Here is a session I held recently where I walked through steps you can take to reduce and get rid of floaters. There are so many variables, so we cover a lot of options. Enjoy the show.
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
eye, floaters, vitreous, msm, people, bromelain, months, ophthalmologist, called, health, add, castor oil, gallbladder, acupuncture, good, antioxidants, issue, important, therapy, heavy metals
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 everybody, its Dr. Sam, and I’d like to welcome you to another EyeClarity podcast. So before we get to today’s show, I want to give you a way that you can send your questions to me through texting. The text number is 1-844-932-1291.
00:26
So does anybody out there suffer from eye floaters. So in this telemedicine session, I bring it all to this patient, and I don’t hold back.
00:42
These are things that can work really well for reducing floaters in the eye.
00:49
So I hope you take notes, a
00:52
lot of great content here. And thanks for tuning in. Enjoy. And what are your goals and objectives?
01:02
Yeah, so I’ll give you a few minute overview. And then we can kind of like go from there, depending on what where you want to take it and what sort of questions to ask so.
01:13
So I mainly set up this time to talk about the eye floaters that I’ve had for about six months or so now started earlier this year.
01:24
And so I’ll start with the intro there and then give a little bit of history about other medical history about me, and then we can kind of chat from that. So that’s the main kind of thing that’s really been bothering me for a while, and I’ve tried and trying to get rid of but haven’t been successful yet. I’ve got several kind of floaters in my left eye that appeared solid suddenly about six months ago. And I’ve been very bothersome since that time, especially because I’m a I’m a software engineer. So I look at a screen all day. And it’s like very hard to read. While things are flying around my vision, it’s especially in the center of my my left eye, there are some dark floaters that are that are excited to show up very clearly when I’m reading and are kinda like flying, you know, around my vision. I saw a ophthalmologist several times over the ER earlier and after like month two and three, after they first appeared. And he did extensive examinations did like, you know, looked in my eye himself did oh CT like digital scanning, and didn’t find anything he said to me he’s like, looks great.
02:33
He’s it if you didn’t tell me that you were seeing floaters. He’s like I tell you your vision was perfect. He’s like, You got 2020 vision, he doesn’t see anything retina looks fine. From everything that he could tell the eye health looked great. Which was you know, not the may be somewhat encouraging that it wasn’t a serious issue, but also didn’t totally solve my problem because I clearly am still having you know, an issue. So excuse me, He also noted that
03:01
you he did not see a PVD and either I so the there’s no kind of vitriol, that detachment in either the left or the right eye.
03:12
And that’s kind of as much information that I got from it from him. He told me like, look, we could do a vitrectomy said, I do not recommend it. Because it’s such an invasive procedure. When he’s like other than that, there’s basically nothing you can do then just live with it.
03:27
So that’s kind of how I ended up here through the process of researching what other options I have in order to try and kind of work on resolving that this, this problem.
03:38
Other Other than that,
03:41
well, maybe I’ll take a break there. And that’s kind of like the main the main place to start.
03:46
Okay, so nothing in the right eye, just the left eye is where you have the floaters. Yeah, that’s right. Nothing, nothing in the right eye, just the left, right eyes like totally clear. If I you know, kind of cover this iron or close it. I don’t see anything in the right eye. The left I’ve got to sort of loosely connected black spots that are almost in the center of my vision that are the by far the most troublesome, as well as in a few other more strand like
04:13
floaters also all on the left eye, but especially like I said, right here in the center. Is the zoo is what’s really causing me the most trouble. Okay.
04:23
Do you wear prescription at all? No.
04:27
Okay. And this has been this has came up over the last six months or a year. That’s right, about, say about six months. Okay. And if you tried anything, alternatively, to get rid of the floaters
04:44
somewhat, from what I was able to kind of find via, you know, just researching any sort of natural remedies I’ve been.
04:54
I did maybe a few of the more, you know, straightforward things kind of early on sort of do
05:00
Make a lot more water I got more kind of exercise like cardio exercise more regularly running a few times a week and
05:09
also made some some diet changes to try and have a more antioxidant diet with fruits and veg, green vegetables, that sort of thing. So I did that pretty early.
05:20
And also have been taking a few other supplements which I added in to after maybe the first month or so, as well. Kind of like a general multi day it almost started again like multivitamin. Also flaxseed oil and a like a proprietary blend of i i related supplements. I don’t know if you heard of the brands called vitro cap is the name of it. It’s a and I’ll say, are you familiar with it? Or I can tell you what’s in it.
05:54
I am a little bit tongue but tell me your experience with it has it for you? No, it hasn’t done anything for me. It kind of caught my attention because it’s Butoh is sort of marketed as being specifically for Eye Health. And very specifically for floaters as well. The fact that like vitamin C, lysine, zinc grapeseed, and a few other items in there as well. I’ve been doing that for about five months now and haven’t noticed any any change.
06:22
So those are the main things I tried. Actually, I should mention, there’s one other thing that I that I tried a little bit for a few weeks or a few
06:31
a few eye exercises to do on a daily I’m read maybe three, two or three times three times a day. Yeah. That was
06:42
how would you describe it? Were there a few different they were like? Yeah, I mean, it was like pressing on your eyes, like kind of like rubbing using like exercises to kind of like, rotate your eyes from one state from like, one side to another. And then like, and really just kind of like a prime applying pressure. And, and
07:03
yeah, I massage type stuff like that. That was I don’t know, it was like two minutes a day for three times for two or three times a day. Yeah, so I tried that for about a month or so. And can I kept up with it and also didn’t see any improvement.
07:16
That was another thing that I tried.
07:19
Okay.
07:21
All right. And how did you discover me?
07:24
Um, ah, I don’t actually remember precisely how somewhere on the internet. I’ll put it that way.
07:31
Okay. All right. All right. Well, so you have a pretty good understanding of what floaters are from the south gemologist. Did he give you an explanation? Or? Yeah, yeah, he did, I think I got a pretty good understanding, I am think I have a pretty good understanding of what they are. I mean, in my case, in particular, one thing that it’s a little hard for me to be certain of is, is what actually the floaters are and what’s causing them because he was able to confirm that I don’t have like a vitreous detachment, which, as I understand that’s most common cause of floaters, especially in older people, as the the vitreous detaches from the retina, and it kind of breaks up a little bit. And that’s where floaters come from. So that’s almost certainly not what I’m experiencing, given the fact that the ophthalmologist in his examination said Well looks like both of the eyes from his from the CT scan. So it looks like both of the eyes, the vitreous until the TAT, or sorry, attached to the back. So that leaves me with like, a hit me and him honestly a little bit of uncertainty about precisely what I’m experiencing, given the fact that I’m younger, it’s not from a detachment, it’s not sort of like an obvious specific type of fluid or like a Weiss ring or something like that. So I generally am familiar with with with with floaters and the different types, but for my case, in particular, because the the ophthalmologist couldn’t directly see it in any particular way. I can’t say with total certainty what I’m experiencing. Well, and I think like another piece that’s a little bit interesting is just like in the past several years, you’ve had a variety of ongoing health issues that that could and all on like the left side of your body, too, that have kind of led to B to being like, is this something that’s tied to other issues? Or is it is it all of a sudden I floaters just popped up at an hour?
09:23
Okay, yeah, that’s fair. I have you maybe. Go ahead. Give me just give me a little macro picture of the health. Yeah, yeah. I’ll give you a little bit of an overview because I’ve had a sort of a strange recent medical history.
09:42
Right now currently, other than the eye floaters. I wouldn’t say I’ve got any specific medical issue that I’m concerned concerned about. However, about four years ago, or or three or two and a half or so in 2019. I got I had a vasectomy and had and the dead
10:00
veloped ongoing chronic disease testicular pain from that almost immediately, tried medication didn’t help physical therapy didn’t help. I ended up getting a vasectomy reversal a year later, or about a little over a year later.
10:13
And that resolved that chronic pain, mostly about 90% resolved from getting a reversal surgery. However, one of the reasons I mentioned that is because I ended up over that span between that times over the last few years, I’ve had a few other medical issues come up that I previously had never experienced. So you know, about six or so months after that surgery, I developed lower back pain, I saw a chiropractor for that for about six months, and it’s mostly resolved now. Then shortly after that, I also developed neck tightness and neck pain, I had trouble turning my neck, it was it was very tight. So a physical therapist for that. That was mostly mostly resolved within a couple months. So for both my back and neck, I got a few sort of regular exercises that I do that if he did have generally resolved it, like I said, currently, in this moment, I would tell you, I feel fine.
11:10
For instance, in terms of like that, that any kind of chronic pain or back or neck issues seem to mostly be resolved. However, it’s been sort of like a strange last three or four years or so of like a few different things. Not technically related to each other, necessarily, but they kind of come up in order, which in some ways, sort of like, As Jenny mentioned, feels like maybe there’s something else going on.
11:34
Okay. And have you done any old besides chiropractic, any alternative therapies?
11:43
Either massage or acupuncture? You know, herbs? Um, yeah. So, in addition to the physical therapy and carob, chiropractic therapy that I had earlier for other things recently, actually, just this week, for the first time, I did go to an acupuncture therapist that that’s nearby here, specifically for this kind of eye issue, which I hadn’t done before. So I get I’m starting to give that a try and be like said, I just went for the first time this week. So I don’t know where that’s gonna go. But yeah, I have I have started to explore that, too.
12:22
Okay.
12:23
And tell me about your dental health. Do you have any mercury amalgams? Have you had any root canals? Anything?
12:32
No, not that I know, not that I know of. I had, I had wasted my wisdom teeth removed six or seven years ago or so.
12:42
And I have a few fillings from when I was younger, but they’re not metallic. As far as.
12:48
Okay.
12:50
All right. Well, let me give you kind of some some, like direct, possible ways for you to get rid of the floaters like these are really direct. And then I’ll kind of step back and give you kind of a bigger picture of what the floaters could mean. And so, you know, you can plug in where you want to the first thing I would say that the vitreous is made up of mostly collagen.
13:21
And there’s protein in the vitreous, it’s a gel sac. And when we start developing floaters, there’s a change in the integrity of the collagen, where it either the vitreous can shrink a little bit, it can get a little bigger. But there’s a problem with the hydration in the collagen material. And so the protein begins to harden, and sometimes it breaks off. And that those are the specs that you see floating across your line of sight, that they’re at some level, there’s a collagen issue. And, you know, there are other factors like
14:09
blue light exposure,
14:12
dry eye, and then you can even bring in things like a liver and gallbladder. It’s interesting when somebody has neck pain, that can be an issue with the gallbladder, like stagnation of the gallbladder. And I bring that in because the liver produces something called bile. And the gallbladder stores the bile, and we need bile to absorb many of the fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A, and some of the other ones like lutein and zeaxanthin. Those are antioxidants that are really great for the retina. But um, I would say that the number one thing to try would be my MSM eyedrops, so Ms.
15:00
Sam is a sulfur molecule. Sulfur is the third leading trace mineral that’s found in our body. And the sulfur molecule is like sticky flypaper, and it’s a detoxification agent. So when you use the high percentage of MSM,
15:18
it can get rid of floaters. And if you were to go on my webstore, and you looked at the 15%, MSM, in the customer reviews, you would see some people who have used the MSM and the floaters have gone away.
15:35
I wish I could guarantee it. But MSM is really helpful for the eyes, because it’s anti inflammatory, it boosts the collagen, it moisturizes the eyes, and it can get rid of floaters. Now, the understanding about the 15% MSM is when you first put a drop in your eye, it’s going to sting. And the stinging is actually a good thing. It’s not a bad thing. But you have to see what your tolerance level is around, you know, putting the 15% in. But I would start maybe like twice a day, morning and evening. And that could reduce the floaters. So that would be my number one thing for you. Since there isn’t a lot of secondary things going on, you’re not nearsighted, you haven’t had other eye surgery, your dental health is good.
16:35
You know. So it’s, it’s a very direct way to see if we can dissolve those protein particles, and the MSM will flush it out of the eye. The second thing that can work really well, and this is based on research. Maybe you’ve heard of this, maybe you haven’t, that they took a group of people with floaters and they fed them pineapple. And I have a percentage.
17:05
Yeah, a high percentage of them reduce their floaters. So the key ingredient in it is bromelain bromelain. So you could either supplement with bromelain, or you could start eating some pineapple if you wanted to do that.
17:20
But that has also helped some of my patients. Yeah, I mean, to ask about that, if you find I have I have
17:30
I have heard about that. But like was not able to find much information online about the kind of background from it as In addition, except for like, if there’s a single study from somewhere, I want to say South Korea, it’s not. You know,
17:47
what I was I wanted all that to say I wanted to ask you to like directly about it. As of Have you seen success with that in your practice and kind of patients that you’ve seen, you know, enough to like you obviously, don’t get me wrong, like you said, you can’t guarantee it. But like, I’m interested to know if you’ve actually seen any positive effect from that.
18:03
I have seen positive effect. And I’ve seen nothing change.
18:08
The thing about the bromelain is that it’s an anti inflammatory agent. And it’s, it’s actually they’ve used it in sports injuries
18:20
to help reduce inflammation, they’ve also done that with MSM. So, you know, some of the things that bromelain has done is it reduces
18:34
let’s see,
18:36
sinus issues are STI osteo, arthritis,
18:43
inflammatory bowel, so digestive issues. And it’s,
18:51
you see, the research on it is very limited, and especially in the AI world.
18:56
The worst thing that can happen is nothing. And that’s the that’s the thing about floaters is that there can be a kind of an impatience and a frustration, because it is irritating when you have the specs coming across your eyes. And so you would have to be the judge if you wanted to, you know, if you wanted to do that, but certainly there’s some really good health benefits of bromelain
19:26
that that is positive, whether it’s going to get rid of your floaters. I mean, it’s a it’s a coin flip. I mean, you could start with the MSM. And there’s some other things that I can suggest I have a whole list of things that you can try, because with my patients, one thing works. Many things don’t sometimes something works that I didn’t think would work. So I’ll go through the list. And you know, your question is a good one does bromelain you know, what are the
20:00
What are the, you know, what’s the track record, I have a very small group of people, and I’ve maybe put 50 people on it. And I would say 25 got better. So there is a 50% improvement. But you know, MSM, there’s about a 70% improvement. But there’s that 30% where it doesn’t work. So let me continue to go down the list.
20:24
So then the next thing that you could consider would be to improve your lymph health. So the eye has a big lymph kind of presents fluid circulates, you know, throughout the eye, and the vitreous is a big body of fluid sac. And in terms of the eye exercises that I would do, I would probably do things that are more in the area of eye movement, eye body movement. So two of them that when you’re moving the eye, which stimulates the limb, the first one is really simple, you just cover an eye and you have your thumb out there. And you pick an object, like I have my window here, and I’m, I’m looking at my thumb, but my thumb is tracking the window. So I’m moving my eye, by tracking the thumb, and I’m moving it, you know, in a lot of areas of gaze, just by moving the eye, you’re gonna start to get better circulation in it. And then you know, of course, for your case, it’s the left eye. But it’s basically a thumb tracing exercise where you’re picking an object, you’re looking at your thumb, but your thumb is tracing, and your eye is following your thumb. So I would get into more kind of eye movement, then you know what you’re doing, if it hasn’t worked. Another one, that’s, that’s good. It’s from the Bates method, which is what we call long swings. And that one is more of like a Chi Gong exercise. So I’m moving my head, my eyes, or my body.
22:09
So again, it’s the movement that’s going to flush the floaters out floaters up tend to exist, where there’s not enough fluid movement, there’s a stagnation, we bring in kind of acupuncture type lingo.
22:23
So that would be another one that you could consider. If that, you know, if you feel that your lymph system is maybe a little sluggish, even things like jumping on a rebounder is really good for your eyes. That’s been shown to bring high pressure down, to reduce floaters to improve, you know, eyesight. So you could, you know, you could look at that one. Another one that’s very good as red light therapy. So there was a study that was done at the University, University College of London, where they took a group of people, and they had high degenerative conditions. And they looked through with actually looked at a red light, six 670 nanometers. And they did this over a 12 week period, they basically looked at the light one day a week in the morning. And they found the subjects had a 22% increase in their visual acuity by just looking at the red and what the red is doing is it’s stimulating the mitochondria in the eye. So the eye has one of the highest concentrations of mitochondria, producing ATP, which flushes toxins out of the body. So the red light increases the detoxification of, you know, whatever is, is congested in the eye. So that could be another possibility. And you can either get some red glasses from a company in England, I’m going to be
23:58
releasing my red red therapy glasses in a few weeks. So you can get those, they’re not expensive. And then you got to do the the color in the morning. It’s about three minutes, you just put the glasses on and you’re looking through the red, the red light, and red light has been shown to reduce inflammation in the body. There are people to get red light boxes.
24:19
There’s a company called Red rush 360, which sells red light and it near infrared light. It’s great for inflammation, circulation, so you know if that interests you of light therapy. So then the next thing would be maybe talking to your acupuncturist and doing some kind of a liver cleanse. Since the liver meridian goes right to the eyes. I’ve had people that have done, you know, liver cleanses or intermittent fasting. And you know, when you start cleaning out the liver, it’s going to clear up your eyesight for sure. So that would be another
25:00
or possibility. So right there, you’ve got, you know, a few things to do, you know, if you’re on the screen all day, I would consider maybe getting kind of a blue protect either on the screen, or you could get a pair of blue protect glasses, blue light at that nanometer range for 405 to 455, which is what’s coming off our screens is like going, you know, for
25:28
a tanning salon, so it’s basically going to dry out all your tissues. And so, by protecting yourself from that blue light, you know, bombardment, that can be another thing. And then last, and this would be if we didn’t really touch on this, but if you have any dryness in your eyes, I created an organic castor oil, I drop. Castor oil is great for the eyes, and it’s great for the tears.
26:01
And again, it’s another one of those detoxifiers that can work. If you you know if you want to try that. I didn’t really hear that you’ve got dry eye. Do you guys ever get dry from all your maybe a little bit probably in 10 days that I looking at a screen for longer than I than I should be? I would not maybe normally I’ve said it was an issue. But I think my eyes could probably be better in that regard.
26:31
drops for their castor oil based like directly into eyes. I mean, I’ve heard about using, like eyelashes and I drove, I made an eye drop. It’s 100% certified organic, and it’s safe for the eye. And you just put a drop in because it’s going to make things a little blurry momentarily. But there’s a great study that ophthalmologists did with eyelid inflammation which caused dry eye and they applied castor oil and what the castor oil did is that replenish the part of the tears that keeps the the eyes from evaporating the tears from evaporating. So the part of the tear that that keeps our cornea wet is a lipid type of situation. So the castor oil was used on patients with M meibomian gland dysfunction. And there was a significant reduction in dry eye by applying that castor oil eyedrop because it replaced the the lipid layer of the the tears that people can’t produce. Because part of the reason why we get some dryness is the the tears evaporate too quickly. So if we’re not blinking enough for work, and we’re on screens all day, we’re staring, there’s a tendency for the dries the eyes to dry. And that’s going to set up a climate in the eyeball where you might get the floaters again, it’s very important to keep the vitreous in a certain fluid liquid level. And when it starts to change, that viscosity, collagen hardens up and some of those flakes break off and they float in that gel sack. And that’s exactly what you’re experiencing. Now in the more extreme case, the vitreous then attaches from the retina. And that’s the PVD that usually happens with people in their 50s and 60s. So
28:30
you know, you’re kind of being proactive in hydrating the eyes more, especially during the day. Now another thing you could look at would be getting some homeopathic eyedrops, and these would be the two companies I use are the types one is called sim Eliassen readily available like at Whole Foods, or Optique.
28:54
That’s another homeopathic either one, but those have you know, things in it that will hydrate your eyes, and it’s not going to make your eyes drier and it doesn’t have all the chemicals that like say vising or sustain or your stasis has. So the more you can hydrate your eyes. I think that sets you up for being able to flush the FLIR floaters out of your left eye. Can I use those in a routine like along with like a few of your recommendations being eyedrops if I’m using the MSM? Good I also be able to use say the castor oil eyedrops, and these other you’re mentioning like at different times of day or yes, okay, so you would use the MSM in the day you would use the castor oil in the evening. That would be the ideal. And you know, you could even throw in the symbolizing or the homeopathic drops with the MSM. So like what you might consider so this is the topical confrontation. Take the next month and say okay, I’m going to commit on hydrating more. I’m going to use
30:00
As the MSM, I’m going to use the homeopathic or just to use the MSM, but trying to get that in my eyes three or four times a day and see if I can get some traction and being able to get the floaters reduced. I think that combining with some eye movements and lymph situation, and improving your liver gallbladder health, I think those would be kind of the things I would see if you can get rid of. And then you know, I don’t know where you land with trying to do red color therapy. That’s a little more esoteric, even though there’s some good research about it. That could be another thing as well, because it’s improving the energy centers in the eyes. And then you know, I looked at that formula you’re taking and there’s a lot of things missing in that I see where they’re trying to address the vitreous but I actually think
30:59
what would be better would be getting yourself an AI formula with vitamin A in it. And
31:06
also, you could do lutein and zeaxanthin and Astra Xanthan, those are the carotenoids that are really important for retina health. And also vitreous health. bilberry. taurine is an amino acid, like my Iveta vitamin, if you’re not getting relief in like a month, then I would say it’s not going to work for you
31:32
will think you need to change the supplementation, and just do it for three months. And, you know, adding those nutrients. Look, another thing that you could do would be
31:47
I don’t know whether you do smoothie formula smoothies, you know, like for, for example, I’m not talking about like carrot juice, or, you know, like a sugary smoothie I’m talking about, as an example, use a ginger root tumeric root, little kale, spinach, cucumber, celery, maybe a little lime, maybe thrown a date, you could add some medicinal mushrooms, if you know about those, I can talk to you about those, use a mushroom tea or a green tea as a base, because it’s cold where you are. So you want a warm drink that has so many antioxidants. And that’ll cleanse your digestive system and give you a lot of, you know, antioxidants. I do smoothies like that every day. And you know, things like cucumber, and celery are great for the eyes, in terms of alkalinizing. So another thing about floaters, they like to live in more acidic environments. And so, you know, adding in ginger and Tumeric are also great for the eyes, and then you’re adding your kale spinach, some kind of green vegetable. And you know, I would stay away from things like bananas and
33:04
you know, sugary things. So you need to watch your glycemic index, which sugars, your sugars are really toxic for the eyes. No doubt, unless you’re doing like a really nice level 70 to 80% cacao, you could do a cacao drink.
33:21
You know, we’re getting a little more, you know, into doing smoothies and things like that. And I would say getting a Vitamix would be the way to go. So you’ve got a three speed type of thing. But and then the other thing is your your own gut health, your microbiome in the gut, how well you’re digesting and,
33:40
you know, sometimes low back stuff can be related to digestive issues.
33:46
So, you know, should you be doing some probiotics?
33:51
You know, those kinds of things, the gut health in the eye health are very connected. Just so you know. And, you know, this is where you get into maybe a naturopath or a functional medicine person.
34:06
You know, have you experiment exposed to heavy metals or pesticides, agricultural, you know, things like Roundup and that kind of stuff can cause really weird things happen to happen with the eyes. So I’m just throwing out a lot of things that we’ve had to deal with and helping people get rid of flutters. Most of this may not relate to you. I mean, you’re young, you’re healthy. But something is is creating some kind of toxic load on the left eye and the left side. You know, if we look at it more psychologically, that’s the feminine side. That’s the right brain. So what’s happening with the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere of the brain? Are you dominating more with the right eye and not using the left eye?
34:52
So you know, you would know that more than I do, if that’s an issue, so I’m just throwing out a lot of things and see what’s
35:00
sticks are lands. And if you have questions, or we can go into more depth, but these would be the ways to really deep deeply confront the floaters. And there’s a lot of ways to do it. But it’s just what’s the right formula for you? Is the question. Yeah, the, I mean, all those sound like great, great directions to explore and try. I have a question about,
35:25
about heavy metals in heavy metal detox. I saw the A, I saw you had at least one blog post about this. Maybe there’s there’s been more. And I asked specifically about that, because in the research I’ve done online about eye floaters. I’ve at least found several situations like anecdotal evidence of people saying like, Hey, I had eye floaters, and it turned out to be a heavy metal toxicity issue.
35:47
I, my question about that is like, under like, what circumstances would you recommend I explore that avenue? And like, how would I know if that was right for me, or if there’s or if that’s a road, I should actually go down because it seems like a shot in the dark. But also, I’ve got reason to believe it is a cause for some people.
36:06
So what you could do, you could do the test yourself, you could order the kit, you could consider a hair mineral analysis. And what the hair mineral analysis will do is it will, when you cut the hair from your head, and you send it off to the lab, what it’s going to do is give you a readout on different mineral ratios. And for example, there’s a mineral ratio that will tell you how well you’re metabolizing your carbohydrates. There’s another ratio that will tell you your adrenal health. There’s another ratio that will tell you how well you’re absorbing your proteins. There’s another section that will show you Are you high in lead, mercury,
36:54
arsenic, you know, those kinds of things that will look at trace minerals like chromium and selenium, which we need, like, for example, glutathione is a very important master antioxidant for the eyes in the body. A lot of people that I treat, they’re low in glutathione, they’re low in magnesium, and are low in selenium. So these are important for the detoxification pathways. But you could order this test, I think the company is called doctors data, you could go online and Google, how can I get a home hair test, they’ll send you a packet, you they’ll show you what kind of hair to cut, how much to cut, send it off, you know, it’s about 65 to 70% accurate, it’ll give you a kind of a bigger snapshot than, say, a blood test that’s gonna give you a 24 hour reading. And unless your your heavy metals are completely off the charts, the blood test isn’t going to show it, the hair mineral analysis is more subtle. So it’s going to show imbalances and what the hair analysis shows you is how you’re adapting to external, your external world, it’s going to show you your stress patterns. And I think that there’s some value to that test. And you would get some information on the heavy metals that you know without going to somebody and there’s more extensive tests like a urine test.
38:22
There’s, you know, there are different blood tests that you could do. But this would be a nice screening that you could pay 45 bucks, and you get the report, and it’ll you know, give you a roadmap. And then based on that, you could do something as simple as say a milk thistle
38:40
two week program, get yourself some milk thistle herbs, and that’s a great liver detoxification. goldenseal would be another one you could do so you’d have to look around and there’s some herbal stores or herbalist around there, they could help you with that, and just do something gentle, you know, something that will induce your liver, getting rid of, you know, anything that or anywhere in your body. And you’re right, there is a correlation between toxicity levels and eye health, specifically, the floaters. So, you know, you’re onto it. I think that, that certainly if you’re curious about it, there’s probably something there. That’s where again, the lymph stimulation naturally moves out the toxicity. And I don’t know about you, but you know, we sit so much. What I’ve started to do is I actually have a desk that I you know, I can I stand and I and I move around a lot so I’m not sitting anymore, because the sitting is like death. You know, it’s you’re not getting any limp function when you’re just sitting all day. So you need more movement. That’s where you have these kinds of adjustable desks where you can stand or you sit on a physio ball. Like you need to get more movement in your body while you’re staring at the screen.
40:00
trying to, you know, get your work done. So that that would be my suggestion for the heavy metal exploration, but it’s gonna give you some good info on, you know, like your sugar levels like, are you really absorbing your carbs? What are the source of carbs you’re using? Are they? Because Because even carbohydrates, if they’re not complex carbohydrates that can affect your eye circulation as well. So your glycemic levels and your glucose levels can affect your your eye circulation.
40:35
Yeah, that’s really helpful. Can you read the questions I asked of you? Um, no, I’m interested. I’m interested in the liver piece, you talked about a? What do you like a liver cleanse or intermittent fasting? What is what does that look like? I’m just interested in
40:52
both of those. So with intermittent fasting, the theory is, is that
40:59
let’s say you eat dinner at six o’clock,
41:02
when you stop eating for, say, a 12 hour cycle, or a 14 hour cycle, it does a couple of really great things for your health. First of all, it stimulates the anti aging part of the cells. So it reduces inflammation, it’s a detoxification, so you’re drinking water, but you’re not eating anything. So the the minimal would be, say you eat at six o’clock, don’t eat again, until 8am, that would be kind of an easy way to get into it, and then maybe make it to 10am. And then maybe make it to 12 Noon. And that’s a great way if you go from like 6pm to 12 noon the next day, that’s pretty great in terms of resetting your cellular health, and detoxing the body, it’s great for restoring your glucose levels, it’s great, you know, for you, you don’t have to worry about you know, weight loss, it’ll probably give you more energy, it’ll probably even improve your cognitive health more. So it’s something that I, I would definitely check into just that amount, you know, just don’t eat for 14 hours, I would say the sweet spot spot would be 12 to 18 hours. So you could try that. And if you get hungry, and you want to eat and do, I would hydrate, it’s important to drink water if you you want to. And that would be a good start. And then once you get used to it, say do that two times a week or three times a week or on the weekend, then you can do it multiple days. And then maybe you do a 24 hour intermittent, you know, you can kind of see what feels good, but it’s very healthy to take a break from eating. And I’m just personally a couple times a year I do, you know, pretty deep cleanses where I might do a water fast for 48 hours or, you know, some kind of a intermittent fasting for at least 24 hours. And it’s just a great reset. So that would be
43:16
something to do now in terms of the liver cleanse. Again, you could start really simply with an herbal formula called Milk thistle, you can get that online anywhere and you get it you can get in a liquid and just follow the directions. And it just becomes like another supplement, you can put it in water, and you drink it. And that will kind of cleanse the liver in a very gentle way.
43:42
Since we’re talking about the liver, I probably should bring this into it. And that is this I talked about I think maybe I talked about how the liver produces something called bile. Bile helps us absorb are fats. And if there’s some challenge in the liver, and the gallbladder stores the bile, if there’s some challenge, then all the eye nutrients we’re getting, they’re not getting absorbed into the eyes and in the body. So if there is a challenge in the gallbladder or the liver, then we recommend some bile salts as a gallbladder gallbladder support, so that you absorb your fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A, that’s a big one, and your lutein and zeaxanthin. And I don’t know that that’s a problem for you. Maybe your acupuncturist when he or she is reading your pulses. You could ask them, how’s my gallbladder? How’s my spleen? How’s my kidney? Another thing that I didn’t mention is sometimes floaters are caused by kidney Qi stagnation. So the western model kidneys, good. But it’s when you you palpate the the pulses. The kidney meridian if it’s low, the kidney lung
45:00
that because they go together the kidney in the lungs that could create a congestion in the eyes which could lead the floaters. So again, doing some acupuncture, you think of acupuncture. This way it redistributes the energy along the meridian. And there are a lot of energy meridians that run from the eyes, throughout the entire body, liver, gallbladder, spleen, large intestine, colon, lot of connections there. So when the acupuncturist is placing the needles distally, they’re not around the eyes, but just somewhere around the body. It opens up the meridian and it redistributes the energy. And so with floaters, there’s a congestion of energy in the vitreous, you’re trying to, you know, redistribute that energy. That’s where acupuncture can be valuable. In that redistribution, the floaters start to go away. And so, you know, you could talk to your acupuncturist. I mean, it’s, it’s very well known that the liver rules the eyes. In Chinese medicine, every acupuncturist knows that. And when I studied Chinese medicine, I couldn’t believe all the meridians that go to the eyes like some effect cataracts, some affect your eye. For example, if you’ve got eyelid issues, the upper lid is the spleen, the lower lid is the stomach. So if somebody has an eyelid issue, instead of treating it with steroids, I treat it with acupuncture where I improve the spleen function, and the large intestine or the stomach, guess what the lid issue goes away. It’s amazing. So that’s all the connections going on. And what the ophthalmologist is good at is he can zero in on the floaters, the vitreous the retina, but he’s not looking at the the connections. And there’s some huge connections with the eyes in the body.
46:56
You know, and your thyroid health would be something else I would be curious about your adrenal health, those things are also if they’re out of whack. Just as an example, if your testosterone level is high or low, that can create dryness in the eyes can create inflammation.
47:20
So you know, with your surgery that you went through, you know what’s happening with your testosterone level right now, I’d be curious, there’s a saliva test that you can do. Again, it’s a kit that you can buy online, and that can test your endocrine health, it’s pretty accurate. So you could test your testosterone, you could test, you know, your cortical, you know, your cortisol and things like that. So that would be another thing that if you wanted to test your metabolic health, you know, because it sounds like you might need a little tune up. And,
47:59
you know, finding the right if you could find a naturopath or you know, somebody who’s, you know, like me just kind of open minded and say, Okay, let me just do a few things and we tweak it. Some of these people, they have their system and it’s 1000s of dollars, I don’t recommend that you need to do that. But like me, either maybe this acupuncturist or somebody that can kind of read into your systemic metabolic health a little bit and tweak you with a few things. Another red flag is I would consider a full spectrum Omega three with DHA and EPA instead of the Flexi.
48:42
It will give you a higher concentration of Omega three, which the eye sorely needs, you know, the retinas about 50% fatty acids. And omega three is really important where flax has some of that omega three, and if you’re vegan or vegetarian, okay, you know, you can’t do fish. But either you could do my omega three, which I test which is really good, or metagenics has a really good one as well. And you’re looking to take about 2000 milligrams a day of the have a really good Omega three, and you’re looking for that DHA, EPA, those are very important ingredients.
49:25
And your magnesium level, you know, are you taking a magnesium supplement I would consider in the evening maybe doing that as well. Magnesium is so important for like 300 cellular functions, and most of us are deficient in magnesium. It’s really important for your eyes. So for me when I hear your story, I go you know there’s some imbalances going on systemically that’s triggering this. And so I think it’s a
50:00
combination of, okay, let me do the topical stuff. Castor Oil, I miss them. And it’s worth for you to try the 15% MSM. And when it burns just think of me thing. Yeah, he said
50:14
that’s good.
50:17
And just try once a day, you know, see how it feels, see what’s happening. And again, look at my patient or customer reviews. So you’ll see some people say, Yeah, this actually helped. I had a lady it got rid of her floaters in like three days. And you know, I can’t guarantee that for you, but it’s a good eyedrop and it certainly won’t hurt you. And with your screen time that you’re doing, you need some you need more support than what you’re giving yourself. Yeah, right. That makes a lot of sense. I got a quick question and then can you get yours?
50:55
Are you rented it as one of the things that I that I interested in as you talk to some of the the Lipsett symptom scuze me lips, was the word system support as hard to say. I mean, like I body movements and some of the exercises you mentioned, there were sound 10 Great.
51:12
When reading about some some of that online, I’ve seen like some people recommend also including, like cold therapy, some recommend warm therapy. I don’t know if you have had any positive experience with either either one or if it also I’m thinking it in along with say like castor oil or the MSM drops are kind of any of the other things that you had mentioned, if any kind of like temperature therapy is useful one way or another or if it’s not worth my time.
51:41
Well, I think the temperature therapy is awesome, especially cold therapy. And I would point you to this, this guy you meet you’ve probably heard of him. His name is Wim Hof. Yes, who I am.
51:59
And so Wim Hof has a program where you combine your breathing,
52:05
breathing practice, and you start with cold showers. And then you start doing cold plunges. And the research is pretty definitive on the cold temperature in improving your immune health, your cellular health, it’s kind of similar to what happens with intermittent fasting. It reverses aging and breathing in the breathing. You know, it’s very important to do nose breathing, because nose breathing increases something in the in the blood called nitric oxide. And nitric oxide is a molecule that acts as a circulation improver vasodilator. And when you do nose breathing, it increases your nitric oxide quite a bit. In fact, in your sleep. If you think you’re a mouth breather or you snore, you can either get some kind of
53:05
mouthguard. There’s a company called snore RX, where you could get an app and it’ll actually ignite it’ll, it’ll measure how much snoring you do. That’s mouth breathing. Yeah, my wife is smiling as our dentist recently recommended that we tape our mouths at night for exactly the reason you’re mentioning for mouth breathing. That’s why she’s so that the oxygenation one of the things also that with floaters, is they tend to live in an anaerobic state, you’re not getting enough oxygen to the eyes. And so I you know, there’s a book called Breath by
53:49
James, I forget his name, but anyway, a couple of years. Lester, James Nestor. Yeah, might look at that book. It’s really good.
54:00
And the nose breathing for sleeping. In fact, what’s interesting, we do an exercise called Palm hum. Or what we do is we have people rub their hands together, cut them over their eyes, with their eyes closed, and they hum like this. Um, and they do six or eight of those homes on the exhale. That is very relaxing for the eyes. But when I read nesters book, he said humming actually increases the nitric oxide, like by 15x
54:35
Oh, yeah. Okay. So just by humming, you’re getting more of that nitric oxide in your bloodstream and in your brain. And you know, you can either go to a dentist you again, you could check out this app snore RX, and you could track it and see okay, are you really snoring what’s the but that also plays into the
55:00
I circulation from an oxygenation level, the more you can do nose thing
55:06
you know, so you’ve got that. And then you got the Wim Hof system, which is also really good. And the cold therapy is excellent. But he has like, a specified protocol and schedule. So you kind of enter it,
55:22
you know, slowly, I’ve done that probably three or four times, I love the cold therapy, it’s really good. So you just have to see, you know, we can’t do everything by just see where you plug in. And, you know, the sleep. And the cold therapy, again, might be some things you want to consider. Yeah, caffeine, and you want to ask about you had it was
55:47
a little caffeine is fine. I think that caffeine tends to dry things out. And so you need to be careful about, you know, too much caffeine. I think green tea is actually really good for your
56:03
there has been really good studies on that. So you could do some green tea,
56:08
you know, as part of your, you know, the drinks that you’re having, but it’s fine to have a little cat you know, I, I don’t think you need to go like super strict here. I think you just need to do a few tweaks and you’ll be fine. You know. So
56:25
you might want like a month. My only other question is I need to understand how you make hot smoothies. So you may because I hope
56:35
Okay, here’s how I do it. I brew up a green green tea. And it’s it’s hot, it’s hot tea, I add all my vegetables. And then I add that hot tea to my my Vitamix. Okay, and that’s my thing. And then I then it’s a it’s a warm to hot drink, because I’m using hot tea, but I’m using Matcha Tea Green Tea, mushroom tea, so it’s hot, and then I apply I add it to the VitaMix. And that’s how it’s it’s a warm drink. I’ve never thought of a husband and that’s why we got to try that. Yeah, because I don’t like them in the winter because it’s so cold so that’s cool to know. Okay. Yeah, we use the base of a really nice tea like I use Jasmine this morning.
57:21
It’s so good to do. It’s great for your skin. It’s great for your digestion, it’s you know you’re getting all these enzymes and antioxidants all at once. I mean it’s a no brainer you can add a date if you want a little sweeter a little cinnamon, if you want to do that. But really look at the rainbow vegetables and celery cucumber are really good with spinach, ginger root tumeric root just a little bit and a citrus you know lemon lime, you can add the pith to the lemon or the lime or the grapefruit and a nice hot tea blueberries you could add those that’d be fine. And believe me that’ll that’ll just set your day up really well take a look at medicinal mushrooms you know good company is fungi perfect die and they have a lot of anti cancer effects
58:19
you know a lot of antioxidants phytochemicals another company I like a sun potion. So, start getting into medicinal mushrooms we add those to the to the drinks out a little maca little ashwagandha you know good for immune system good for you know, and there you go a little coconut in a little coconut water or something like that.
58:43
But you know, I would do it but get a Vitamix. It’s a great it’s a great thing for your health. I think having a Vitamix is super great.
58:52
And you know, you read a really chew it up and then you know you drink it. It’s great.
58:58
So I’m up against the next patient, I’m going to need to go so I’ll send you a copy of this recording. And if you’ve got any questions, please send me an email and keep in touch. Let me know how you do. I will delete. I think you know how it goes. I appreciate your I’ll send you I’ll send you info on what I tried and what what worked. Okay.
59:23
Thank you very much. All right, guys. Take care.
Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.
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