How Vision Therapy Can Fix Brain Fog, Dizziness, Dyslexia & Even ADHD

Introduction to Vision Therapy 0:00

Hi, welcome to the thyroid pharmacist healing conversations podcast. Today, I'm joined by Dr. Bryce Applebaum, and we're going to be talking about something that most people really don't know much about, yet it could be a contributor to many of the common symptoms that people with autoimmunity learning challenges diagnoses like ADHD, anxiety and vertigo might actually have, and this might be a driving factor, potentially a root cause of their symptoms. So we're going to be talking about vision and vision therapy and that Everything we know about vision is actually wrong.

We're going to be talking about how to rewire vision, how do we wire the brain, How to improve our vision naturally. And Dr. Bryce Applebaum is joining us today. He is a neuro optometrist. Soon to be Ted speaker, founder and CEO of my vision first, a private practice specializing in diagnosing and treating vision problems for all ages. Dr. Bryce has become the trusted authority for functional vision. Dr. Applebaum exposes how we can take action to ensure our eyes and brains work harmoniously in a world where we are glued to our screens.

Through a vision performance training, screen fit visual vision training program and neurooptimetric rehab services, Dr Applebomb has supported thousands of patients to optimize their vision, improve brain functioning, heal post-concussion syndrome, and engage with life through a fresh lens. Dr. Applebaum knows that 2020 eyesight does not mean perfect vision and recognizes that while humans are not meant to stare at screens all day, we can train our eyes and brains to have the appropriate foundation to thrive in this digital world.

Dr Applebomb, it's so wonderful to Have you here. Thank you for joining us. Such an honor to be here and so excited for this conversation. I'm curious how you got to do the work that you're doing, and perhaps you could tell us a little bit more about an ophthalmologist or an optometrist or a neurooptometrists. I feel like I came into the world of vision processing and vision therapy in the last few years after becoming a parent, but it's really very, very relevant for so many areas of life. Absolutely.

So I'm really a product of this work and I view myself as being here so that others don't have to struggle unnecessarily like I did when I was a kid. And when I was a child, I had an alternating eye turn, no depth perception, my focusing system was not functioning like it was supposed to. It really caused me to feel lost in the classroom, struggled on any type of sports field, and really struggled even within a personal connection. And I attribute all my success in life, athletically, academically, even in a personally to the work that I did with vision training and also with sensory integration based occupational therapy.

But I created this really robust eye brain connection. because I was so fortunate to get the right type of care at the, right time to totally reroute my development. And I honestly attribute all my success in life, athletically, academically, even interpersonally to this work. So I'm incredibly fortunate for that. You brought up all the O words, optometry, ophthalmology, neuro, I mean, there are so many similarities and differences as well. And I would say kind of really simplify it. Ophthalmologists are trained on the intervention of eye disease and on structure.

I'm incredibly grateful for their work. They often take a kind-of reactive model. And then optometry in general is more trained and especially neuro-optometrists trained in vision development and clinical experience that's much more

Eye Doctors vs. Functional Vision 4:10

proactive in terms of establishing the right systems and visual skills in an integrated fashion so that we can support reading and driving and sports and navigating through space and all the areas in life that really require not only just careful eye coordination, but really intricate eye-brain coordination. And so there's so much that can be done there to either reroute development, to establish skills and abilities that weren't learned on their own, or even to optimize and enhance this type of brain function, really for any brain at any age, if we do the right work and are doing it for the Yeah, it's interesting because I had looked at a list of.

I guess symptoms that might be caused by vision issues that are that our apart from, you know, like you need glasses to see better, right? Or you have. you know, you're near-sighted or far- sighted, their vision is just so much broader than that. Can you tell us a little bit of a difference between eyesight and vision, like really break it down for us in very simple terms? And then I'd love to get into some of the symptoms of, what might be a red flag that you actually have issues with vision and Vision Processing and that eye-brain connection, right, that we can rewire?

This is a little bit triggering for some, but health care really has it all wrong about the eyes. I mean, all eye doctors, regardless of what type you are, are solely focused on the pursuit of seeing that really small 2020 line and the faraway letter chart in the dark exam room. But eyesight and vision, like you say, or completely separate entities. And there's so much more to vision than just eyesight. So eyesight refers to how well you can see, whether that's letters on a letter chart and an eye exam, the street signs when you're driving or what the teacher writes on the board in the classroom.

Vision is far more complex. vision is how our eyes move together and converge and track and focus and process information and really how we derive meaning from the world around us and then direct the appropriate action. So I like to say eyesight, we should just look at as a symptom. And that's what glasses are for. They help take the symptom of blur and make it clear. But vision is brain and vision problems are brain problems. And really, I hope one of the big take homes from today is that because vision problem because visual problems, our brain, problems there is a fix for so many of these problems with something called vision therapy or vision performance training.

which really is designed to rewire the software of the brain to change how somebody takes in the world around them and then processes visual information. And so symptom-wise, I mean, there are so many areas of life that are heavily influenced by vision that we don't even know or recognize. The simple low-hanging fruit, learning to read. No child's born with the ability to write, and no child is born to track, converge, focus, or even with depth perception. It all comes and is learned through our life experiences.

So it's either learned well and not learned as well as it could be, and that's when intervention is needed. But functional vision problems in kids is at an all-time high because kids are being exposed to screens and technology at earlier and earlier ages, being asked to read earlier than ever before. And if they haven't developed the visual foundation to support those demands, they'll experience symptoms. In the classroom setting, that is losing their place with reading, skipping words, Words going into and out of focus, becoming blurry, double, trouble copying off a blackboard and going from near to far, and very often difficulty focusing.

And then so often in the medical world, labels are slapped on behaviors, when in fact very, often these can be hidden functional vision problems that are impacting that person's ability to achieve at their potential. But on top of that, I mean, something like motion sickness, fearful, being fearful driving at night, hesitant around stairs or escalators, bumping into walls, knocking things over, not being able to take in spatially and organize a room and keep your room even clean. I means, so much of this has a visual component.

that's treatable because the brain is not filtering and organizing the information, the eyes are sending it appropriately to know how to respond and then direct the right action that that followed. That's really fascinating because I understand some of these things, you know, they could be misdiagnosed. For example, I think you mentioned to me that our vision is our largest sense of how we get information. Right. And so if a person has Vision issues, they might have trouble paying attention and then this can get diagnosed as ADHD or they may have problems with coordination and people might think this person is just clumsy, right?

And they can't they're not good at sports. and this could be a vision issue. They can have letter reversals, poor handwriting, this can be, you know, the letter reversal and reading below grade level. This could misdiagnosed as dyslexia. The handwriting you have them just diagnosed as Dysgraphia and it's like, okay, like what is going on here? This can actually all be related back to vision. And now I know with With adults too, this can manifest with like motion sensitivity, double vision, trouble focusing, persistent dizziness, even vertical or just like feeling anxious when you're in like a visually busy environment.

And this is so fascinating to me because a lot of times people, people are like, I'm anxious, medications for that, right? Or I have this kind of issue and this is just who I am, but really it could be like a brain vision wiring, Right? Yeah, and there's so much to unpack there.

Symptoms of Hidden Vision Problems 10:20

But I mean, it really comes down to this. If you cannot control your eyes and their ability to focus, then you can not control you mind and its ability of focus. And any change in eye movement is a change and attention, whether it's voluntary and voluntary. It's not like there's a blood test that says you have ADHD or you've dyslexia or any of these diagnoses that you're talking about. They're based off of symptoms and behaviors and what the person diagnosing those conditions, their experience and their understanding of all of this.

You know, for a child who can't articulate that they'd much rather read with their ears and rely on auditory rather than reading with your eyes because they can organize the page and track and focus and the way they're supposed to when they are skipping words and losing their place, you know that's a childhood who often in the classroom looks like they've got ants in their pants or they aren't paying attention when in fact it's really hard to self-regulate and there's this motor overflow because the have to rely with the teachers sharing auditorily rather then visually.

Visions are dominant sensory system, and when that system is not functioning like it's supposed to, the simplest of tasks, reading, writing, navigating through space, social interactions, can be so much harder and more frustrating than they're supposed be. And there are more areas of our brain dedicated to processing vision than all the other senses combined. And two thirds of the neurons entering our brain come from our eyes. So it's hard to have a head injury. It's harder to any type of, um, brain functioning challenge, or even just having stress from the environment where the autonomic nervous system taps into that fight or flight response.

And our pupils get really big and we lock in with tunnel vision. it really hard of any of these conditions and not have vision be involved. That's just a matter of at what level. And the mental health piece of this, the amount of women I see, like 45 to 65, who are told that this is all on their head because the doctor can't find anything that's wrong or doesn't know what tests to do. Well, absolutely it is in their heads, but it's in there head, because their eyes are not working together as a team.

And these are functional vision problems. So the person who gets incredibly anxious driving over a bridge, or has a fear of heights and isn't trusting what they're seeing, looks out onto the water and sees a boat rocking back and forth. But the visual input that's coming in is not being trusted. It's not been filtered or processed appropriately. And then the vestibular system gets activated, which is that internal GPS system of the roadmap of life that lets us know which way is up and down and left and right.

We need vision and vestigular input to be in a healthy, happy marriage. When they're not, and when there's a divorce or a tug of war there, it can contribute to dizziness and nausea and motion sensitivity and vertigo. when so often really the solution is right in front of somebody. It's their eyes not working together as a team, but there's just so many missed diagnoses and missed opportunities out there because functional vision hasn't really had a seat at the medical table until recently. Now that screens have been catapulted into all of our lives and creating all this new stress from the environment that most of us don't have the tools or the foundation in place to be able to support.

Thank you so much for sharing that really fascinating perspective and so it's so impact there too. I'm like, okay, this person might have a vision processing issue like the people that have fears of heights, people with vertigo, with some of this anxiety and people who are afraid of driving and it just makes so many sense. Now, you mentioned screen time. In our modern world, we're spending a lot of time on screens, and I know we had chatted about how this could be a potential root cause of vision processing issues.

Are there other causes? I knew we have mentioned concussions. and some of these other, I guess, situations, could you give us maybe a breakdown, a list of potential causes for this? And perhaps, you know, people that are watching, this can kind of alert them to be like, oh, wait, i've had this. Therefore, uh, This might be really relevant in my life, right? Yeah, to simplify, we kind have two main buckets. We have visual developmental delays, And then acquired problems. So the visual developmental delays really stem from the fact that all functional visual skills are developed through our life experiences and they either learned well or not learned as well as they could be.

And that's when intervention is needed. That's a child who's being asked to read at four years old when they're not visually ready. I mean, you avoid or you adapt. And so many functional vision problems are maladaptations. They're bad habits because we figured out ways to still accomplish the task as best as we can, but then we use our eyes a different way than our brain has them wired. So developmental delays like that, you know, that's somebody who prefers to be read to rather than reading on their own.

using reading as a sleeping pill, somebody who gets fatigued visually from screens or from reading, but they are not fatiguered at all if they're interacting with three dimensional space. And then that other bucket, the acquired issues, definitely traumatic brain injury in so many different forms, stroke, concussion, growth, it's impossible for vision not to be involved. I'm a big believer that vision problems don't go away with time, but the symptoms often change. And so, you know, somebody with a lazy eye or an eye turn, that is like to a T, a two-eyed problem, binocular problem that's showing up on one side.

And most eye turns, for instance, I mean the vast majority of them have nothing to do with the strength or the length of the eye muscles, their poor coordination of their eyes. And we'll see like for kids, you know, somebody who skips over crawling or walks too soon before they have the bilateral integration, the core stability, that motor foundation from which we develop vision from, they're way more likely to develop an eye turn or a lazy eye. And then somebody who has a lazy eye where literally they can't see the tiny letters on the chart like they could with the other eye, the old school treatment for that is patching and saying you have a good eye and you a bad eye.

And cover up the bad, excuse me, cover the good eyes so the bat eye has to work. But we now have the research and literature to show that a lazy eye or an eye not seeing as well as often a two eye problem showing up on one side. So if it's addressed on a to eye basis, If you're teaching the brain how to engage that eye in the presence of the other eye with the right feedback, the training, and the ceiling, then the outcomes are so much greater. And patching is taking an already fragile system and making it so that you can't even use the eyes together.

Often that makes things worse. But then other conditions. I mean, inflammation. Inflammation is the root cause of So much illness, so much struggle, and there's neuroinflammation that occurs with a lot of issues. You know this better than almost anybody and how that can impact hormones and happiness and overall health and our gut health, toxins and mold and stresses from our environment. Often the scale gets tipped with vision and then that's just a big piece of the puzzle. But because the eyes are extensions of the brain, brain problems and eye problems are essentially the same, or they're related at least.

And there are so many diseases and problems, and challenges that we're all experiencing and accepting as normal that impact our vision. If we are not addressing vision, we leave a massive portion of healing still on the table. It's so fascinating. I feel like there are so many different things where it's like a two-way street, right? If you're, let's say, if you have somebody with, you know, they're not crawling, so they are not getting that visual input that they supposed to be getting,

Causes of Vision Processing Issues 18:40

then their brain doesn't properly wire those connections if they spending a lot of time on tiny screens. then their eyes aren't really getting the message on how to properly coordinate together, and then, their brain kind of follows suit. And then we have people with, let's say, they have mitochondrial dysfunction, so then they're muscles in their eye might not work as well. That can impact that coordination. People with Graves' disease, when they had the eye protrusion, that can really impact their vision.

It's like your brain wires to what is happening and the input that it's getting. Sometimes people might be like, okay, with Graves' disease, I no longer have the eyeball protrusion or with thyroid issues or whatever they went through, they might have solved that issue, but that brain connection still remains. What you need to do is you really need address the brain wiring to get the eyes to do what they're supposed to be doing. Is that right? Absolutely. And the people with Graves' disease who are suffering so much in so many ways, whether it's dry eye and watery eyes and red eyes, and gritty foreign body sensations, so often that's exacerbated by Too much visual stress or too much reading too, much screen time, which then causes these these maladaptations to to set up.

You know, there are so many areas of life that require efficient use of our eyes together as a team and the inside and outside muscles of her eyes to work together in synergy. And so I see a lot of people with thyroid eye disease who, you know, some of the symptoms get better and then they assume, well, if I don't have the proptosis, my eyes aren't bulging out, or if a double vision went away because there's not inflammation around the muscles that are controlling the pointing of eyes, I must be cured or things must easier.

very often the brain that's attached to those eyes is finding ways to compensate and finding way to resolve the confusion. And one of the most common profiles we'll see is that type of person who is recovering from the systemic issues but still has functional vision problems, they'll start to develop this this bad habit where they are under converging their eyes. So perceiving something to be farther back in space and where it is, if you think about a laser beam coming out of each eye representing line of sight, the pages in front of them, they're looking behind the page.

And so there's this fragile eye coordination there, and then the brain sends a signal the eyes to try harder to get rid of the instability. Then maybe the inside muscles try and take over what the outside muscles weren't doing as well as they could or should. And then they start to experience eye strain or pressure in the eyes or tension or headaches or dizziness or nausea because literally like a seesaw, they're using those inside and outside muscles of the eye not in a balanced fashion. And if that person is still working or is engaging with life, which means screens are a big part of life.

It's almost like stepping on or pressing on an open wound that's just making things harder. And you brought up screen time. I mean, the average American right now spends seven hours and four minutes a day on a screen. The average eight to 10-year-old spends six hours a days on the screen, that is nuts. That creates a whole host of other issues with circadian rhythm dysfunction and fatigue and eye strain. cognitive, emotional and social development issues, and then also just losing the ability to interact with three-dimensional space.

And then that can impact up so many other areas of life, sports, driving, even just ambulation, navigating through space Yeah, it's, just crazy. I mean, we all live in the modern world and we have to, a lot of us have, to be on screens for work. And that's just a part of it. Are there ways? I wanted to kind of walk through perhaps how we can utilize vision therapy and talk to people about how it works. I know there's a lot of people that are very, very mind blown that eye patches are not the best way to correct lazy eyes.

Right? So we'll get into how to properly correct those situations before we do. Are there ways we can protect ourselves and our vision in the modern world with where we're so. inundated with screens, right? Like you and I are on a screen right now, which is amazing. And we're able to connect across the US and talk to people all over the world. But how do we protect ourselves from that? Yeah, I mean, there's really so much we can do and having balance and moderation with a lot of areas of life is really healthy.

So, you know, for instance, we can all start a 2020-20 rule, which means never more than 20 minutes on a screen without taking a break for at least 20 seconds and looking at 20 something, 20 feet away. But that's basically saying, take vision breaks. And as silly as that sounds, if you've got meetings stacked up all day long, or if your doing work all days, literally hours go by and you haven't even looked away from the screen. We know that when we're on screens, We go from blinking about 15 times a minute on average to about three to five times.

Which literally means you're blinking less. You're having new fresh tear from go over the front surface less, which then sends the signal from your brain to your eyes to release more tears. But then the tears come out in the wrong consistency and they're more watery and less oily. So your own tears evaporate faster. Then the glands say, well, this isn't right. I need to secrete more. And then we start to get inflammatory reactions. Taking the 2020 roll break is great. Taking blinking breaks, again, as silly as that sounds, like film yourself on a screen and count how many times you blink.

I mean, it's crazy how few we do. But then really getting up for movement breaks. And if you think about the fact that vision is really intended to guide our movement, And to have a delicate balance between intricate neural work with our hands and a lot of distance exploration and being able to be in natural lighting and exploring through nature, we're now taking those same systems and having 2D devices off and inches from our face blasting this high energy light at us for hours on end and all day long.

So I think balancing with as much time outdoors as we can with time indoors and on screens, We now have studies and research to show that Myopia, for instance, or nearsightedness is increasing at an alarming rate, but you're actually less likely to develop myopia if you are spending at least 90 minutes outside and if your getting natural light and you limiting how much neural work you doing in the dark and limiting screen time. We can take control over what's become a little bit uncontrollable these days.

The statistics on myopoeia are terrible. I mean, when we landed on the moon in 1969, a fourth of America was nearsighted. We're now at 43%. And we're at 30% of the world being nearshotted right now. By 2050, it's estimated that 50% percent of world will be nearcited. That's crazy to think about. And then so many problems come with that. But if we are intentional and if were allowing for the right habits to be ingrained early on, and we're getting outside and getting natural light and were

Screen Time and Eye Protection 26:40

taking breaks. We can really do so much more to not let things get worse as quickly as they could. But even more importantly, if we are doing the right type of brain training in the form of vision performance training and giving that eye brain connection to be robust and strong and flexible, we actually can get to a place where we can handle screen time without it causing problems. For most people, it requires work. It's kind of like saying, Well, get to a place where you can run a marathon every day.

I mean, that's hard for most people, but you couldn't train to get there. It just requires training. This is a Marathon we're all experiencing with with screen time, and it's not going anywhere. And I'm not anti tech, But we got to be able to give us get everyone to place, where they know that they can do better and know what to do so that you know there's less unnecessary struggling. Wow. I mean, my mind is blown. You always kind of get the impression that nearsightedness was essentially just genetic.

When I was maybe in my teens, I wore contact lenses and glassic and ended up getting lasik, but I had no idea that this could be something that could prevented. Could it be reversed as well? So nearshightness is genetics and it's lifestyle. We can't control genetics, can control what the parents are, but if two parents today were nearsighted and have a child, the child's going to have one in two chance of being nearshited. If only one parent is, that child has a one-in-three chance. And if neither parent, is the children has one and four chance, and that's because of lifestyle and environment.

We know what's causing the problems now, But with LASIK, for instance, I mean, you're basically taking a glasses prescription, saying that in air quotes and saying, i'm going to make this permanent. Some people's prescriptions get to a point where they don't change. And so that's a great person for a, great candidate for Lasik. But the vast majority of the population, every year you go to the eye doctor, far away is a little blurrier. The eye doctors treating the symptom, not even acknowledging or looking for the problem and okay, here's stronger glasses.

And then you adapt to those, you need something stronger to maintain that same clarity, and you go down this vicious cycle. It's not the glasses that are causing the problem, it's the not having the appropriate visual foundation and focusing stamina and flexibility of the eyes to maintained the visual demands of life and the stress of live. And so a lot of the LASIK surgeons here in the D.C. area literally send us patients to say, hey, is this a good candidate for L.A.S.I.K.? And it's kind of funny because you're thinking, well, you are the guy doing it or the gal doing, and you should know this, but they want to know, please predict whether this person has a stable functional visual system or not, because if they do have a more likely to stick moving forward.

But in some cases, people will have two, three, five surgeries because they have to keep getting touch-ups because the brain attached to the eyes is adapting. And I think what the biggest wow that most people don't understand is your glasses prescription as an adult should not be changing every year. If it is, that is like too a T diagnostic for a functional vision problem. If you really look at this on an individual basis based off of the person and where their visual skills and abilities are, you can tell whether this is something that's going to be eaten up and they're going be more or whether they are visually happy and in a place where they were able to take in clarity and comfort and also functionality in the way that they deserve to.

That's incredible. It's so empowering and so game changing. I wanted to ask about reading glasses as you get older, is this like an inevitable part of aging or is there something we can do about that? Because you just blew my mind talking about how you can prevent nearsightedness in children and young adults and prevent the progression. What about what about those reading classes, right? So we exercise every muscle of our body, and exercise works, but for some reason people think you can't exercise your eye muscles.

So I will say anatomically, our focusing muscles, the lenses, everything does change as we age and they become more rigid and less flexible. But with the right work and the motivation, we can counter that. Just because you're having a birthday every year and your eyes are getting older does not mean you have to succumb to giving up. I like to give the parallel of if you hurt your knee, You don't just automatically throw yourself in a wheelchair, right? No, you figure out what happened. You figure it out through cause and you work your way back to functionality.

The same goes for your eyes. So especially in the early stages for most people, that's like in their mid to late forties. so you'll be there in 20 years, hopefully. Um, but you know, what happens is up close starts to go a little blurry. And instead of running to CVS and getting the drugs through over the counter readers, the first chance you get, You can. train focus up close to hold clarity for five seconds. And then with the right exercise and the work and go to six seconds and ten seconds, and with right work, you can actually prolong the need for reading glasses and you prolong for them to increase.

My wife on her forty second birthday literally blew out the candles and then was like, I can't see the medicine bottle instructions anymore. Luckily she knew a functional eye guy with a secret recipe, but We put her through a specific program. She reversed her age-related changes. she now has the focusing system of a 20-year-old. And just like she exercises her body, she exercise her eye muscles every single day to keep her HDI site for longer. We do this intensive program where we see people from at a state or at country for a boot camp and for lots of different reasons.

But with adults so far, and we've had a lot of people go through this program, it's all customized. We have a 100% success rate of eyesight at near improving by the end of the week. I'm saying 100%. And of course, work is still needed to maintain that, and that's a short-term improvement. But I can confidently say that there are no other eye doctors even pushing that envelope. And I have lot of eye doctor's coming at me saying, why are you saying this? We've learned in school this doesn't work. What are you doing?

And my response now is, well, have you tried it? Have you actually seen what can be done? Because we can do it. And just because the textbooks say you can, just, because research and literature is so outdated, doesn't mean it's not possible. We have patients in their 60s, 70s even a few in the early 80s not wearing reading glasses, but they're doing work every single day. And the people that say this type of stuff doesn't work, I really think are the same people saying exercise doesn' work. Like, it works, but you got to do it.

You don't just go to the gym and get in great shape and then think, okay, i can eat donuts and not go the jim anymore. I'm going to stay that way. Well, screens and visual stress from life, that's the donuts.

Can Vision Problems Be Reversed? 34:10

And so if we can Be mindful and intentional with how we're using our eyes and when we are using your eyes. But then also we have the right specific sequencing of exercises and work to do. I mean, there is so much that can be done in this space, but it's got to be important. You've got be motivated and you've gotta know what to. Yeah, it it so fascinating I was just talking to one of my girlfriends this morning about there's so many things we think are not reversible. And once you have XYZ diagnosis, then you're going to have it forever.

But with functional medicine and just these integrative solutions, it's like, oh, you can actually lose a diagnosis. You actually don't need to do this forever and this can be really, really a game changing and life changing when you figure out what's going on with you and how to properly address it. Could you walk us through what like a vision therapy or vision exercise might look like? Maybe you can give us a few different examples. I know you would do a comprehensive evaluation and figure what things might be out of balance and then tailor to that.

But for people listening, I knows some people are probably thinking like, you know, what do you do? Put weights on your eyelids, right? You can put weights on eyelashes and get really thick. The eyelashes are going to make you look different. First of all, vision therapy is not like physical therapy, where for sprained MCL, grade one is a dozen sessions, the grade two is two dozen, and depending on where you go, it's kind of the same work. There's not really consistency yet on what this type of work looks like.

And we're doing a ton to try and change that, but we still have a long way to go. But what I will say is, if we can look at vision, therapy vision training, whatever the language to describe the treatment is called, is used for it it's really physical therapy for the eyes but for, the brain through the ice where you're teaching somebody how to use their eyes to rewire the software of their brain to change how they're using vision and to establish order from some of the disorder. So like any good therapeutic process you are raising to their awareness what they are doing you teaching them what it feels like what looks like maybe the depth that ensues when the is are working together you then incorporating a holistic model where you're using cognition and balance and movement and vestibular input into the work so that we can really create the situations in life that you are using vision in, in a treatment room or treatment session to be able to really figure out how to tie all this together.

So ideally, you get a thorough evaluation. You know exactly what's going on. And then a customized approach is easily best results in the shortest amount of time, especially if it's in office and you're working with a doctor board certified. That's not always possible. There's so few of us who do this, and this isn't accessible for everybody. So there are simple exercises. We could talk about the top three that we all do right now, and absolutely would love to do that. And then there's also online programs.

You have a program called ScreenFit, which is kind of like bodyweight work rather than going to the gym. If you want to get in really good shape, you go to gym, work with a trainer, or you work on strength, cardio, flexibility, stamina, it works. But again, not everybody has access to that. So doing body weight work like sit-ups, air squats, push- ups, if you're motivated, you do the right work, then you can get into better shape. ScreenFit is just a sequence of 30 different lessons that have different eye exercises, very intentionally, methodically structured.

There are videos sharing what to do, but then, your doing it on your own. But things we can all do today, I mean, a near far focus activity, which I kind of call eye push ups. Everybody should do this you can do it a stoplight you do in the bathroom. You can't do It in between practices picking up your kids. So let's do that real quick here So and most of what we do and screen fit and the ones I'm talking about now, like you don't need any equipment So take your hand cover up one eye And then with the other eye either take a pen or pencil or your finger something that has that you could make clear Let's use our thumb here So you're going to start with your thumb all the way at midline.

You want to bring it as close to you as you can until it gets a little blurry, and then stop and make it clear. And when you are trying to make a clear, think about how you kind of locking in your focus, you looking hard at it, your stimulating the system. If you were to watch somebody do this, notice their pupil gets really small and constricts because the focusing muscles behind the pupil. Hold it for five seconds, then you going relax your eye, look all way out into the distance, throw your focused across the room for 5 seconds.

look soft, and then back at your finger for five, then the back of the distance for fives, there's kind of a gross stimulation, relaxation, stimulation relaxation. Same amount of time, right eye as you do left eye. Most people doing this will notice that the, the difference you can hold that finger at is going to be a little closer with one eye than the other, which literally means under two eye conditions, you're focusing your eyes at slightly different planes, likely because it's too hard to focus your eye at the same plane.

And if you were to do that, for two minutes a day per eye, five days a week. Let's say you can move that finger a millimeter closer a weak. Compounding that over a couple of weeks, couple months, that millimeters turns to centimeters, centimeters turns inches, and you're able to actually make sense and hold clarity for closer for longer. And that's something that we're doing one eye at a time, because if we do it with both eyes, we bring in convergence and eye coordination, which is a whole other animal that eventually we would get to.

So near far focus or eye pushups, that is great one to do. Peripheral pointing is also a great activity. We talked about earlier how under stress, when the autonomic nervous system is tapped into in that fight or flight response, our pupils get really big and we lock in with tunnel vision. Especially when we're on screens all day and exploring up close, we are kind of locked up up-close. So an activity that teaches you how to actively open up your periphery is wonderful. With this, it can be both eyes, one eye.

You want to look straight ahead at something across the room. I'm looking at a light switch straight-ahead. Don't look away from the light-switch. And then I am going to pick something in the peripheries so I see a doorknob. And when I think I'm exactly where it is, then I dart my eyes over and see, was I right on or am I off? In this case, I was right-on, so I bring it back down and then go farther out. If you're off, bring down then readjust. So you basically kind of actively painting the periphery and learning how to use central and peripheral vision simultaneously, which is a really challenging task, especially when we're so used to locking in on what we are trying to attend to.

Even going on walks and recognizing, oh, I see a house here, or I a mailbox here. Unless you're actively opening up, you'll find you can see one side and then the other side, but it's hard to see both sides.

How Vision Therapy Works 41:20

And really keeping periphery open is one of the big keys to locking in centrally and making more accurate eye movement centrality because you are able to understand space better to make the right sized eye movements so you don't have an overshoot, undershoot and they're not jumpy. And then I said three. So the third one, let's do eye stretches. Cover up an eye, look as far up to the ceiling as you can, hold it for five seconds. Don't go too far that you cannot hold your eye steady. As far down the floor as can hold for 5 seconds, all the way to left, to right, and then do the diagonals.

Same thing, right eye as left eye. Literally, if people did these three more days than not, It's going to take you, what, 10 minutes, 15 minutes? Simple stuff that can be really powerful and can, for many people, go as far as to decrease headaches or make it so there's less eye strain or making so that the glasses you have aren't going need to be stronger as quickly because you're developing better flexibility with those systems. And then, of course, you talked about weights and things like that.

I mean, in office, we use a lot of tech. Augmented reality we use, we have a customized virtual reality program for all of our patients. We do eye tracking, computer software where based off where your eyes move on a screen, you can have an asteroid explode. But if the asteroid doesn't explode, it means your are actually pointing at the wrong place. And so it kind of gives you the feedback to adjust along with really low tech stuff in three dimensional space, but really a cross training approach.

with somebody ideally a doctor board certified and knowing what they're doing who has a holistic model you know that's going to open up so many doors in terms of visual function and eye brain body connection and then on top of that there's so Many athletes who have vision performance training as one of the crucial pieces to their their program and I work with a bunch of pro teams individual athletes but there are ways to learn how to keep your eye on the ball and learn to optimize certain areas of visual function like reaction time and depth where even small percentage improvements in a bunch of areas can lead to a massive improvement and help unlock so much potential.

That's really fascinating. I'm thinking to myself, okay, I need to show my husband this video because He turned 45 and, or he's about to turn 45. And he was like, I think I might need some reading glasses. So I'm going to have to share these videos with. And I love that you can modify for children, because I'm thinking about my son and it's a little bit trickier to do it with kids, but when you utilize tech and you make it really fun for them or you really tailor it to children. Do you work a bit differently with children than with adults when trying to acquire kids' visions?

I would love to know more about that. Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, most of the kids we work with, and we're probably 50-50 adults and kids. The kids who are used to, I mean, if they're struggling with reading and learning and not feeling secure in space, that impacts so many areas of mental health and confidence. So we kind of, we refer to what we do here as the iGym and they come in and play games and we're kind tricking them into doing work because no matter how great the treatment is, they don't want to come back when they have the opportunity to help.

But the weights you talk about, I mean, we'll do word searches or where's Waldo or drawing a picture, but they're having to look through a lens that one side asks them to stimulate their focus. The other side asked them, to relax their focused. And we're saying, all right, Billy, i want you to flip to each side of this every five seconds. And we're going to try and find Waldo together in this book, but as you're doing it, they're literally relaxing their focusing system and then stimulating and relaxing and stimulate.

So you can build lens power, build strength, kind of like getting somebody to curl a 30 pound dumbbell. Well, you probably have to start with a 10 and then get to a 15 and a 20 and kind of build up those reserves and that stamina. But also gamifying it. I mean, everybody likes games. Everybody wants to feel good and to win. Um, but I think from, uh, You know, for lasting changes and for conscious work to go to subconscious mind and become a part of somebody where the work is done, and you never have do this again because the brain has been rebooted.

And bad habits are no longer options. That's really the expectation, not the hope. I'm a big believer you do vision therapy or vision training and you're done because you've gotten a place where you are using your brain the way in which it's wired. And then for people who don't graduate or get to completion or make some improvement, then of course there's still work that goes beyond that. But for something like what your husband's experiencing, you know, There's bodyweight work, there's stuff you can do at home, but if you kind of focus or refer to it as like a really intense boot camp, you know, the inside and outside muscles of the eyes work better together in synergy and that maybe his goal is I want to go out to dinner with my lovely wife and be able to read the menu without having to use my flashlight on my phone or grab readers.

I would say without even meeting him, if he Resist the urge to grab the readers and actually does some work. I mean we could talk after I'll tell them exactly what to do that at a minimum can be pushed down the road and Ultimately, you know in the world we live in if you don't do anything about it, then yeah changes are gonna occur up close And for some people they say listen, I'm gonna put my readers on it is what it this is not important to me Great. That's not for you then Yeah, that's awesome.

He's been taking pictures of menus on his phone and then like magnifying them. So that has been his work around with that. And I love that that you have methods to actually help this and delay this. I think, you know, as I've turned 40, there's a lot of this conversation in your head that you turn you get older and then things just decline and you have zero power over that where we have so much power to change our lives and aging is inevitable right at this day and age but you don't have to suffer through it like you can really do a lot of things to help yourself and I really appreciate that.

You modify for children as a mom I know Again, I was chatting with my girlfriend today about why I know so much about different supplements and I knew so many different healing protocols, but I could definitely give them to my husband and he'll follow along. He might throw in a couple of four-letter words here and there. But he'll do it if he needs it. But with a child, it's so much more challenging where if there are healthcare professionals, some of them might have amazing things to offer or say, but if the child's not going to do, then you're really losing time and effort and not helping that child.

And you've really thought through the process of how to help children, which I so appreciate. As a mom, I know so much more complicated, right? Totally. And if you tell your child something, and I say the exact same thing, he's more likely going to listen to me because it's not from mom. It's like you telling your children, don't eat sugar and processed foods and dyes are bad for you. That's going probably be something they reach for then. But if somebody else does and you kind of get to understand a little bit of the why, it is a different animal.

And what you said about, you know, as we age, first of all, aging is way better than the alternative. But cognitive decline and vision decline are common, but they don't have to be normal. That doesn't I'm almost 42 and I can honestly say I've never been more clear headed. I'd never be in better shape. Never been able to handle stress better and been calmer and happier in life because of how proactive I am being with the right supplements, nutrition, exercise and just quality of life. Everybody needs to know that that's possible and then be able make the decision for them and what's important to them.

But when we know better, we can do better. I love that. You did mention supplements, and I'm curious if there are, do you have any go-to supplements for supporting our vision? Yes, so in general, anything that's good for the brain is good, for eyes, because the eyes are part of the And anything that causes inflammation, like gluten, dairy, sugar, processed foods, alcohol, typically is going to allow for inflammation to manifest within the eyes as well. But I will say omega-3s to me is like, that's the number one supplement for eye health.

For the tear film, which can make the oily layer more robust, and so your own tears stay in your eyes for longer. Great for the retina, the inner layer of the back of eye that allows us to see that the image is kind of focused on, and great for brain health as well. I love glutathione, specifically gluterol, I know you know about gluteral, that is our body's master antioxidant and this transdermal spray can act as like a recycling truck to detox your whole body. And then specifically for, for retinol in the macula, sweet spot of our eyesight, Lutein and zeaxanthine are 1A and 1B, and so those are found in green

Children, Adults, and Daily Habits 50:50

leafy vegetables. So collard greens, spinach, that's going to target your 2020 zone. Then really colorful vegetables, fruits that have the right types of antioxidants and vitamins A, C, and E, great for the eyes and eye health. Even from a blue light perspective, we've all heard about blue-light that's getting all the attention these days. I've been joking and saying blue lights like the new gluten. That's what everybody wants to just get away from them. Blue light's important for us. It's essential to maintain life, but that natural bluelight from the sun and outside, not the junk blue light on screens.

But with enough carotenoids and enough of the lutein and xanthine, you can actually protect your sweet spot from damage to blue-light and from macular degeneration, especially in the moderate to severe levels, with eating for health and having, I tell my kids every day, food are instructions for your body to learn how to function. And if you give your buddy the right instructions, Interesting, that's fascinating. I know you had mentioned there were a couple of screening tests people could do on themselves to figure out if they have hidden functional vision problems.

Can you go through a few of these with us? Absolutely, I would say we can do it on ourselves, but it's best to do And literally in two minutes, we're going to go through three quick screening tests to know, does this person likely have a functional vision problem impacting reading, learning, or life? If you're holding it yourself, it's a little bit different. But if you are doing this to somebody, its better. So what you want to do is take that pen or pencil, start it out at midline, about two feet away.

And let's say you do this your son. I want you to tell your sun, look at the tip of this pen. I'm going to bring it towards you, and as soon as it seems like that's hard, uncomfortable, or as you see two pins, say stop. It should be effortless to our nose where you can converge all the way in. This is screening for convergence insufficiency, which is one of the most common eye coordination problems that can severely impact somebody's ability to achieve at their potential. NIH says 20% of kids have this.

I think the number is much higher, but that's still a high percentage. And there's an incredibly high correlation with people diagnosed with convergence insufficiency and ADHD or ADD symptoms. And I could share stats about how much more likely somebody is to have ADHD labeled or mislabeled if they have convergence in sufficiency. But this is basically saying, how well can somebody's eyes work together as a team? And that should be effortless to our nose at six months of age. So you take an infant and they're taking toys and solids when you start that and then bringing it close to them and watching as it comes in.

But we'll start to see with kids that that near point of conversion starts to receding it farther and farther back because they literally can't control the inside outside muscles of the eyes together. to keep a single image. And that can cause words to move and to lose their place and the C double. I'm biased. Usually seeing people who are coming to us for an evaluation because they have a problem, but I would say nine out of 10 times we'll look at the near point of convergence. We'll see it's like a foot away with their converging, convergent, one eye flips out or they alternate which eye looks at it.

Then I'll say to that child, Sarah, do you sometimes see two or something and you think there should be one? And like nine out of 10 times it's a nod and like, oh my God, that's not normal. And this guy understands that. Then mom or dad's usually jaw dropped and in tears. You never told me that because no kid knows that that is different and that isn't how everybody sees. So conversions of deficiency, screen for that with this pen literally can take 10 seconds. Then take the same pen and we'll look at eye movements or our tracking system.

So you want to slowly bring it across midline, side to side, up and down in a circle. And we should see smooth fluid eye movement. If the child is over seven years old, we shouldn't see head movements. We should see the dissociation of eye from head movement, which naturally occurs around seven-years-old. And we should not see overshooting or undershooting, or we show not seeing the eyes dancing all over the place. That's looking at the ocular motor system. So that's tracking a ball, following a car or making eye movements across the page when we're reading.

Then the third one here to screen for an eye turn. And this can be really complicated. I'm going to make it super simple. If you think about a laser beam coming out of each eye representing line of sight, hold the pen at a foot or so away. if the laser beams are both pointing at the same place and you're telling somebody to look at that pen, if you cover one eye, the pin shouldn't move. You cover the other eye, the pen shouldn't move. If the pin does move or the eye moves, it's because that laser beam was in a different place.

So that right there is a red flag. There is likely an eye turn there. It's just covering one eye. No movement. Covering the another eye no movement If you then do an alternate cover test, which is going from side to side, you're looking at their perception of space. And so in doing that, if the pens moving it should move slightly in but a very small amount. If it's swinging in and out, red flag, if it is moving out red, flag if its moving up or diagonal red and then those are clear reasons why you should go get an eye exam and ideally an exam that goes well beyond eyesight and eye health, one that's looking at vision and that is looking somebody's functional skills to make sure they have in place what they need for And I would say at a minimum, we should be going before kindergarten and making sure every child is visually ready for learning.

And what's crazy is according to the CDC, two out of three children enter school without ever having had a vision screening. That's not even the right type of screening, that's just like, can you see the letters in your eyes healthy? We then put on top of that a functional screen that's taking the pen and doing these three things. Like a lot of people listening are probably going to be saying, educating their doctor, well, why aren't we looking at these things? And then I'd be curious to see what the doctor says.

We should be looking those things Yeah yeah absolutely I think it's just incredible I know you've had a lot of success stories from people who are children that weren't reading and weren' really meeting their grade levels to getting really ahead with The interventions that you've done with them through a lot of times a shorter time period, sometimes one to two weeks. This is very, very fascinating. Could you tell us more about where people can find you? I know you're located in the DC area. Is that right?

Yes, but I'm in Maryland, so I have an office in Bethesda and Annapolis, and with all everything going on in DC now, I like to say we're in, Maryland. It's very close to DC, But it's separate.

Supplements and Screening Tests 58:20

Yeah, we so my practice is my vision. First. My vision first.com is the website. We've got everything on there that we do and we. Making some big waves in terms of just raising awareness and getting a lot of this out there. And then best platform social media wise is probably Instagram and it's Dr. Bryce Applebaum. But I will say my ancestors wanted to make life really difficult. Applebomb is not spelled like Apple. It's E-L, not L-E. So put that in, you find it. But yeah, you start Googling this stuff, start searching online, and you're gonna start to see a lot of work we're doing and a lotta work others are doing.

But this is becoming kind of like the new microbiome. We're starting to realize vision influences so many areas of life that we had no idea there was any type of relationship with. And when you can tackle this, potential can be unlocked. Labels like dyslexia can just not even apply anymore. Because at any age, any brain can be rewired and we have neuroplasticity to be able to use so much of what we bypass or don't even tap into. But a lot of times you have to figure out how to arrange the conditions to make that happen.

It's just so fascinating, and I know I had mentioned one of my friends went through your therapy and he thought it was life-changing as an adult, that it's one the best things that he's ever done for himself. It is just incredible. I'm going through my list and seeing the way that your eyes move when you're following something. My eyes definitely don't do that. And I've had some issues with coordination and night driving. That's not a Hi on my list. So I think this is something that's really, really important for a lot of people can be absolutely life-changing.

Thoughts on untreated concussions from 20 plus years ago? Yeah. First of all, so sorry you are struggling from something a long time ago. I mean, most people hear the word concussion and think that they only happen to professional athletes. But 28% of Americans, according to NIH, have had at least one in their lifetime. And most people don't realize that present-day symptoms can be tied to a prior injury. Very often, if you hit your head on the kitchen table, you had a playground accident when you're young, and you never got the eye-brain connection checked.

You go to the ER and the doc says, oh, You may have a concussion, but there's nothing you can do about it. Or the CT scan says that there is no blood pooling and that you are good to go. But then you start to realize you're suddenly experiencing light sensitivity and visual memory problems and dizziness or nausea or fatigue on screens. And you likely have some sort of problem like digital vision disorder or post-concussion vision syndrome, yet nobody's diagnosed it. So whether it's been a day, a week, year, decades past, Absolutely, you can use your eyes to rewire your brain and to establish a lot of order from that disorder.

But you talked initially about sensory overload that people experience. One of the most common symptoms from a head injury, whether it's been recent or a long time ago, is the mall or grocery store is a total nightmare, or shirts with patterns completely throw you off, You're even just thinking about junk lighting in life and it's like, retreat, get me out of here. So forever ask that question, I can tell you if any of this is resonating, absolutely, you can tackle this and you take the confusion in your brain and the chaos in you life, and make it so it is no longer a thing.

You just got to find somebody who knows what they're doing and when you do, this stuff is not too complicated. It's just really fascinating how many things can be helped and how things are related. Concussions and non-resolved headaches, could that be a place where vision therapy might help? Absolutely. I mean, headaches and migraines really should be diagnoses of exclusion. We should rule out the other things that cause them. And again, I know I'm biased, but we should think about eyes with headaches.

Especially the frontal ones. or the temple ones or headaches that are worse with reading or screens or tasks that require sustained visual concentration. I mean, absolutely can be improved. And I would say you find the root cause. Like, of course, look at hydration and minerals and hormones and environment. There's so many things. Absolutely, vision can improve and often eliminate headaches, especially if they're made worse with tasks that require really careful use of the eyes as a team. And just to interrupt, there's also simple stuff before vision therapy, like lenses and prism and filters and tints.

You know, we can Our eyes are our windows to our soul, but we can adjust how light is being filtered and received and processed with optical devices and that can immediately improve comfort. But ultimately, if you can teach your brain how to do well beyond what lenses, prism, filters, tints are offering, and ideally it's a combination of both so that you're doing the work and then you are less dependent on the help that's in, you know, from those means. fascinating I know somebody had these glasses that reduce your vision input and I remember feeling just feeling I don't know we were at a crowded restaurant there's a lot of people around a lots of kids it wasn't a restaurant it was a playground restaurant because we it's right so there's a lot going on and and i like i can't say it was a relaxing feeling that i had in me i wasn't stressed but i was relaxed and they gave me these glasses and I was like it just like called the glasses just calmed me down so much i didn't realize how much that vision the input how overwhelming that was it so fascinating so it is great to know that there are things we can do to help ourselves while we go through the exercises too And without, I don't want you to feel like you have to share anything you don' want to, but have you had any head injuries in the past?

Have you ever had scenarios where there's been autonomic dysfunction? I will put my brother on the spot. He used to hit me on my head when we were kids. That was like, he was a terrible, terrible brother. And he's much better now. Well, a lot happens when you're younger that we just accept as normal. I saw a A baseball player yesterday was about to be drafted and saw his eye movements initially and was like, this guy's clearly had a head injury. So I asked him, have you had any, any diagnosed head injuries?

Nope, never. And then by the end, and he felt more comfortable, we started unpacking a little bit more and I said, so just so you know, what you're doing with your eyes in this way, like this only happens from acquired brain injury and so let's think like did you play any sports growing up? Oh yeah, I played football. Oh, and actually I did have a head injury and I actually sat out for two weeks and also played rugby. And I'm like, dude, you've had repeated head injuries forever that has defined you.

So now that I think about it, that's when I really stopped trying in school. I've stuck to baseball because that is kind of my lifeline to a career because I am smart in everything but school and it's like diagnostic for He's not

Concussions, Floaters, and Visual Snow 1:05:50

working well together and we were actually starting him in therapy before he gets drafted. So whatever team gets him is going to get that much more return on the investment. That's amazing. And I know I try to throw my brother under the bus just, but I think I actually now just recall that I hit my head on that trunk of my car. And that I think that can be a common source of concussions for people. Cause I remember feeling off for a few days too. So that's, and I totally forgot about that until you just mentioned it.

I'm like, I didn't play football or rugby like that, but you block out something like. Yeah, I didn't black out, but that can still, even if you don't lose consciousness, you could still have a brain injury. Is that right? Absolutely. When I said block out not blackout, like you block that out of not thinking about it. Oftentimes the most sudden little aceleration or deceleration of the brainstem causes even more devastating challenges rather than like a massive impact because the changes that occur at such a microcellular level, they don' They don't come up on any imaging unless you're doing a spec scan or functional MRI or something that shows kind of real time activity.

And I know just even in talking with you today, like reading on boats or some of the things you shared, I would say vision at a minimum is not guiding and leading for you at times like it's supposed to. So let's talk after all this. Yeah, it's so fascinating. We didn't talk much about floaters. Is there a way to get rid of them? Is that related to vision? Floaters, I would say I probably get 20 plus messages a day on social media about floaters. Floater are so annoying and what usually happens is the inside of our eye is called the vitreous.

It's the gelatinous substance that gives our eye kind of shape as we age it becomes more liquefied and less jelly-like and so what often happens is certain areas where it was attached it separates a little bit and then you start to see the attachment sites these little floaters going around. They're really annoying they're more common on you know bright sunny days against a white wall where you're kind Definitely want to see a doctor and roll out any retinal attachments or bad stuff. But assuming that's all been ruled out, the treatment options available right now are you're either stuck with it and live with, or they have laser that can blast one big floater and turn it into like a thousand little floaters, which is usually not a good thing.

So laser almost nobody recommends. I will say myself personally, what I've done, I had a massive floator in my left eye and three small ones in right eye, and they're completely gone from a specific protocol I did with really, really potent high power antioxidants. And happy to share, happy share with you, Dr. Wentz, after or with this person, but certain things like C60, like Glutrol, certain that have a really potent way to allow our body to have cellular cleanup and attack these areas can be really helpful.

And we're actually working on a formula that has gotten initial, unbelievable results for people to take holistically to get rid of floaters. So that's not out yet, but we're getting there. But I'm sorry, the float is are super annoying. And unfortunately, I would just say start taking antioxidants because that is going to be great for so many areas of your health, that can help target those areas as well. That's fascinating. I know I had some floaters before I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's and part of my healing was also taking antioxidants.

So that aligns with me and I don't have floators anymore. i'd love to know your protocol because I feel like this is a common thing with people with thyroid issues might struggle with and yeah, they are super, super annoying. Oh, yeah. And, you know, in many cases, it's a cortical hypersensitivity. There's this specific syndrome called visual snow syndrome, which has gotten so much attention lately, and it is literally like you are in a snow globe in all of life. People with this, no doctors have even known what to do with it, what the make of this.

It's often like difficulty seeing at night associated. They're often trailing of lights or distorted images or almost like completely misshapen views of the world. And we do, and it's almost, it is brain inflammation and not trusting and responding to what signals are being sent from the eyes. We have a specific protocol with specific exercises and vision training, but then also, again, high-powered antioxidants and really taking a nutritional approach that that supports brain health, like ketogenic diet or something that is really decreasing any inflammatory reactions that could occur.

And a lot can be done there as well, including certain tints. There's a tint called FL41, which is like a yellowish tint that can help make a lotta those floaters in the snow globe appearance less substantial. But I've probably seen several hundred patients with visual snow syndrome. We have one where we didn't see dramatic improvement in symptoms. And I'm certain that this young man refused to go down the nutritional and supplement route because this was pre-COVID and he was convinced that that wouldn't do anything and knew better.

I circled back with him and I still can't contact him, but I know I want him to know that there is help there. So if he's listening, you don't have to live with Visual Snow forever. Wow, thank you so much for sharing that. It's been so fascinating to be able to connect with you and learn about all of the innovative ways that you're helping people and really changing lives on a day to day basis, helping most of us, you know, probably didn't even know we're related to vision and potentially some of might have given up on healing, right?

So, well, I am so grateful for this opportunity to connect with you and to educate your audience and your tribe here, who I know is in such good hands with not just thyroid function, but overall wellness because of how brilliant you are and how much you're putting out there. So an honor to be able to contribute and share what I Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And everybody listening at home, I hope this has been a healing conversation for you until next time.