holistic optometry, vision therapy, macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, nutrition, quantum healing, eye health, children’s vision, alternative medicine, vision development, children’s eye health, emotional health, Graves’ disease, macular degeneration, UV protection, eye surgery, holistic eye care
Dr. Sam Berne emphasizes the importance of holistic approaches in optometry.
His personal experience with vision challenges shaped his career in vision therapy.
Behavioral optometry focuses on the connection between vision and brain function.
Nutrition plays a crucial role in maintaining eye health and preventing diseases.
Macular degeneration is a growing concern, but dietary changes can help mitigate risks.
Cataracts can be managed through lifestyle changes and nutritional support.
Natural remedies exist for glaucoma, emphasizing the need for awareness and education.
Children’s vision is affected by screen time; outdoor activities are essential for eye health.
The ocular microbiome is vital for maintaining healthy eyes and preventing infections.
Self-regulation and personalized care are key in managing eye health. An eye exam should explore how children move through space.
Vision development in children is crucial and can be nurtured.
Emotional health significantly impacts eye functionality.
The connection between vision and hearing is profound and reciprocal.
Holistic approaches can enhance eye health post-surgery.
Graves’ disease can affect eye appearance and health.
UV protection is essential for maintaining eye health.
Sound healing can positively influence overall well-being.
Macular degeneration requires a multifaceted approach to treatment.
Personalized care is vital in addressing individual eye health needs.
Dr. Sam Berne, a holistic optometrist, shares his journey from personal vision challenges to becoming a leader in vision therapy. He emphasizes the importance of integrating nutrition, quantum healing, and innovative therapies in eye care. Throughout the conversation, he discusses common eye diseases such as macular degeneration, cataracts, and glaucoma, offering insights into prevention and management through holistic approaches. He also highlights the significance of children’s vision health in the context of modern screen time and the need for outdoor activities. In this conversation, Sam Berne discusses the intricate connections between vision, emotional health, and overall well-being. He emphasizes the importance of understanding children’s vision development, the relationship between vision and hearing, and the impact of emotional experiences on eye health. Berne also addresses specific conditions such as Graves’ disease and macular degeneration, offering insights into holistic approaches for managing these issues. The conversation highlights the significance of sunlight exposure, the role of sound healing, and the necessity of personalized care in eye health.
The Journey of a Holistic Optometrist
Vision Therapy: A New Perspective
Healing Eyes: Nutrition and Quantum Approaches
Understanding Eye Diseases: Macular Degeneration and Cataracts
Natural Remedies for Glaucoma
Empowering Children’s Vision Health
The Ocular Microbiome: A Hidden Key to Eye Health
00:00 Introduction to Holistic Optometry
02:54 Personal Journey and Early Challenges
06:13 Innovative Approaches in Vision Therapy
10:33 Integrating Quantum Healing and Nutrition
16:15 Understanding Macular Degeneration
25:30 Cataracts: Prevention and Management
30:57 Glaucoma: Natural Remedies and Awareness
36:47 The Importance of Eye Health in Children
37:09 Understanding Children’s Vision Development
41:17 The Connection Between Vision and Hearing
45:59 Emotional Health and Eye Functionality
50:40 Exploring Eye Health Post-Surgery
53:15 Addressing Graves’ Disease and Eye Health
57:03 The Role of Sunlight and UV Protection
01:01:00 Navigating Macular Degeneration
01:07:42 Common Eye Conditions and Their Management
Good evening everybody. Thank you all for coming here. It’s really nice to have events back at the yard. I don’t know you’ve been coming to them recently, but it’s very lovely and we’re very proud to have them. And we’re very excited to have Dr. Sam Byrne with us this evening. Being a holistic opometrist and vision therapist for over 30 years.
immense following of people who believe in him. I ⁓ took a look through his book and it’s very, very wonderful, fascinating things that I always follow, even though I see pretty well. I’m a little bit disappointed that not everyone’s wearing glasses though, because that seems like a missed opportunity. I hope you enjoy what he has to say, and I think it would be very beneficial for everybody. We do have the book available if you need it to be signed.
and please enjoy yourselves and I hope you learn all you can. Well, before I begin, I have a couple of thank yous. First of all, I’d like to thank the Art for hosting me tonight. And also I would like to thank my partner and wife, Charlie. She has really supported me over the years.
And there people in this audience that I would like to thank that have both helped me with the book and just been great supporters. I’m going to keep it anonymous, but I’m deeply grateful for their support. And so let’s begin. I want to see a show of hands of people who have either worked with me, taken one of my workshops or
So, okay, a few of you, that’s great. So, you know, in my story, one of my North stars is when I was about eight years old. I grew up in a middle-class family. My parents really emphasized education. My mom was a school teacher. My dad was in business. And my grandparents and my aunts and uncles, they always stressed going to school, reading. I remember my uncle.
I would go see him and he had this library, kind of like this room, and I would go in and pick one of his books. The problem was that I was labeled as learning disabled, and I was a really poor reader. And my mom took me everywhere. In fact, I don’t know if you remember Evelyn Woods’ speed reading. That was like one of many things we did. mean, was the biggest waste of money.
We ended up at an eye doctor’s office and of course the doctor gave me pair of glasses. He says, hey kid, you can use these. And so I started down the road of being nearsighted. And the way I got through school was memorizing. So I became this brainy kid and I worked really hard, but I was not a good reader. I didn’t enjoy reading. So fast forward, I got through college, got through professional school. By this time, my glasses were pretty thick.
And I couldn’t see the big knee on the eye chart. So I was like, perfect optometrist. I just couldn’t see. But I met this doctor, and he was called a behavioral optometrist. So if you think of the two words together, it’s kind of a juxtaposition. It’s kind of an oxymoron. Behavior and vision, what is that? But anyway, his name is Dr. Al Shankman, and he practiced in Connecticut. I lived in Philly.
And I started to go to him as a patient and he said two things to me. said, you know, your left eye wanders out and that’s why you see double vision. And I thought double vision was normal. I thought everybody saw double. And then the second thing he said was, you know, you really carry a lot of tension in your eyes. I said, I’m totally unaware. So we started in with his physical eye therapy and I just want to make a distinction.
between that and when you hear of the Bates Method in eye exercises, this was not eye exercises, this was brain therapy. over period of six months, my left eye and right eye started to work together, and so my reading got much easier. I was amazed how much easier it got. And then my ear sightiness went away. I mean, my tension in my eyes completely cleared up.
And I was like, my God, this is not what I learned in school. So at the same time, I was enrolled in a place called the Gazelle Institute. And I don’t know if anybody has ever heard of this position. Gazelle, I’ll spell it G-E-S-E-L-L. And it was started in 1948 by Arnold Gazelle, MD, who was a child development specialist and
It was affiliated with the Yale Study Center in New Haven. And it was a really cool place because it was a place where there was a lot of different professionals, psychologists, nutritionists, occupational therapists, obviously eye doctors. And I spent a year there learning how to evaluate and treat special needs kids. So after that was over, I moved back to Philadelphia and
I associated with one of the graduates of that program, Dr. Ellis Edelman, and he practiced on the main line in Philadelphia. So I was an apprentice of his. He also gave me the opportunity to start my practice in his office. But the problem with that was that I couldn’t get any patients because we practiced in an area that was surrounded by like five ophthalmology practices.
Although people were really well-off, really well-educated, they got what they needed from the regular doctors. They didn’t need somebody alternative. So at that point, I needed to make some money, and I thought about, where are there populations that are underserved? And so I went to one of the local hospitals, and I volunteered my services to the Traumatic Brain Injury Unit. So this was an outpatient hospital.
And these people were high functioning, but they had been in car accidents or sports injuries. They had strokes. So they had like double vision like I had. They also had brain fog and memory issues. And the regular eye doctors just wrote them off. There was really, it was kind of sad because these people were like struggling. So I applied my physical therapy program to them and
everybody improved greatly. And so the hospital administrator said, okay, we’ll give you a contract for three hospitals. And so some other outside patients started to trickle in because my reputation was I was a problem solver. I worked with people where they had been other places and they couldn’t have their problems solved. So come to me. The other underserved population that I contacted was the special needs children.
So these were kids that had brain injury, they were Down syndrome, they were in a wheelchair. Obviously there was the autistic to ADD population. And I did so well with those kids. mean, they were amazing. The parents were amazing. And so over time, my reputation got bigger and I built up a very successful practice. And then one day I woke up and I said, you know, I think I want to move back out west.
Now back out west, when I was in school, one of my internships was actually here at the Indian Health Hospital in Santa Fe. So I worked for IHS and you know, I said, I think Santa Fe could be a good town for me. So I sold my interests in Philadelphia and I moved out here, got my license and I opened a practice and I got really busy, which was great. So I met this woman and I’m going to bring her up because you’re all
New Mexicans, you probably maybe have heard of this person. Her name was Dr. Hazel Parcells. Has anybody ever heard of Dr. Parcells? Yes. So Dr. Parcells, when I met her, she was 103 years old and she was starting a retreat center. She had been practicing in Albuquerque for many years. She was a naturopath and a chiropractor. And she knew a lot about nutrition.
And I was writing my first book, Creating Your Personal Vision, and I wanted to interview an expert. So I called her up and she was starting this center, if know where Las Vegas, New Mexico is, it was north of that in this beautiful valley called Sappio, New Mexico. And so I went to visit her and I ended up becoming a student of hers, studying nutrition. And then one day she took me into this laboratory, another building.
And there all these black boxes. said, doctor, what is this? And she said, well, I’m working with people. I’m broadcasting frequencies to them, homeopathy, color therapy. she’s like, what? They’re not here? They’re not physically in this building? No, they’re other places, but they’re all getting well because I’m changing their frequency, their vibration. So this was my introduction to quantum healing.
And so she taught me how to do this and a couple years later, a very famous cardiologist who lives in Santa Fe, he was in Dallas, I know you’ve heard of him, Larry Dossie. Larry is best seller in New York Times, wonderful person and his wife Barbara. So he wrote a book called The Power of Prayer. You may remember that book and he actually researched people who are in different locations and you send positive energy and they would feel it or they would get better.
It kind of opened that door of the non-local field. And I could go into more of that, but I’ll put that aside because we’re talking about the eyes tonight. So in my practice, what began happening here is that I started to study Chinese medicine. And for those of you, acupuncture is so well known here in Santa Fe that I started to develop
this idea of the relationship of the meridians to our eye health. You probably all know this, you know, the liver meridian profoundly affects the eyes, gallbladder, stomach, spleen. We can look at eyelid issues, spleen is the upper eyelid, stomach is the lower eyelid. So instead of using antibiotic eye drops, you could get some acupuncture. It would clear up your stye or conjunctivitis. So, you know, those were all the things that I made those connections. And then…
I was working with an occupational therapist and we working with autistic kids. A lot of these kids had birth trauma. So you know the birth industrial industry and what it’s like. Children are now born, infants are now born based on the schedule of the doctor. It’s really challenging when a child comes out and there’s C-section or there’s a breach or there’s forceps delivery or some…
distress, it has an impact on their sensory motor development. And so I went back to massage school here based on this O.T.’ recommendation and spent two years learning crania sacral. And then what was interesting is in my exam when I had a regular office, next to my exam equipment I had a massage table. So somebody would come in for, you know, glasses and I would do a
Exam on them. I’d measure their eyes and then I would do an hour of craniosacral on them And then I would give them that prescription and that prescription used to would be like 30 % less than what they came in with because if you think about going to regular eye doctor isn’t a stressful experience which is clear one or two and You get the lens and it makes you dizzy and the doctor says just get used to it You know, I’m busy, you know, just get used to it. So you get used to it
and your body starts twisting or torquing. So the cranial work was very interesting. And then there’s this condition called astigmatism. Anybody have astigmatism? What’s it called? Astigmatism. Astigmatism, yeah. Not stigmatism, astigmatism. They think astigma, I don’t know. So astigmatism means the eye is misshapen, okay? And like it’s like an egg, that’s how it’s shaped. But it also reflects some echo in the body where there’s some asymmetry.
some twist. if you start unwinding the body and then you give a non-estigmatism correction, the astigmatism goes away. As opposed to when you get an astigmatism correction, it reinforces the twist. And we have some craniosacral therapists here, very fine craniosacral therapists here, they’re nodding their head because they know what’s going on.
When you get a regular lens prescription in an exam, it’s reinforcing some adaptation that you’ve made somewhere in your vision. And so your eyes are going to get worse. mean, who hasn’t had the experience where they’ve gone back to their eye doctor after they got a prescription the next year or two, it’s now stronger. Or they were just wearing them part time and now they’re in progressive biphones. So, I mean, it’s interesting the way
an eye doctor calculates a prescription like you’re a specimen, like you’re a problem to solve. And one of the things that I think about is instead of looking at the numbers, I look at the person behind the numbers. So even though I might get some data, it’s like, what’s your stress like? What’s your lifestyle like? What do you eat? All those kinds of things. And then based on the whole person, then maybe a prescription
might be beneficial that actually supports your vision getting better. And I’ll never forget people coming in to see me every year and they would come in and say, know, my contacts aren’t working anymore. My glasses aren’t working anymore. And what happened was they thought their eyes got worse when in fact, when they measured them, their eyes got better. So we didn’t even think, we don’t even think that our eyes can get better, right? We think, only think they get worse.
So I would say to them, are you doing? Well, I’m doing Vipassana meditation, I’m taking a yoga class, I’m doing rafting, whatever it is. So your eyes reflect your consciousness. They reflect what’s going on energetically in your body. Again, back to acupuncture, if you start measuring the pulses, you’ll find that the meridians, if there’s a stagnating energy, that could lead to something like floaters or cataracts.
or even macular degeneration. I’m going to talk about those things in a little bit. And by the way, what I want to do here, I think of this as like a fireside chat. I want to speak for a little bit and then I want to open it up for Q &A because I find that, you know, I can talk about a million things, but something drew you here tonight, some interest. And I would love to be able to answer your questions.
and we learn from each other. I’m going to speak a little bit more and then we’ll open it up for Q &A. So who here knows somebody who’s dealing with macular degeneration? Anybody? Okay. So definitely it’s the number one disease for blindness and it’s growing by epidemic proportions. And part of it is we’re living longer, but
One key principle to note is that our eyes have one of the highest metabolic needs of the body. So what we eat is going to really affect our retinas, our corneas, our eyelids, and by the way, every tissue of the eye comes from the brain. The eyes are the only part of the brain that are outside the cranium. But they are part of the brain, and this is why the eyes qualify for neuroplasticity.
And as long as the retina cells aren’t dead, then there is the possibility of regeneration. And there’s more more research coming out, and I could stand up here for an hour and give you all the research. My book has got a lot of good research in there. But in looking at neuroscientists, they’re the ones on the cutting edge doing the research that says you can regenerate your eyes. And not the eye doctors, because…
And I’ll say we because I was trained that way. We are here to look for disease. And then when we find the disease, what we have in our toolbox, pharmaceuticals and surgery. And I’m sure somebody in here has had a conversation with their eye doctor. Well, what about physical eye therapy? What about nutrition? I have this beginning cataract. Is there anything I can do about it? No, no, no. Exactly, right?
So the point of the story is is that there are things you can do and because my own eyes got better and my double vision went away when I was a kid. That’s my North Star. just kind of keep coming back back to that. How can I problem solve if you’ve got something going on and it hasn’t been solved somewhere else? Maybe I can help you. Maybe I can point to certain directions, whether it’s functional medicine, whether it’s color therapy, whether it’s craniocicrel.
could be aromatherapy, be herbs, you all of these things do come into play around healing your vision. So back to macular degeneration, the macula has the highest metabolic need in the retina. It’s made up of what we call cones, color vision and detail. And when we are exposed to things like artificial blue light or we’re developing oxidative stress or inflammation,
it seems to magnetize itself at the macular area. And so when we get that diagnosis, it’s like, my goodness, you know, it’s the death sentence. I’m going to lose my independence. I’m not going to be able to drive. I’m not going to be able to read. And what’s really cool is that back in 2001, a very long time ago, NIH did a landmark study on ⁓ macular degeneration.
and using different nutritional ingredients to prevent or reduce the risk of macular degeneration. They redid the study in 2006 and what they found was pretty obvious. Eat a lot of colorful vegetables, your rainbow diet, eat some berries, make sure you’re getting things like your omega-3s, beta-carotene.
Zinc is another one that’s really helpful for the macula. So this is back in 2006. And then of course with macular degeneration, we have the dry kind and we also have what we call the wet macular degeneration. That’s a little harder to work with, but there are things that you can do, even things like ginkgo and wormwood. These are herbal remedies.
you can reduce the diabetic or pre-diabetic possibility. if you’ve got glucose issues, wet macular degeneration, you can stave that off. And there’s one other thing that’s coming, that’s come into play right now, which is hot, hot, hot, at least through my ⁓ funnel, and that is red light therapy. Has anybody heard about red light? Yeah, probably. And so there was an ophthalmologist,
at the University College of London and he did a study with people between the ages of 40 and 75 who had macular degeneration and another condition called drusen. I know if anybody here has drusen, it’s fatty deposits that start to grow on the retina. If it comes onto the macula, it can be a problem. So Dr. Jeffries and his team did this study where he gave his subjects red light every morning
few minutes, and over 12 weeks, their visual acuity improved by 22%. 22%. That never happens in eye research. You know, the most improvement you’ll see is maybe 3%. So, he said in his paper that the red light stimulates something called mitochondria. Heard of mitochondria? It’s a buzzword now. So, it’s the organelles that are in our cells that produce energy.
specifically ATP, and when we start hitting 40, the mitochondria start receding in our eyes. And so then what happens is oxidative stress goes up, inflammation goes up, and then if we’re eating a diet maybe that’s more inflammatory based or we’ve got Candida or IBS or some digestive issue or we’ve been exposed to some toxicity or our dental work is not very good.
There’s a lot of reasons why. So then over time, our maculas and our retinas develop this oxidative stress and then one day we wake up and we go, oh my, it’s blurry. Even though this has been going on in the background for quite a while. So what Dr. Jeffries found is this red light can actually reverse certain types of macular degeneration in drusen. He also wrote in his paper, it might help dry eye,
It might help glaucoma and it might help other eye diseases as well. And it worked the best when you did it early in the morning. That is an important point because that was when our circadian rhythms are kicking in. And by the way, there’s another study I want to bring in about being out in the sun because in the mainstream they tell us to be afraid of the sun. Right? So there’s a pretty big study now that’s come out.
about morning sunlight giving us better moods so our dopamine levels get increased. Also more energy, better focus, and better vision. So the morning sun is very important to get. It also has the blue light that we need. So not all blue light is bad for you. You you read about blue light from screens and yes, you don’t want to get too much of that, but the sun’s blue light is something that we do need.
In addition, in this study they wrote about children, the way to reduce nearsightedness, because I don’t know whether you know this, but all these kids are on their screens. I read a study that 94 % of the public schools in the US, they’re using computers and they’re off in their school room. So the point of it is these screens are really hard on our eyes and they’re developing this myopia kind of thing. So in the research,
What they said was, these kids need to get outside 30 minutes a day, they need to look at long distances, and in the study they saw that the myopia started to recede when they went outside, when they got off their screens. And so just another support for getting out in nature, be in the green, because it’s very important for us. So with this macular degeneration, you’ve got glutein and zeaxanthin and astaxanthin.
Those are the carotenoids that protect the macula. And then you’ve got things like glutathione, which is a master antioxidant. You’ve got your omega-3s, got, know, vitamin A, you’ve got a lot of things that you can take. Even berries are good for you as well as we move into the summer months. Very good for the retina. So there’s a lot of things that you can do. And this is not a cookbook, you know, it’s like everybody’s biochemistry is different. Everybody’s stress level is different.
But these are some general guidelines for macular health. Now let’s move to cataracts. Do you know anybody who has cataracts? Cataract surgery. So cataracts. From statistic I read that 90 % of all people over the age of 65 will be getting cataracts. So you you go to your doctor and says, got a cataract. You got a cataract. ⁓
And let’s take it out. And you know, there are certain things that you want to do if you’re going to have that surgery, like match both eyes for distance. You don’t want to have one eye distance, one eye near called mono vision. I hope nobody has that here because it’s very confusing for the brain to have to deal with two images at once. It’s like, you you’re, you’re going to be confused. Number two.
These bifocal contact lenses that they’re now putting in the eyes is also very, very confusing for the brain. I don’t recommend it. And then number three, torque lenses for the astigmatism. So you walk out of there and you’ve got all this, you know, distortion and because the lens is kind of warped to try to match your stigmatism, you’re much better off just getting the simple lenses for distance and then getting reading glasses.
And if you’re nearsighted before the surgery, try to be nearsighted after the surgery. It’s really interesting when a nearsighted person has surgery and becomes farsighted because their behaviors and personalities are very different. know, a nearsighted person is really good up close. That’s their strength. That’s why they become nearsighted. A farsighted person is out there. Focus is hard to come into. So spatially, the nearsighted person pulls in.
the farsighted pushes out. So if you’re nearsighted before the surgery and farsighted after, it’s going to be confusing mentally for you to figure out, wait a minute, I used to have really good near vision, now I need these strong magnifiers or vice versa. So there are things that you can do proactively to take care of your lens because it’s a part of the tissue of the eye that is vulnerable for oxidative stress. So what are some things that you can do?
Well again, the master antioxidant glutathione is really important. Now one place you can get that is cruciferous vegetables. Leeks, onions, garlic. You can also supplement with glutathione as well. Studies have shown that people that develop cataracts tend to have low levels of glutathione. There was a study done in the UK about vitamin C in cataracts.
So it was with women and in the early stages when women started to eat more foods that contained vitamin C they had a 20 % reduction in developing cataracts and over a 10 year period they had a 33 % reduction in developing cataracts. Vitamin C is very important for a lot of different things usually somewhere between a thousand to fifteen hundred milligrams a day if you’re going to go that route. Number three, sugar.
So what happens in the bloodstream is the glucose molecule attaches itself to the protein molecule in the lens of the eye. The lens is made of mostly protein, amino acids, and water. So if your glucose levels are high and these glucose molecules start to attach to the protein in the lens, this is called glycation. Glycation. And it’s a special kind of cataract that forms.
which is around the edge of the eye, looks like spokes on a bicycle. It’s called a cortical cataract. And the way you know you have it is because you’re driving at night and the headlights are just overwhelming you with so much sunburst, starbursts and glare. That’s a cortical cataract. So you’ve got to eliminate sugar, process foods, clean up your diet. That’s another thing that you you need to do.
And then start looking at some really concentrated antioxidants, N-acetylcysteine, alpha-lipoic acid. So in other words, start looking at how can I boost my antioxidants. Very important. And I have people here in this room that have reversed their cataracts completely. And they are amazing because they’ve done the work. So you all can do it if you want.
Find out what you’ve got and then you can do the same thing. Alright, let’s move to glaucoma because this is called the silent thief, meaning that you don’t know you have
and you start to lose your peripheral vision. So it’s a vascular disease. Basically it’s a circulation issue in the eyes. Well guess what? There are some great herbs that can bring your eye pressure down. One is called coleus. Coleus forskella. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. C-O-L-E-U-S. Studies have shown that it can bring your eye pressure down two to five points. Amazing. They want to give you the eye drops, but there are things that you can do
to bring your eye pressure down that are natural. You know another one that’s very interesting? Jump on a rebounder. So when you improve your lymphatic health, you bring your eye pressure down. A third one, and I know this, this was amazing because I went to a glaucoma meeting a few months ago. was all, you know, allopathic medical. For three days I sat in this meeting for glaucoma. Well, I needed to keep my license.
So, you know, that I’m legal so I can keep working with everybody. So I’m good with that. But at the very end of the seminar, the last day, the last five minutes, one of the instructors said, you know, by the way, there’s this study that came out that said if you meditate, you can lower your eye pressure. And I looked it up. I couldn’t believe it. Why don’t they recommend meditation? I do.
But anyway, that can bring your eye pressure down. Amazing. Okay. So you’re starting to get the connection. I mean, you already have the connection. Let’s see if there’s anything else. Dry eye. That’s another one. So, you know, we’re all on screens. Our eyes are drying out. We’re using these drops. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but there have been deaths. I just put together this video that I’m going to release on social media, maybe tomorrow or Monday.
⁓ So the deal is there’s this bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa. And it turns out that this bacteria is in our water, it’s in the soil, and it’s in human waste. And it’s all over the place. So somebody, somewhere in this particular company, it’s an artificial tear, and they must have somehow that bacteria got in the eye drop
But what we’re dealing with also is our own inflammatory environment that we deal with for a variety of different reasons and a lowered immune system. A few years ago, I wrote an article that is published in MindBody Green called the Ocular Microbiome. So you know the microbiome, a good bacteria in our body, while our eyes have an ocular microbiome. So when we…
take steroid eye drops or Visine eye drops or we’re staring at a computer through our progressive lenses, which is a prescription that’s going to really trash our eyes or we’re eating, you know, fried foods and we’re not taking care of ourselves. Our ocular microbiome goes down. So we’re susceptible to whatever is out there. And I’m really glad that the FDA stepped in. I’m glad they took this off the market.
⁓ I know my eye drops are made in the US and I vigorously test them all the time. And I am very close with my manufacturer and in fact I got right on the phone with her when I saw this news item and we’re good. You know, we are very fastidious about our eye drops and all my products are really, really clean. But the thing is, is the media…
turns this into something that we have to be selective about, okay, what are we going to do here? And I would say use common sense. I do have my MSMI drops that burn and people will write me and say, these are really burning, I’m freaking out. So there are other ways that you can use them. You can put them on a soft cloth or wet cloth and you can place them on the outside part of your eyes. So you have to learn about self-regulating.
You know, what is going to work for my body? And I think that’s in anything, whether you take an herbal formula, a supplement, a mushroom, what foods you eat. You know, it’s really up to us at this point to regulate ourselves because Big Pharma and the FDA are not going to do that. They have a certain prescription and dose based on your weight and height and sex and all that. not one size does not fit all. It just doesn’t happen now.
So back to dry eye, there was a study that came out about the eyelids that because they get inflamed, they’re not producing enough of the tears that cover the cornea. And there was a study that ophthalmologists did where they used castor oil on the eyelids. And wouldn’t you know it, the dry eye went away. Now this is some hidden, obscured,
study like over there in the corner as opposed to say well what about steroid drops, about rastasis, what about all these other things which are much more mainline and mainstream. So my manufacturer and I got together and we made an organic castor oil eye drop and we use it like an ointment so you put it on the outside of the eyes before bed and it’s very moisturizing and it works without having to use the drugs that create the side effects.
You know, it’s interesting about back to this this artificial eye drop that’s causes blurriness and redness and and so on. have so many patients that take the glaucoma medications and my goodness it blurs your vision out. It makes your eyes so red and burning people stop using them because it’s it’s so negative for their body. So, you know, again, we have to kind of be educated as why I’m doing what I’m doing.
because to offer other people an alternative like you. And there are a lot of people out there like that and it’s growing. And I think it’s us that’s gonna change the grassroots that will change the profession eventually. Okay, I think the last thing I’m gonna talk about is kids.
So who’s had kids, grandkids, knows kids, we all do, right? They’re all around. They’re multiplying. Well, ⁓ when I was at the Gazelle Institute, back to that institution, I learned that an eye exam was about getting on the floor with the child and exploring how they move through space. And one of my mentors, dear,
mentor is not alive anymore, Dr. Albert A. Sutton, another great developmental optometrist, he taught me how to treat the whole child through the eyes. And it’s actually quite genius in what he came up with. So I’m kind of taking his stuff and many of my other mentors, I wouldn’t be here without any of them and I bow to them every day.
But in working with kids, one needs to be very careful about prescribing glasses, doing surgery, you know, if there’s a crossed eye, or labeling them to the point where you’re dyslexic or you’re, you know, like me, learning disabled or you can’t read or whatever. And I do work with a lot of special needs kids. There’s a place that I work in Albuquerque called Kid Power, and this is a facility that’s full of
occupational therapists and these folks are with it. They are progressive. That’s why I work with them. And my job is to come in and reconnect the child’s eyes to their brain. Because when I do an evaluation with them, their eyes and their brain and their body are not connected. And it has nothing to do with reading the eye chart. In fact, that’s how they’re treated. They can’t read the eye chart.
or they can barely read the eye chart so they get these crazy thick glasses and they’re lost. And so the point of the story is that vision can be learned and developed and as kids there’s so much plasticity that you can do it. I’ll point you to a ⁓ podcast that I was just on. The woman’s name is Katie Wells and the
podcast is called wellness mom and very popular podcast and if you want to learn about my methods she did a great job interviewing me about how I explore children and help them and yes are all the kids that you see down in Albuquerque do they all wear glasses or some of them wear glasses but all of them have developmental problems you know so
What happens is if they go to the conventional doctor, the only thing that doctor can do is put drops in the eyes, where you’re going to paralyze the focusing muscles, and then they’re going to give the maximum prescription. Now, if you were to put that maximum prescription on, you’d throw up. And what’s interesting with those kids is they read as well with those glasses as without those glasses. It’s kind of obvious, right? To us, anyway.
So they may be wearing glasses, but I take them off and we’ll do something maybe 10 or 20 percent the power part time. Because once kids start wearing a full prescription, their visual development stops.
And if you really knew that, if you really thought about that, you wouldn’t do it. But again, we’re trained, we and the profession, that somebody comes in, they’ve got an optical distortion, we’re going to fix that optical distortion. And that’s it. And we know that there’s something else going on. So that’s the kid angle.
So I think right now I’d like to open it up to Q &A and see if there’s…
Any questions? Does the nerve for the eyes also affect hearing? Sure, sure. to one or the improvement of one as you improve the other as well as the entire brain I’m assuming? So there’s a part of the vestibular system which is our balance mechanism that’s very married, married to the eyes.
that we call the vestibular ocular reflex. And there’s no question because we’re talking about the brain here, the ears are here, the eyes are here, but in prenatal development, and when we see the fetus start growing, they’re all coming out of the same area. So the hearing affects the vision, the vision affects the hearing. And the vision and the hearing affect the movement. And then they affect the cognitive.
And they go back and forth. It’s a feedback loop. So the key is where do you enter to flip the switch? I talked about this at Kid Power. ⁓ I did a lecture down there. And one of the key points that I make when I work with those kids or any kid is where can I enter so it turns them on?
Because if I go in with a preconceived idea of, they get this testing, this testing, this testing, and I go into that, they’re going to shut down. I have to go in in a way that allows them to feel safe, and then something can happen.
Yeah, I wanted to talk about the nerve. had like some hearing damage and the little hairies died and my boyfriend does healing and he didn’t know the hairs died so he made them grow back and he had almost normal hearing whereas everything I couldn’t hear is real distorted like wah wah wah wah, you know when someone would talk wah wah wah, it would just be that kind of a wah wah. And is there something, I know it’s not quite the eye but it’s all connected, there?
Anything about the hearing and the eye and things coming back that shouldn’t? Where the eye and the ears like the hairs and the ears? I said a while ago if the cells are not dead then they can come back. Now it seems like vibrational healing works really well. You know I talked about this red light therapy. There also may be a type of sound frequency.
There’s something called the tamadas method. you ever heard of it? anybody heard of tamadas? So tamadas was a French physician and he was able to determine where certain frequencies were not getting into the eyes, to the ears, and he would give them those frequencies. I was at a conference and you can actually now speak into a software program and your voice will tell you what frequencies you’re not.
So the voice is also very connected to the ears as well. You people that speak in a monotone.
There was a study that was done that, monotone speaking, it can create more osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. So, you know, makes sense. Sound and the bones. Obviously, there’s other things like, you know, weight bearing and stuff like that, but sound healing can have a positive effect on your bones. You know, the astronauts, when they went up into space, they lost some of their bone density.
So gravity is another thing. So there’s a lot of different ways to go up the mountain. And if you’re not getting the answer like you weren’t, you find another avenue. And there you go. We’re able to heal it. Fantastic. That’s a very inspiring story. Well done. Any other questions? Yes, go ahead. ⁓
about fear and the connection between your emotional life and your eyes and if you had a lot of fear in childhood and then can you speak more to that I want to read more about so I would know a better question but I was very interested in the connection with your emotions and your eye health. Well our eyes are like a videotape library and as children we see our parents we see
authorities, we absorb and we internalize what we see. And we don’t always have the opportunity to then express. We just take it in. And there’s a saying that I use is, it’s not a problem with the eyes, it’s the programming behind the eyes that causes the eye problem. So what do I mean by the programming? Well, our mind, our brain, our posture, our
movement, our diet, our emotional health, our psychological health, it of depends on where you are. There’s an exercise, and it’s in the book, it’s called eye dialogue. And what it is, is you patch your left eye and you tune in like I’m now my right eye. And then you start asking your right eye some questions and you just use stream of consciousness. So how old is my right eye? And you might be surprised, it’s very old. Or it’s very young.
Or I have no idea. It would be great for you because now you’re doing an inner vision exam. What’s my inner vision in that right eye? Then the second question is, right eye, do know you’re married to the left eye? And a lot of people will say, I didn’t know they were.
Can you imagine? You went to a marital counselor and the husband and wife are sitting there. The therapist asks the husband, you know you’re married to your wife? He says, had no idea. So you’ve got that internal programming going on somewhere. You’re projecting that out there. And in Chinese medicine, the right eye is the masculine. It’s the father. The left eye is the feminine, the mother. The right eye.
80 % of the nerve fibers go to the left brain. What’s our left brain? Our analytical, our linear. Get it done. And our left eye is our feminine, right brain, intuitive, creative Gestalt. So you can check out the marriage. What is the right eye need? And then you just do the same on the left eye. And a lot of times the right eye and the left eye are very different. And so you start doing that dialogue. You can journal. You can do
movement with it. mean there’s a lot of things you can do with the eye patch. And so you start awakening the internal awareness of what are your eyes saying? What are they feeling? Am I talking to them? And most people are not connected to their eyes. And part of it is because of that eye exam you go to. It’s so fast. Flip, flip, flip. You got the lens. I’ll see you in a year. And your eye health is good.
And that’s it. There’s no exploration of the deeper functional relationship that you have. You know, I learned that from something called voice dialogue. You’re in a voice dialogue, very famous and the therapist. So I asked him, I said, can I talk to my eyes? I said, sure. Yeah, I mean, we never thought about that. So the eye dialogue would be a way for you to explore. Maybe today is fear. Maybe tomorrow it’s grief. Who knows?
But it’d be great for you to develop more awareness about what’s inside and become free of that and work on the marriage, heal the marriage. And the better married you are internally, the better functionally your two eyes are going to work together. So that’s the progression. First have the conversation and ⁓ then see where it takes you. And everybody is different. I I bet if we did eye dialogue and all of you.
We have as many people here as many answers. And it’d be really fun and interesting. And you would get a psychological insight that, hmm, this may be what my parents were. Maybe that was their relationship. And I just sat there taking it in. So thank you. That’s a good question. Yes. OK, so I’m.
was talking being farsighted and now I have… That’s a point. And now I have distant… Cataracts. You’ve had cataracts or yes? Yes. Cataract surgery. Yes. So, and I have progressive lenses for the computer so I can see the computer and then I can look down and read stuff. So, you said that that is not good for the eyes, but I don’t know, since I have the cataract surgery, is there anything I can do?
to improve any of my vision? Well, the first thing I would say is one size does not fit all. And so when I make that statement about progressive lenses, where that’s the gradient bifocal, where you’ve got the split lenses, if you wore that 12 to 14 hours a day, that’s where it’s going to really start affecting your eyes. But one of the things that I promote is use the optical system
that you need to perform at the highest level. And as long as you just use it in that circumstance, and then maybe outside of that time, you do some eye exercises, some eye calisthenics, almost anything you could do to stimulate your eyes out of that pattern, you’re fine. There’s no problem. And it sounds like that’s a good setup for you because you have the computer, you have the reading.
Sounds like the lenses they put in for distance, I mean, it’s probably about the best you’re gonna do. Unless you’re gonna like really dive into like 30 to 50 minutes of eye exercises every day, and I’m not sure you need to be that. So I think what you’re doing is working well. And as long as you’re not having headaches or red eyes or double vision or whatever, I know you said that there’s a little bit
you’ve lost a little bit of your clarity from the cataract surgery compared to when you first got it, the exercises will bring that.
So well done where you are. think that’s about as good as you’re gonna get it. Okay. For where you’re at. Yeah, I tend to forget to take them off when I’m walking around the house. Well, you want to remember that so that you’re not getting sucked into it all the time. Just when you need them. Thank you. Yes. Can you talk about Graves’ disease? Sure. So Graves’ disease is a thyroid condition and
It affects the eyes where the eyes can kind of bulge out called exophthalmos and there can be dryness associated with that. so, are you? post. You’re post, right. So what did you do to move out of it? ⁓ I had my thyroid. You had your thyroid proven. Okay. So at this point, any residual symptoms, dry eye or? A little bit. A little bit.
So I mean it could be as simple as you know take a little more Omega 3 fats and oils. It could be using eye drops a little bit more could be trying the castor oil eye drops. ⁓ You know make sure you’re you know not staring at your screen for hours and hours that you’re taking breaks. Get plenty of sunlight. ⁓ Check your adrenal health see what’s going on there. Sometimes ⁓ dry eye is related to
or hormonal health. Studies have shown low estrogen, high estrogen, both of those can create a dry eye scenario. So I think it’s, again, a holistic picture of how can I find a deeper balance. And within that, maybe I need a little support with some natural eye drops or something like that. But it sounds like you’re doing pretty well. Well, I guess what I’m curious about is
When I’ve had my eye exam, they’ve talked about like that the pushing outward is happening again. And so that’s peculiar to me. So I guess ultimately my question is, is it typical that if I’m taking the Synthroid or whatever, that the eye won’t move forward anymore? It can happen both ways. So one of the things I would look at is if you haven’t already, I would get a little craniocicletherapy.
and see if the relationship of the bones around the orbit of the eye could help you have more resiliency, flexibility, and muscular relaxation, craniosacral can really do that well with the eyes. And this is another thing that came up at that glaucoma meeting. And I bring it here just because of the craniosacral. And that is they said…
that if you can control the cerebral spinal fluid, if you can reduce it, you can bring the eye pressure down. Like the eyes will get better. Now, they stopped right there. What do you do for that? People ask. And I was in the back going, well, you could, you know, do… I was there. I was one of four hundred, so it wasn’t my meeting. But I think the cranial work can help and see where that takes you because…
There’s a lot of malleability in the orbits of the bony orbit and the jaw and the bones that breathe in the skull and the cerebral spinal fluid that could give you more, say, I don’t know, regulation with it. Wouldn’t that work chiropractor be in that too? Could be, sure. You know, again, it could be, it’s less about the modality I find and more about the practitioner’s energy and how intuitive they are.
Yeah, so it’s a good question though because graves is a big issue and the fact that you’ve kind of moved forward but now the exophthalmosis coming back a little bit I would try something in the more structural manual world that could really open things up for you. In the back. I was curious about living in Santa Fe for a long time and being so close to the sun.
with the UVs, are they beneficial or are they detrimental if you’re not wearing sunglasses or should you be wearing them or not be wearing them? So there was a book that was written a few years ago called Sunlight by a guy named Zane Kine, MD, and he talked about the benefits of ultraviolet light. Like it boosts the immune system. Again, it’s part of that resetting of the circadian rhythm.
And so we do need trace amounts of UV. We do need morning sunlight and and to be moderate about if you are feeling there’s too much brightness or glare. It’s okay for you to wear sunglasses. You should or wear a hat and especially in this altitude. If you’re feeling it protect yourself. So that’s
the sensible, rounded, moderate way. Yes. Can you speak about what kind of lenses are best to wear if you’re trying to protect yourself from UV? Sure. So all lenses now have UV protection. That’s part of the FDA. So they all have UV protection. If you’re going to do a sun lens, I like to do a lens that doesn’t create a discolored like, you know,
neutral brown or neutral gray seems to be the best type of sun lens to wear. And again, it depends on how much tint you want. you want a little bit? Do you want moderate? Do you want, do you need it really dark? And if you’re suffering some type of glare, you can also get a glare coating on it as well. But try to find something that when you put it on, your eyes feel pretty relaxed.
and it’s not creating some weird distorted color.
And I would encourage you to wear the sunglasses when you need them. And at the same time, sunrise, sunset, good time to go without them. And you don’t need to look directly at the sun. You put your back to the sun. You know, there’s this practice called sun gazing. people, you know, they stare at the sun. You know, when we used to go to Hawaii and we used to do that at sunset.
And a lot of times people couldn’t look at the sun. So if the sun was setting there, they’d be here. Or their eyes would be closed and they might be doing some swinging, which is a Bates method. Some people were so sensitive, they’d have to be this way, the sun there. So that indirect light can work very well and you don’t have to stare at the sun. In fact, I don’t recommend staring at the sun. So does that help to give you kind of a…
balance, protect yourself, and also get a little natural vitamin D. Yes sir. Tears are the antifreeze of the healthy heart. Tears are the antifreeze. Now I learn today that it’s also for your eyes as well. Yes, I’m going to make a t-shirt. I’m thinking about making a t-shirt. ⁓
Short words. maybe we need to talk. So, and I love me, I’ve come to me. There you go. I love me, I’ve come to me. It is hard at this particular time in history, so we need humor. We need humor, yes we need humor. than you know. How? You neek up on them of course. Thank you.
Yes? Just recently I’ve started ⁓ getting treatment for macular, wet macular in one eye, in the mother eye, which is very disturbing to hear tonight about that, what is. Yeah, I’m going, ⁓ God, really, again? And I’m just, I realize as a, a body worker and a naturopath and I’ve just sort of surrendered to standard medicine.
because they say, God, you’ve gotta do this and you’ve gotta do this now and you’ve gotta keep doing this and everything. I can’t believe that I have let that happen. So I think I probably need to come and see you and find out about alternatives if there are any and is there a way to work with these horrible injections or not or I just don’t know anything about it. So how long have you been getting them? Since August, I think. Okay, do you get them once a month? Yes.
And do they help? Do they give you more clarity? Well, we’re to find out in a couple of weeks about the second medicine that they’re using, the really expensive one. Yes. Because the first one apparently didn’t do much. Although immediately after the first shot, the wiggly lines became straight again, which was very exciting for me. Yes. But they said, oh no, you need to… So I just don’t know what’s happening anymore. Yeah, it’s difficult.
So definitely a couple things to check off your list. And you could do that before we even talk. And they may be completely irrelevant, but let’s just have the list. So number one, it would be if you’ve been exposed to mold. Oh, M-O-L-D. mold. Yes, yes. So if you’ve got a level of dampness,
in your body, a lot of times it will coalesce behind the macula. Wow. So they’re not going to tell you that. No, they’re But that is one correlation. Number two, I would probably consider maybe finding a really good acupuncturist and seeing what’s going on in your liver and your gallbladder. I would be willing to bet there’s a lot of stagnating energy.
And acupuncture could do the same thing as that injection just by putting needles in the meridians. That’d be amazing, huh? It’d be really cool. Yeah, without the side effects of that drug. Number three, and I want to be careful about this because this is not for everybody, people that ingest a lot of dairy tend to have more wet macular degeneration.
So you can take a look at that. Number four, wet macular degeneration is a precursor for possibly a pre-diabetic or diabetic condition.
So what’s happening is that again the sugar is doing a very similar thing that happens in diabetic retinopathy, which is the blood vessels become weakened and they’re starving. The macula is starving. And so it’s creating these new blood vessels that are fragile. And it’s that bleeding behind the macula that’s creating
this waviness. So, really taking a look at from a functional medicine point of view, what’s going on with the gut, what’s going on with your glucose levels, and if you do work with a functional medicine person, one of the blood markers I look at is something called homocysteine. So when our homocysteine levels are high, we’re into
the danger zone and inflammation and wet macular degeneration loves living in inflammation. the last thing that I would do before you come to see me is start doing some red therapy, red light stuff. That could be really helpful. And this is a commercial. I’ve made red glasses that you can put on that are fantastic and you can treat yourself with the red.
Last thing is make sure you’re getting 16 milligrams a day of lutein, 6 milligrams a day of zeaxanthin, those are the plant carotenoids. What is it? Zeaxanthin, X-A-N-T-H-I-N, and astaxanthin, astaxanthin, So about 6 milligrams of that. That’s good. And I’ll give one more, which is something that
I learned in my functional medicine training is that
In our liver health, our liver produces bile and the gallbladder stores it. And if we are not absorbing vitamin A, which is a fat soluble vitamin, and lutein and zeaxanthin, it’s because there’s a congestion in the gallbladder. So if we supplement with bile salts, and it also could be related to pancreatic enzymes, if we supplement with that, then we’re absorbing our eye vitamins better.
because they’re fat-soluble.
So it just so happens I have products now that are gallbladder and pancreatic enzymes. So if you think that your liver gallbladder are congested, then you can check that out as well. So there you’ve got seven or eight things. I would go for it and get off those injections as fast as you can. How wonderful. I mean, the way they talk, it’s like, okay, kid.
You’re doing this for the rest of you. The way they talk, right? Yeah. The way they talk. Right. Yes. Fear, fear, fear. Talk about fear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot of fear. OK. We’re coming down to the end. I’ll take a couple more questions. This is kind of to everyone also. I recently developed, it’s almost like a bubble on the white of my eye.
I suddenly noticed within a week there was another one on the inside. Okay. So it doesn’t affect my vision. Okay. The eye doctor recently, I just thought, oh, maybe they’ll give me drops. Like this is just some temporary thing. And she said, 90 % of the people we see in Santa Fe get these. they bothering you? And I said, not really. I don’t remember the word she used, but it’s a
It’s probably what they call a pinguecula. So it’s a collagen imbalance. I would get into my MSM jobs. They’re great for collagen balancing in the castor oil and hydrate, more hydration both on the eyes and maybe hydrating in your body and think collagen, like systemic collagen. So it could be bone broth. It could be, you know, collagen supplement.
So that part of the eye is all about collagen. to sing these go away because it was very interesting. She did not say that. Her immediate reaction was when people live in high winds, high altitude, strong sun. Well exacerbates it, yes. Yeah, and then she said it’s permanent. It’s related a lot to dryness, so you need a lot more hydration. Okay. And let’s see what happens. you have a website or anything? DrSamBurn.com. It’ll be on my book.
DrSanBurn.com. Yes, hello at DrSanBurn.com. So you can always email me. and I’ve signed a bunch of books, so they’re all at the front of the desk. So I think I’m gonna end here. ⁓
They’re in so much denial about they cannot allow anything.
doesn’t really matter, but it’s nice. Charlie? Are you Charlie? Thank you. Do you know who I am? Thank you. This was great, too. I’m somebody very close to you. I talk to you all the time. We just saved my friend Doug’s life. He sees Spring Again, but it’s gone on his website. OK, just order it on the website. Yeah, we have a Gallup living in San Antonio. We’ll show you how we get it to you. Because I desperately it. That’s what I want.
God, that’s me, right? I wish I had to come in. I was like, I’m gonna, you know, I gotta, I gotta let you know. And I get to walk here, so.
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Dr. Sam Berne has been in private practice in New Mexico for over 35 years and where he works with patients to improve their vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Pennsylvania State University, Doctor of Optometry from Pennsylvania College, and did his postdoctoral work at the Gesell Institute in collaboration with Yale University. He has been awarded The Special Awards for Service from the Behavioral Optometrists in Mexico for his innovative and holistic work with children.
His protocols take a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to health and wellness. He understands and treats the body as one integrated system rather than a collection of independent organs in order to identify and address the root causes of disease. His whole health protocols improve vision and wellness by healing the mind-body-spirit through nutritional protocols, vision therapy, and self-care techniques. This views each person as genetically and biochemically unique and enables the individual to make lifelong improvements to their well-being.
