which will be available to many, many more people. I know it’s going on pre sale on December 12, called Vital vision clear I’ve solution for midlife and beyond. So ending this book, you had a great quote, instead of accepting your diagnosis as a life sentence and smothering it with drugs and surgery, your regenerative capacity can create new healthy pathways. So how does this work? What does that mean to you?

Well, the retinas are the only part of the body where we can actually see the brain, you know, the, the the eyeball originates from the brain. So every part of the structure of the eye is brain tissue. And there is a neuroplasticity potential in the eyes. And if we give it the proper nutrients, blood supply circulation oxygenation, that the eyes will get better. Case in point, there was a study that was published last year on having a person look at Red Light for three minutes, once a week for 12 weeks. And their retinas got better as their visual acuity improved by 22%. This was a group in in the UK University College of London, that prove that you can actually change your vision by looking at color therapy, the retina is made up of photoreceptors of mitochondria. And when you feed the eyes with light or different antioxidants, it starts to improve it gets better. So that’s what I was saying. Because patients are so frustrated, if they have even something as simple as pinkeye. And the doctor wants to give them steroids, well, no steroids is going to raise your eye pressure, it’s going to possibly cause a cataract. But you could use an eye bright compress, you could use a castor oil massage, you could use some natural homeopathic eyedrops and avert the pinkeye, without the side effects of the pharmaceutical, which is only going to, you know, keep the problem in place. So that’s what I was talking about entity even with contacts and glasses, you know, a prescription in contacts or glasses, it’s approved by the FDA, it’s a prescription, it’s got side effects. And one of the side effects when you wear lenses is it’s going to make your eyes worse, it’s going to make them tighter, more relaxed, more tight, less relaxed. And so by doing some physical therapy, you can reduce your dependency on your lenses like I did, if I can do it, you can do it. And by by doing that you are you are going back to your ability to see things without all this stress and blurred vision and eye strain, that more and more people are suffering today. And you know that that’s the space I’m holding.

That’s amazing. So you mentioned a little bit about brain health too. So what role does it play in brain health and vice versa?

Well, in our visual processing, we take in the information, we process it in the brain, and then we have an output. And our brain is so interconnected and interrelated to our to our eyes, as I said, the eyes are kind of the external representation to the brain. And whether it’s, you know, feeding your brain with more omega three fatty acids, or paying attention to the neuro chemicals, like dopamine and serotonin, all of these things that are going on in the brain, affect our eyes, just our mental thinking. If we have chaotic thinking in the brain, that’s going to affect a chaotic experience in our eyes and vision. And so the eye brain connection is super important, because our eyes navigate us through the world. It’s our GPS system. And our brain is processing that information. It’s helping us with our depth perception, our memory, our visual reaction time. So when we do physical therapy, we have to include the brain in the equation, when we’re improving our eyesight and vision.

That makes sense. So what are some like daily practices that we can do to train our eyes to be stronger?

Well, number one, I think get at least 30 minutes of natural sunlight every day. Get out in to nature. Number two, it’s important that you eat a rainbow diet of vegetables, and including a few fruits, but be very careful about the sugar because so you want to reduce the high glycemic sugars, because that is a real poison for your eyes. And number three, I would take frequent breaks from your screen time, when we’re focused for long distances at a screen, it’s going to create eye strain, and it’s going to lower our circulation. And then last but not least, I think it’s important to talk to your eyes. I know this sounds kind of strange. But for many people, when they come and see me, the first thing they do is they tell me everything that you know, they’re worried about their eyes, they’ve got this problem, they’ve been told that it over time, to be able to converse with your eyes and start sending messages that I embrace my blur, I love my blur, I love my vision, I can improve my vision at any age, because what we say to our eyes, eventually starts to affect the physical structure of the eyes. And I’ve seen this over and over again. And fear is probably one of the worst emotions around our eyes, because we’re all afraid we’re going to go blind. And so getting a handle on that exploring, for example, there was a patient I had yesterday and I gave her some flower remedies to help her with her fear. And this morning, I got an email, she said, Boy, I have a new lease on life. I’m, I’m not as fearful around losing my eyes. In fact, I’m embracing my clarity today. So that was a whole shift. So it’s a mind body experience. Stress is part of it. So being aware of stress reduction, and, you know, being mindful and taking care of your eyes and not abusing them by just forgetting about them and saying, Well, I’m going to work all day and night and not take breaks, not drink water, not not eat the proper foods. These are all things that that build up. And the deterioration of our eyes.

You actually hitting on some of the questions that our audiences ask is anxiety and eye health. And also obviously, all these tips are playing to how to combat with dry ice as well. It’s all your lifestyle and diet.

Yeah, so you know, dry eye is a very interesting syndrome. Because with dry eye, there’s usually some low grade inflammation going on perhaps in the eyelids, when we’re under stress, our sympathetic nervous system is overworking. So that’s our fight or flight freeze response. So that’s going to dry us out. And sometimes there’s an inflammation actually in the eyelids, that prevents us from producing the tears that keep our eyes from evaporating. It’s the lipid part of our tears. And one of my exciting things that I’m doing now is I’ve just created an certified organic castor oil I drop. And people are loving this because it actually replaces the lipid part of the tears. So there’s less evaporation, it also addresses the inflammation in the eyelids. Another thing we’re finding is that sometimes there’s an endocrine imbalance and why we get dry. Now it could be a thyroid problem, it could be actually too much or too little testosterone as an example. Of course not getting enough omega three fatty acids is another piece of the puzzle puzzle. And we’ll we’ll talk about this later. But the ill effects of blue light on our eyes, when they’re admitted from screens can actually create a drying effect on our eyelids and cornea. So we have to be kind of a detective in figuring out what are the causes, and then start giving some things that are treating the cause not just the symptom.

Right. There are many things everyone can do immediately, right. You mentioned about diet and lifestyle. So what are some like key nutrients? That’s important for Eye Health?

Well, there’s beta carotene and vitamin A. There’s lutein and zeaxanthin these are the plant Corrado noids that we find in the red and orange family of vegetables. Vitamin E is very important vitamin C has been shown in high levels that will prevent or reduce the risk of cataracts and floaters we can talk about floaters later. Z. Zinc is a very important trace mineral that helps the vitamin A get absorbed. Also things like bilberry so you know berries, blueberries, strawberries, those are great for retina health. And glutathione is another one makes a master antioxidant where do we get that in our cruciferous vegetables in the trace minerals selenium so you know to navigate by eating the rainbow type of diet and making sure we’re non GMO organic. If we’re going to do meats, grass fed or organic as best as we can, make sure you drink enough water daily, even things like ginger and tumeric. Curcumin is very supportive for the eyes. Saffron is a spice that’s also excellent for Macula health. In fact, I’m so high on it that I made it into a supplement. And we use it as a prevention for macular problems, macular pucker, macular degeneration. So think colorful vegetables, and that’s a that’s a good start.

These are all actually pretty much criticized. All the tip of we also recommended to our user for detoxing. It’s, it’s really amazing that all these things just connect totally. So now we we briefly mentioned about floaters. What exactly are floaters and then why do we get?

Well floaters occur in the vitreous gel sack which is a gel that sits between the retina and the lens of the eye. It’s in the posterior two thirds of the eye and it’s made of mostly water collagen proteins. And the many reasons why we develop floaters it can just be age related where the vitreous gel sack begins to shrink. And in that case, it can pull away we call that a posterior vitreous detachment and a lot of people get those. Another reason is if you’re highly nearsighted, that can be a cause. Also, if you’ve had cataract surgery, or vitrectomy, those eye surgeries can trigger floaters. Even certain medications can trigger floaters. heavy metal toxicity is another reason head trauma. So there’s a lot of reasons why we develop floaters. And the good news is there are some things that you can do to reverse them. And I’m going to go through my list number one, back to vitamin C, you want to make sure you’re getting enough vitamin C daily, I would recommend about 2000 milligrams a day, highly erotic acid, you can actually get that in an eye drop. It’s called high low tears. It’s by a company called Higher Logic. My MSM eyedrops are fabulous for improving vitreous health, either the five or the 15%. The MSM works great. And then adding those nutrients in as I talked about beta carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, a C and E, protecting your eyes against the damaging blue light. And one of the things that you’re interested in and the you do is the liver, the liver detox so liver and eyes go together and acupuncture. Also, if there is a problem with floaters, I would recommend having your kidney meridian checked many times there’s a kidney Qi stagnation related to having floaters. So and by the way, acupuncture can work very well. For many eye conditions, including eye floaters. The biggest thing is be patient. There may be that you need to apply more than one thing to getting rid of the floaters and it takes time. It’s not an overnight change. But if you add many of these things that I’m recommending, you will reduce your floaters and take a look at your stress level and your screen time. Because a lot of times as you move away from the stress and the screens, your floaters disappear oh one more. This is the most important one lymph health. So when we sit all the time in our lymph gets stagnant the I knee has its own lymphatic system. So even doing some eye exercises where you’re doing eye movements that can help reduce the floaters and a new one that just came on the radar is pineapple. There was a study that people who ate pineapple it’s the bromelain in the pineapple that also showed some positive results in reducing floater so have your daily dose of pineapple or bromelain. So here we go. I just named a dozen things that people can do to reduce floaters and you don’t have to live it out as again you go and the doctor says we got floaters there’s nothing you can do. And Harry here I’m giving 12 things that can work really well. So that’s that’s the story on floaters.

That is amazing. So what does a consultation with you look like? Because I think people want this personalized treatment.

They do want that well you know since COVID and even before COVID I was doing a lot of telemedicine and not everybody can travel to New Mexico. And so we if we do a telehealth or telemedicine I get the records there, the eye records beforehand and I study those. And then when we have our session, we have some action steps that we want to take with the patient around what are their goals, we take a look at their prescription, and make some recommendations. I like to get people away from progressive lenses, at least part of the time, balancing the lenses reducing astigmatism. And now my in office patients, of course, in the vision exam, we’re testing things like visual coordination, depth perception, visual reaction time, the health of the vestibular system, as it relates to vision, that’s our inner here, they’re very intertwined. Some things in visual memory and other perceptual tests, and coming up with a lens prescription, where they experience relaxation, with good acuity. And that’s the difference. The lot of times the prescriptions that people get are way too strong. And so by getting a prescription that’s balanced, and that you feel relaxed in your eyes in your body, that’s going to keep your eyes healthy, and you won’t need stronger lenses, if you follow that, that way of proof that method of prescribing. So there’s a lot of things sometimes I’ll do, you know, biochemistry testing, we can do urine analysis, hair analysis, because I really feel strongly about how nutrients affect our eyes. And, you know, sometimes we do a visual fields test and you know, other things, but it’s very individualized, based on what the history is, you know, what, what are people struggling with? What are they dealing with, and then based on that, another area that I’m specialize in is traumatic brain injury. And this came about when I was starting my practice in Philadelphia, I couldn’t get any patients. So the very conventional place where I was practicing. So I went to the local hospital, and I volunteered to work with the outpatient people who had suffered traumatic brain injury, they had double vision, they couldn’t balance. And within three months by applying my physical therapy, they were home, they were back at work they were. And so the hospital realize this, this was very unheard of that somebody like me could do this. So they gave me a contract in like three hospitals around Philadelphia. And that’s how I built my practice. Because I was working with all these TBI patients sports, concussions, car accidents, people with stroke, and, you know, brain problems. These particular physical therapy techniques that I learned are so effective in helping people regain not only their eyesight, their balance, their vision, their focus, their driving their reading. And so TBI is another area. And then the last area I really like to work with is the spectrum disorders, autism, to add work with a lot of special needs kids. I consulted a facility nearby here in Albuquerque, and have worked with special needs kids for years. And I tell you applying the physical body, physical eye body therapy with them. I mean, it’s life changing so many success stories, helping kids who have been struggling, and were written off as special needs, whether it’s Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, or just kids who have developmental delays. So it’s a wide ranging net of being able to help people because vision is such a dominant sense, sense. And, you know, the way it’s being treated now is statically. And I treat it as a very dynamic skill set that you can improve. And so that’s that’s kind of the contrast of what regular eye care does versus what I do.

That is so amazing, because you’re also not only just improving the individual’s quality of life, because everything you described that’s has so much to do with the person’s quality of life, but also the family’s quality of life.

Because the vision Yes, exactly.

And you mentioned about the castor oil. eyedrops. I know you have many different types. How do you know which one to use?

Well, through trial and error and clinical training over many, many years, you know, I was a chemist in college, and so when I got out of school, I knew that MSM as a sulfur molecule help reduce inflammation in the joints. People were always taking the MSM powder. So I was able to create an MSM in an eye drop, and I started to give it to my patients and their red, red eyes would go away. Their dryness would go away their floaters went away. And I knew that during the day, this was a really sad All right, I drop that didn’t create the deterioration, it actually supported the eyes to lubricate and moisturize better. And then at night, people were complaining that my eyes are dry, I wake up with them stuck together. You know. And so this is where I had studied castor oil on the body, you know, you’ve probably heard of castor oil packs for digestion. So I was able to get an organic castor oil. And through different trial and error, we started to have people massage it on the outside part of the eyes, the eyelids, and everybody was coming back saying My eyes feel more moist. My dryness is going away. So then I created this eye drop. And so you because when you do the eye drop at night, it kind of works its way through the eye in the in, you know while you sleep, so it’s a little thicker. But people wake up and their eyes are moist, and they’re clear. They’re white. And so the MSM and the homeopathic eyedrops daytime, and then the castor oil more towards the evening. And then when I started to look at herbal medicine, things like akinesia and goldenseal, on eyebright, we made these into compresses for people, and they would put over the eyelids. And that also helped the dryness, the redness, even certain types of pinkeye and styes. And I would compare that by using steroids or antibiotics. And I always came back to the herbs, they seem to work better. People would get better faster, they wouldn’t have the side effects, and they wouldn’t have reoccurring conditions. So it was a no brainer that plant based medicines work well. And so I started to incorporate those into either during the day or in the evening, based on the severity of the condition, the symptoms, and what people were, you know, open to doing. And so today, I’m always looking for new things to help people support their eyes to get better, and not just take a drug or do the surgery right away, because there are side effects to those and they’re not really getting to the root cause.

Right. We have one question for the audience men said you mentioned helping patients improve vision that had had a brain trauma. Have you seen improvements in patients that have had eye trauma?

Yeah, definitely. You know, with eye trauma. This is a very interesting scenario, because the eye is mostly made up of soft tissue, connective tissue, and it absorbs a lot of the traumas that may be occur indirectly other places. And of course, you know, I’ve worked with football players and boxers and people who have just had eye trauma. And it takes time, you can do things like color therapy works, well, cranial sacral therapy, I am a cranial sacral therapist, if somebody has had a trauma, immediately go get some body work, get some cranial work, and that will get rid of the trauma, it’ll release it. So then the circulation improves. So it’s dependent, you know, it’s it’s partly, perhaps energetic medicine, it’s partly nutrients. It’s partly maybe body work. But even with eye trauma, you can begin to release it. And maybe over a period of weeks, you can return to your regular routine. But absolutely. Physical vision therapy is great for TBI and vision problems.

So what are what are your three blockers? So this is an interesting question. Because about about five years ago, people started to they would come into the office, and they were really complaining of computer vision syndrome. And you know, my eyes are getting tired, I’m having difficulty sleeping. And you know, my eyes are always red. And so I started to dig into the literature and I started to take a look at the the lower frequency of the the blue light like 405 to 455. And there were some studies that said that this chaotic blue light could damage tissue in the body. So I put two and two together. And I said, you know, I bet that if we could come up with a blue blocking filter, something that deflected the blue light, that some of these eyestrain symptoms would go away. So I worked with my optical lab and we came up with something. And at first we use the tints but people complained that it was too dark. And then I realized the pupils will dilate when they would wear this dark tint. So I went back to the drawing board and they said well, let’s just make a filter on the back of the lens. There’ll be UV, you know, block the UV and then we’ll To reduce the glare, and it will get rid of most of the blue light. And that’s the one I’ve stayed with. And so I’ve used it on 1000s of patients. And then when I opened my ecommerce store, I said, Well, I want to make it available to the masses. And so the blue blocking filter does not change the color, but it does block the damaging blue light. Now it’s not 100%, but it blocks enough of it, where it reduces the symptoms, and probably the critical time is after 6pm. Because blue light does affect our melatonin or can affect our melatonin production. Sleep. And so that’s when we really focus on it. But there are two other points I want to make that people might not know. If you’re scheduled for cataract surgery, you’ve had cataract surgery, many times they don’t put the blue blocker in the new lens, see our current hardware, our current lenses, your lens and my lens has a filtering capability of some of the blue light, but in the inter ocular lenses and cataracts. They they usually don’t and so you’re very susceptible to developing retina problems afterwards. I’ve seen too many of those.

And so if you’re scheduled for cataract surgery, number one, ask your surgeon if the blue blocker is in that lens. If it’s not, then you need to get some blue blocking protection after the surgery, because you’re going to be wide open to the blue light exposure. Also make sure you’re you’re supplementing with lutein and zeaxanthin, 16 milligrams a day of lutein, four to six milligrams a day of xanthan, those two are like sunglasses, they’re pigments that cover the macula, that will deflect the damaging blue light. And then number three natural sunlight does have blue light. But that blue light is good for you that blue light is is helping your circadian rhythms hook in. So not all blue light is bad. But if you’re on artificial devices, and it’s after 6pm Even with kids yesterday, I had a child is that eyestrain and I said we need to get blue blockers on this fella. He’s a video gamer. And I you know, so I think the blue protect lens is really good. And it blocks the damaging blue light. But it allows you to see the screen clearly. And it’s going to give you more resource and a longer viewing time without causing deterioration, which that’s what I’m what I’m most concerned about.

I know we’re a little bit over. But I actually have one last question. I’d love you to talk about your book, because it’s coming up.

Yeah. So this is really interesting, because in the book, what we did was, we went through all the social media questions. And we listed in when I wrote the book, what is the most asked question, what’s the second most asked question? And so we took my transcripts of my answers on Facebook Live and Instagram and tick tock, and I created this book. And it’s very interesting, because the number one question is the question you ask, which is about eye floaters. So many people ask about that. Anyways, it’s a really good read, it’s got a lot of helpful suggestions. Everything from nutrition to energy medicine, explains the eye condition and what you can do. So I’m really excited about the release of it. And we’re gonna have some fun things around the access to me if you you know, by by the book in it for a certain price, you can actually come to one of my my events, my live events next year, come to an online workshop, you know, masterclasses so we’re making it kind of fun and interesting to people. So people can, you know, participate. And we have an audio book and an ebook as well, that we’ll release early next year. So thanks for asking. I’m really excited about it. And bottom line, I think it’s going to really be a great resource for people. If they have a condition, they can look it up and say, Okay, this is what I, this is what I need to do.

We are excited to we’ll make sure we promote so people can get you know, they just they can buy it on your website.

Yeah, there’ll be able to buy it from my website. We’re just getting it right up today. I was I was working on it. So I’d say by next week, or December 12. You’ll be able to buy it. And we’ll give you a nice discount if you if you do pre sale. So that’s another perfect day. 1212 12 Yeah, exactly. Good numbers. Right. Right. Right. So

thank you so much for all this great information today. And we’ll make sure we promote and we’ll also have your website, your your bio, everything linked to this Instagram. Post. Thank you so much. You’re welcome. Thank you.

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.