Cures for Nearsightedness

Being nearsighted can be frustrating---your choice is between wearing glasses or contacts or not being able to see anything that's far from your face. Fortunately, you have a choice in addition to surgery to cure your nearsightedness.

Program for Better Vision

• The Program for Better Vision is one that promotes restoring your vision naturally. This program works for all types of eye issues including nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and lazy eye. Developed by the Cambridge Institute for Better Vision, many followers have restored their sight to perfect or near-perfect vision.

  The idea behind the program is to do eye exercises to strengthen the eye muscles and correct any imbalances that cause poor vision. The program comes with an eight-week guide divided into 15- or 20-minute segments a day, which, if followed, will result in improvements to your vision.

  Another part of the Program for Better Vision is positive reinforcement. Instead of thinking "I'm so blind," it pushes you to tell yourself "I can see, my eyes work great." The program provides other suggestions for phrases that can help improve the body's ability to heal itself. The theory is that by thinking negatively, the body will stop healing itself.

  The program also offers other ways to reduce eye strain and ways to improve the diet in order to obtain vision.

Corrective Eye Surgery

• Another option for correcting nearsightedness is corrective eye surgery. The most well-known corrective eye surgery type is laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis, more commonly known as LASIK.

  There are certain qualifications that a patient must meet in order to be a good candidate for eye surgery. If you're interested in getting the procedure done, talk to a couple of different doctors to make sure that you are really an ideal candidate. Be honest when answering any questions they have.

  Your prescription must have been stable within the last year, and it also has to be within certain limits. LASIK is not a good option for those with extreme myopia, but that doesn't mean other surgical procedures can be ruled out. You may go into a meeting with a doctor thinking you should get LASIK and come out finding that a different surgery option is better.

  No surgery comes without risks, and this includes LASIK. Be fully educated about what to expect and about possible bad outcomes. Check to see that the qualified physician uses certified equipment. Realize that while many people come out of LASIK surgery with great results, some don't. Have a positive attitude but prepare yourself just in case.