← The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
585. When It's Not Your Thyroid: The Vision Problem Making You Tired, Foggy and Miserable
01:02:44
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A
That vision component is such a hidden piece that once you know what to look for, and we're gonna all know what to look for after this conversation, you're gonna realize, wow, these functional vision problems are absolutely everywhere. And you can take action to treat them starting today with specific vision exercises to chip away and get the brain to operate the way in which it's truly wired.
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B
Welcome to the Thyroid Fixer podcast, where.
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C
We dive deep into the world of.
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B
Thyroid and hormones, especially for you ladies navigating perimenopause and men.
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C
And really for anyone struggling with hypothyroidism, I'm your host, Dr. Amy, thyroid and hormone specialist and CEO of a global telemedicine practice where we prescribe the right thyroid treatment and bioidentical hormones to all 50 states and most of Canada, helping you become that badass human that you're meant to be.
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B
So if you're battling weight gain and hair loss, you can't lose weight. No matter what you do. Your energy levels are perfect plummeting, and.
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C
Your libido left town. Then you're in the right place and.
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B
You have found your tribe.
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C
Remember, I want you to embrace every inch of that badass woman that you truly are. So if you're ready to dive in and fix things, let's get started. I completely and totally hear you and I see you and I understand you, and I know exactly where you're at. You're gaining weight. You can't lose. You have all the symptoms that no one's listening to. The fatigue, the hair loss, the brain fog. You can't remember why you walked into a room. You don't want to get dressed and go out because you know if you.
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B
Have that glass of wine with your.
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C
Friend, if you have that dessert with your husband or even order an appetizer, you're going to be five pounds heavier the next day, and your clothes are already tight. Every single doctor is telling you that you're normal and everything is fine. You've been to multiple conventional medicine doctors trying to use your insurance, hoping to God that somebody has an answer. Then you've dropped thousands of dollars on functional medicine or integrative medicine because you keep hearing how functional medicine gets to the root cause of the problem. But not every functional medicine practitioner knows the thyroid and knows the hormones and can treat you as a nuanced, personalized individual, a unique person. That is exactly what my team and I do. We specialize in thyroid problems. We specialize in hormones. You can't do one without the other. You cannot just See someone for your thyroid and have them ignore your hormones or have them half ass your hormones. They better be a hormone and thyroid expert if you are going to spend your time, your energy and your money. If you are going to invest in functional medicine, they need to be a thyroid and hormone expert and treat you as an individual.
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B
They can't have a cap on how.
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Much T3 that they're going to give you. They have to personalize your treatment plan to get you feeling your best, no matter what that looks like.
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B
So that every system in your body.
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Functions at the very top, at the very best. And that is exactly what we do. I made it my mission because I went through this. I was dismissed, I was gaslit, I was misdiagnosed and I dropped thousands of dollars before I found an answer. That is why I made it my mission to be able to treat people in all 50 states so we can prescribe via telehealth. Thyroid and hormones and peptides. Yeah, the GLPs to all 50 states, most of Canada and now Puerto Rico. That is my mission to be able.
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B
To help you wherever you are.
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C
Because I want you living your best life.
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B
I want you to join me in.
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Optimization land where you can go out and love life and go out with your friends and go out with your partner and not gain weight looking sideways at a brownie. Yes, we do have financing options available. I'm talking like 0% or 12 months.
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B
The whole thing based on your credit score. We got you.
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C
And our programs are affordable. They're completely and totally affordable. And they will get you from point A to point B. They will bring you into optimization land. So please don't waste another moment struggling, please. I want you living here with me, a great happy life in optimization land. So go to my website@dramy.com, click the Become a patient button so we can have a chat. Let's talk it out. Let's hear what you've done, what you haven't done, what's worked, what hasn't worked. And let's get you on the right path to feeling your absolute best. If you can imagine the best life ever, that is absolutely possible for you. I'm not BSing you.
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B
I am not BSing you. I was in your shoes. Many of my patients have been in your shoes. We will get you there.
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C
And that is my promise to you. If you're like me and many other women over the age of 40, falling asleep and staying asleep can feel impossible. Oslo sleepbuds are designed to help you drift off faster, stay asleep longer Wake up feeling refreshed and block any other outside noise, like a snoring husband. These were engineered by former Bose engineers backed by neuroscience and recognized by Time as one of the best inventions of 2025. So super cool. They block out snoring, city noise, dog barking, other distractions, and their ultra soft little silicone tips are side sleeper approved so they won't jam into your ear. And there are built in sensors which switch your audio from streaming to calming soundscapes once you fall asleep. So if you want to listen to, let's say a podcast or a meditation before you drift off, it'll change over to this nice little calm white noise once you fall asleep. And the battery lasts all night, so don't worry about waking up mid charge. Turn your nights into a restorative ritual.
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Use the code ttfpod.
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So total thyroid fix pod ttf pod for 75 off at Oslo sleep.com forward slash ttfpod so that's O Z L O S L-E-E-P.com forward slash T T F P O D and enjoy a fantastic night's sleep.
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B
Your vision, eyesight. Something we have not Talked about in 570 some odd episodes on the Thyroid Fixer podcast.
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C
What a shame. I'm so sorry.
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B
I'm so sorry to all of you listening that we haven't talked about this very important subject that quite honestly, I am even still learning about, because my dear friend and colleague Dr. Bryce Applebaum.
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He is the go to man when.
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It comes to fixing your vision. We've had a multitude of different conversations.
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Over the years and I never put the two and two together until I.
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B
Was standing with Bryce complaining about how, you know, it's happened. I need readers now. And he goes, you know, you really don't. I mean, we can fix that. Like, come on, that's just something that happens when you get older. My eye doctors have been telling me forever that sometime in my 40s and definitely when I turn 50, I'm going to need readers. And then it started to happen in the last year or so.
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C
He goes, no, no, you really don't.
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B
Like, we can totally fix that and reverse that. So obviously I'm intrigued. And then the conversation continued. Ladies, did you know that maybe even.
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C
Some of your fatigue and brain fog.
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B
Can be related to your eyesight and.
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C
That that can be reversed as well?
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B
So we're diving in. I mean, eyesight might not seem exciting right now, but this is going to be a kick ass episode, I promise. Keep tuning in, keep listening, don't turn it off because you go, well, I wear contacts and I'm fine and my eyes are good and I'm fine. And my fatigue can't possibly be from my eyesight. No, no, no, you need to listen in.
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So, Dr. Bryce, thank you so much for coming onto the show after all of these years to actually shed light and help us to see, no pun intended, the importance of our vision as it relates to literally every other aspect of our body.
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A
Dr. Amy, thank you for having me. It is such a pleasure. And it is about freaking time after 500 some episodes that we talk about our most important sensory system, our vision. And I just want to. Everything you said is accurate, but I want to correct one massive piece, please. You talked about. Ladies, this is could all be related to your eyesight. It's really related to your vision, which is very different than your eyesight and the eye brain connection and how your brain is filtering, processing, organizing, storing all the input coming in through the eyes so that you know what to do with that information, make sense of it, and then direct the appropriate action.
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B
Well, then start there, because everybody says, eyesight, vision, eyesight, vision as interchangeable words.
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A
So break that down for us completely separate entities. So eyesight is our ability to focus light clearly. It's a symptom. That's what glasses are for. That's what contacts are for. That's when you go to the eye doctor, they put you in the dark room and they say, all right, read those tiny letters on that small chart far away. Eyesight is a symptom. Vision is entirely brain. And it's how our brain tells our eyes to converge and focus and process and take the information coming in through our eyes, know how to make sense of it, derive meaning, and then direct the appropriate action. And vision problems are brain problems, and there are solutions for these brain problems. So when your brain is on overdrive all day long because you are locked in with screens, you're juggling a million things. Absolutely. Hormones play a huge role. Autonomic function plays a huge role, and you are the absolute goat in that space. But so too, does vision have a very intimate relationship with how you're functioning and your performance over time.
- [10:48]
B
So they actually affect each other. Because I know with thyroid, people can start getting just issues with their eyes in general. So we can start seeing dry eyes. We can start seeing thyroid eye disease. We can start. And things that I'm sure you've heard through the years, studied through the years, seen in your practice, but now we're actually seeing that seeing I keep saying that, pun intended, Seeing that vision, if I'm understanding you correctly, that vision can literally, when it's off or not being addressed properly, can start producing the same symptoms, especially as it relates to, like, fatigue, migraines, brain fog, thinking, cloudiness, even our gait, the way that we walk, our muscle firing, that can be tied back to or overlap with thyroid symptoms. It can actually be vision. Do I have that right?
- [11:43]
A
You have that absolutely right. So most people talking to their eye doctors who are trained on a reactive model, intervention of disease, and structurally, the doctors will say, absolutely. Thyroid eye disease can impact watery eyes, sensitivity to light, red eyes, blurred vision, double vision, pain behind the eyes, in some severe cases, kind of bulging of the eyes outward. And that's all true. But what we're talking about here is the eye brain connection and really how we can understand our sense of self in space, how we can read and engage with screens for extended periods of time, how we can drive and not only know where things are, but anticipate where they will be. And that vision component is such a hidden piece that once you know what to look for, and we're going to all know what to look for after this conversation, you're going to realize, wow, these functional vision problems are absolutely everywhere. And you can take action to treat them, starting today with specific vision exercises to chip away and get the brain to operate the way in which it's truly wired.
- [12:47]
B
That's crazy. So we literally can fix our vision and not necessarily need contacts or glasses or at least readers.
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A
Any brain at any age has the opportunity to be optimized and enhanced in terms of vision. I would say the reader conversation is a very different one than just normal glasses and context. Let's hit both. But okay, let's start with the reader piece. So we're all told that in our 40s, you start holding things far away into your arms aren't long enough, and then all of a sudden, all right, go jump and grab reading glasses as quickly as you can get. That is the equivalent of saying, my knee hurts. I'm going to go jump into a wheelchair and stop using the system. Rather than figuring out what is the root cause in working your way back to functionality. So it is true that as we age, our focusing system becomes more rigid and less flexible. The inside muscles of the eyes, sort of the lens inside of our eye, becomes hardened. As we age, the fibers controlling it don't work the way they used to in terms of becoming a little bit more rigid and less flexible, a bit more lazy. But Any system, any muscle system can be enhanced and optimized if you use it and don't think about losing it. So anyone can develop the ability to lock in focus, to make something clear, keep it clear, to get the feedback of what that feels like, what that looks like, what they're doing with the system, to the point where you can, at a minimum, kick the can down the road, where you don't need readers. And in many cases for decades. I mean, I have patients in their 70s and 80s who are not wearing reading glasses, but they're doing work every single day. And just like we exercise the rest of our body, for some reason we can't exercise our visual system and that doesn't work. I mean, as silly as that sounds, that's what we're all taught, that's what we all believe. And it couldn't be farther from the truth, especially when you have the right protocols in place.
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B
Okay, this is, I mean, it really is mind blowing. Seriously. So what are the signs that someone might be dealing with a vision problem, but they don't even know it? It's not totally clear.
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A
The one of the most simplest ones is reading. You know, if you're using reading as a sleeping pill and it's fatiguing you and helping you fall asleep faster at night, if you're losing your place, if you're skipping words, skipping lines, not remembering what you're reading, your mind's wandering, that is a clear sign that the eyes are not working well together as a team. And very likely the inside and outside muscles of the eyes are in a little bit of a tug of war with each other. Somebody who's on screens all day long, I mean, the average American spends seven hours and four minutes a day on a screen. The average eight to ten year old spends six hours a day on a screen. That's average. So as humans, we're not meant to be staring at screens. We're meant to be scanning the horizon in natural light, preparing ourselves for danger and really having these careful eye movements. But with our eyes in a relaxed state. Now, when we are in this new screen time pandemic and we're all locked in with these 2D devices inches from our face, blasting high energy light at us for hours. The brightness, the glare, the contrast, the different eye movements needed, our brains were not designed to take on that much strain and process that much visual information. And so fatigue, headaches, eye strain, decreased productivity throughout the workday. Just being too tired to engage with your family or do one last thing with your eyes. By the end of the day, those are clear signs that something is going on with that eye brain connection. But this can then be tracked back to even, like, if you've resisted or avoided ball sports, if you get motion sick, if you're hesitant around stairs or escalators, if you feel like you're bumping into the wall or knocking over a glass of water, all of these are clear signs that there is a functional vision problem. Yet you had no idea about any of this until hearing this today, Right? That's a problem. Wow.
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B
What about migraines? Would you put that into the category, too? Because so many people talk up migraines to hormones or tightness in the neck.
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A
Well, I mean, I think in many cases, absolutely. But migraines should be a diagnosis of exclusion. We should be ruling out everything else. And then often, at least in the neurology world, they just slap that label on the symptom because they don't really know what else it is. But visual migraines, migraines that come on from too much screen time or too much reading or in cars, those aren't migraines. That's your brain freaking out, unable to process visual input fluidly. And with thousands of patients who go through the right treatment and then their migraines and air quotes go away, I would just argue they weren't migraines to begin with. They were cluster symptoms that just have that label.
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B
Okay, okay. This is fascinating. All right, so we talked a little bit about the readers. Now let's move over to the people with changing vision. You know, when I was young, I had my. I went to take my driver's test, and that's the first time that I looked into, you know, the thing they have to look into. And I failed because my vision was off and I didn't even know it.
- [17:41]
A
Yeah, your eyesight was off, not your vision. I'm just going to correct you and be annoying.
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B
Keep correcting me. Keep doing it. It's cool. Okay. My. My eyesight was off.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Okay. So I went to the eye doctor, got fitted for contacts and have been wearing them since I was 16 years old. And people just think this is normal. This is what happens, is what you do. So go over to the, you know, the nearsight and farsighted side of things.
- [18:09]
A
Yeah. So I'm not anti contacts. I also wear contacts, but contact lenses or glasses, prescription, that's changing every year. You go to the eye doctor, that is a glaring red flag that something is going on because you're adapting to the lens. You're in, you're needing something stronger to maintain that same clarity, and you're going down this vicious cycle. So think of distance blur as a symptom of a near problem. The near problem could be the focusing system, the inside muscles of the eyes not being able to have the stamina or flexibility that they're supposed to. Or an eye coordination problem, the outside muscles of the eyes not able to point the eyes the way they're supposed to. But as you know, in healthcare, if you're not acknowledging or addressing the root cause and you're just putting a band aid on the symptom, the symptom keeps exacerbating. That's for an adult. Your prescription should not change as you are an adult, unless there's a functional vision problem that's very often not even identified because we're not doing the right test to look for it. For children, you know, myopia, the medical term for nearsightedness, far away being blurry. That sounds like what you had as a kid and have now. Myopia is increasing at a really scary rate. So right now, about 30% of the world is nearsighted. It's estimated by 20, 50, 50% of the world will be nearsighted. And that's because of the screen time pandemic we're in, where we have research, we have literature to show the three biggest risk factors for myopia. Getting worse and developing not enough time outdoors, too much near work in the dark, and prolonged screen time. And yet most people think, well, yeah, you just. You get stronger glasses, you get stronger contacts, and that's all that's there. There's so much more to the puzzle than just putting a band aid on or relying on crutches where you do need to make things clear at times. But we should be shooting for 20 happy, not necessarily 2020, not necessarily HDI sight. Because for many people, when you're locked in with things being so clear, the system adapts to that. It loses that elasticity. Then all of a sudden, you need something stronger or different to maintain that same level of clarity. And then we just spiral downhill from there.
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B
You know, I never thought of the overlap between what we see in conventional medicine, let's say, in the thyroid and hormone world, with mistesting, misdiagnosis, mistreatment, band aid medication. I never thought about overlapping that onto the world of vision.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And this is. Oh, my gosh, this is crazy. Okay, so just like what we see in the conventional space with thyroid and hormones, what are the tests that your average eyesight doctor. Vision doctor. The place I go to get my contacts.
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A
Dr.
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C
Bright.
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A
Yep.
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B
What are they missing?
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A
So we are all trained on a reactive model, intervening when there's disease. And so it's making sure the eyes are healthy and making sure that you can see tiny letters. That's just getting across the start line. Right. Next, we have to look at what does the brain do with the information that the eyes are sending it. So we have to look at our tracking system, we have to look at our convergence. We have to look at our focusing system, our depth perception, all these functional skills that really allow us to thrive and perform at our highest level over time or alternatively interfere. And you talk about misdiagnoses. I know I'm biased, but there are so many misdiagnoses and missed opportunities when it comes to vision. I would say two of the biggest are ADHD and dyslexia. So ADHD is a diagnosis based off of symptoms and behaviors. It's not like you have a blood test that says, oh, look, you have ADHD. Right? 15 of the 18 symptoms associated with ADHD have a visual component that are treatable. And if you cannot control your eyes and their ability to focus, you cannot control your mind and its ability to focus.
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C
Wow.
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A
Wow.
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B
Okay.
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A
As simple as that is. Do you know how many people cannot self regulate, self monitor through vision? They get fatigued too quickly. They have to get up and look away. Especially with kids who in a classroom is. There's too much visual stress going on, so they're relying on their ears in the classroom rather than their eyes. And yet the teacher says they're not paying attention because they're not looking at what I'm telling them to. In almost every case, that is a sign of a functional vision problem. Same with dyslexia. No one's born with the ability to read. We're not born with the ability to track, converge, or even with the ability to see in 3D. It's all developed through our life experiences. The right sequencing of development, developmental milestones. It's either learned appropriately or learned poorly. And that leads to these vision imbalances. I've yet to find a person where we couldn't improve their reading ability. And we've had patients come in literally miserable in life, unable to read. Adults who've never read a book before, where we do the right testing, we realize, oh, my gosh, your tracking system is a mess, or your eyes are focusing in different planes. We use the eyes to rewire the brain. We put them through vision performance training, and they're then reading, and they're reading for pleasure. Because dyslexia wasn't dyslexia. It was a hidden functional vision problem causing the same symptoms or behaviors.
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B
Oh, my gosh. That is so crazy. Oh, my gosh. You're blowing my mind right now. Okay, so behavioral issues with adhd, dyslexia, obviously. So as you're talking about the tests in my mind, and I want to clarify this, because I know this is going through the listener's mind as well. They're going, well, no. Yeah, no, I get that convergence test because I look through the little thing, and there's the little house, and then it gets, you know, blurry and then clear again.
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C
And that's.
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B
That's probably what they're doing.
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C
Right.
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B
So I have all of the tests that Bryce is talking about.
- [23:44]
A
No chance. Okay, so our evaluation is two hours long. And unfortunately, in most eye doctors, you're in and out in 10 or 15 minutes. They're asking you what's better, one or two. It feels like it's the most challenging test you've ever taken. There's no right answers yet. The doctor doesn't tell you that. And it's kind of like, I don't know, they're different. They're not really better. The right prescription should be the weakest lens possible for each eye that's the most balanced between each eye that gives an improvement in performance. And yet most doctors just prescribe what's going to get you to see the tiniest letters far away, because that's what we're all taught we have to do in school. And this would be, like, for you, somebody, you want their thyroid levels to be at a certain place. But 100 milligram pill gets. Gets you there. So 2 does a 10. Yep. Well, I'm always going to prescribe the 10. But then also, how do we figure out how we don't even need the medication. Let's look at lifestyle supplementation, you know, autonomic nervous system function and figure out what's really causing those levels to be imbalanced. Such a parallel of vision.
- [24:45]
B
That's a great example.
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A
Yeah. And then from the testing standpoint, I mean, depth perception, how well the eyes are working together as a team and how well the brain's turning on to that information to be able to see in 3D. That's something that is so important for driving and ball sports and navigating through space and even interpersonal connection. So many people feel like when they're talking to somebody, do I look at their left eye, their right eye, their nose, am I looking at their mouth? But you're not looking at the whole picture. You're not looking at the whole face. That is faulty central and peripheral processing. You're so laser focused on one area rather than seeing the whole picture as a whole unit. That then manifests in so many other areas of life, like losing your keys, misplacing things around the house, being really detail oriented, or needing to study or do work in a corner with nothing else around because you. Otherwise you can be distracted by other things visually, or alternatively needing to be in a place where there's a lot around so that you have to focus centrally. I mean, our behavior is so often influenced by our vision and how we're making sense of the world through our eyes.
- [25:46]
B
Yeah, of that, that is. Yeah, I completely agree with you there and very, very powerful. So if you're spending two hours with people, I definitely have never spent two hours in any doctor's office anywhere. In any doctor's office anywhere, much less when it came to testing my vision. So the test that you're running with people, is there a chance that they can test this at home or find someone in their area because you're kind of sounding like a unicorn or do they have to come and see you in person?
- [26:18]
A
Well, you know, I'm a little strange. I'm for sure a unicorn here, but so are you a little bit too honestly. There are tests and there are doctors who you can go into a database. And the database is Covid.org, the College of Optometrists and Vision Development. That's the international organization that board certifies doctors in vision development and rehabilitation. You can type in your address. It'll give you a search radius to know who's within X amount of miles. And you can click on the person who's board certified. From a testing standpoint, there's a lot of consistency in terms of maybe different tests to get there, but you're going to come up with the same diagnoses. But when it comes to treatment and putting the pieces together, vision therapy, vision training, vision performance training, it's kind of like the wild, wild west. It's not like PT where you have a sprained mcl. You're getting a dozen sessions for grade one, two dozen for grade two. And depending on where you go, it's kind of the same work at any PT office around town. They're now OTs, PTs, speech therapists, doctors, trainers, coaches, vision improvement coaches doing what they're calling vision Exercises or vision training because the need is so high. But I would say the level of care in which the work that is done is drastically different when you're going to somebody who this is what they do for a living, but also has access to all the technology and all of the learning that needs to take place. Because there's not consistency yet on what this type of treatment looks like, and it needs to be so. We see people literally every week from around the world who fly in for boot camps because they recognize there's a problem. They're like, well, if we can knock this out in a shorter period of time with higher return on the effort, why would we not do that? But there needs to be more people doing this all over the world so that they don't have to come to us.
- [28:00]
B
Right, right, exactly. And we're totally going to dive more into that because I know you've developed an entire program that I am currently doing right now that people can do in the comfort of their own home to make significant strides. So we will definitely circle back to that. And if people do want to fly in and do your boot camp. Yeah, all day long.
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C
All day long.
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B
But if someone does suspect that they have this functional vision problem like you're talking about, what is the very first step that they should take?
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A
So, first step, I think is looking at all the symptoms. If it looks like it, smells like it, tastes like it, we kind of know what it is. And then the testing just lets us lift up the hood to know exactly the areas of opportunity for improvement, what systems are impacted. But first step is get tested. Get tested by somebody board certified, Figure out what's going on and then figure out the best way to move the needle to get you to a better place. But somebody who struggles with reading, somebody who schedules all their meetings earlier in the day because by the afternoon they're gassed and there's brain fog. And you know, if you think about even just what we're doing right now, staring at a screen, Screens are toxicity for our nervous system, but for our visual system. And when we're on screens, our thinking, our behavior and our vision become tunneled in and our focusing system becomes locked up. So we then have a focusing system that's locked up. You're not able to think outside the box. You're not able to make critical decisions to see big picture as well as details because your brain is functioning at a different level. So the person who is, you know, dreading the back to back zoom calls or relying on audiobooks rather than Reading with their eyes or preferring to be in person. Because virtual world, virtual work is like, oh my God, I can't look at another light or another spreadsheet. That's a sign that a lot can be done. And maybe even, even if there's not necessarily problems, we can still optimize and enhance visual function for any brain at any age. And we work with professional sports teams and athletes who don't have problems, but want to improve percentage points in certain areas to allow for more consistent and improved play to allow them to achieve at a higher level.
- [30:16]
B
Yeah, and even some of these examples that you're giving, I would have never put the pieces together. Relating back to vision. Like you said, you know, someone that, that schedules their meetings, you know, all in the beginning of the day, not the end of the day. Like, oh no, I don't want to be looking at a screen at the end of the day. Like I think in the listener's minds, like, oh, that's just me. That's just normal. That's just, it just is what it is. So give me a story because I know you have one of someone who literally thought, like, you know, I'm fine, my vision's fine, it's not a big deal, but there was so much deeper going on that they actually took the steps to see you. Yeah.
- [30:53]
A
So let's talk about concussion real fast and then I'll share the story. Because concussion, traumatic brain injury, there are more areas of our brain dedicated to processing vision than all of the other senses combined. More than half of our brain's real estate is dedicated to vision and processing vision. So many people are struggling with present day symptoms or challenges that are tied to a prior head injury. And maybe it's they hit their head on the countertop in the kitchen or at a playground accident when they're younger, but they never got their eye brain connection checked. NIH, which is a mile from my office in Bethesda, Maryland says 28% of Americans have had at least one concussion in their lifetime. But what happens after concussion is that the symptoms sometimes improve, but the problems do not. We just learned how to bypass them and adapt and avoid them. So the reason I say that is yesterday I saw a 16 year old who has been complaining to his parents that he's had brain fog for the last year. And first of all, what 16 year old is that self aware and can articulate that? But they have been all around town, neurologists, primary care physicians, they've had MRIs done, they've had all this scanning no one can figure out anything that's going on. I don't think they had their thyroid. His thyroid checked, so they absolutely should have. But in talking with. With him and realizing this doesn't seem normal, and then, you know, doing the testing and realizing, well, he can't converge. His eyes. His eyes are actually under focusing and he's. He's perceiving up close to be farther back than where it is. I started talking about what he does for fun. He's like, oh, I play football and play all these other sports. I asked about head injuries. They said no. And then about 20 minutes in, he said, you know, I did have this, like, really big hit in practice, and they sat me out for the day, and I ended up taking the rest of the week off and a little bit of a headache, but then it was fine after. And then I got back to it. So when was that? And he does, you know, they start talking, say, oh, that was actually a year ago. Like, oh, so didn't you say you've had brain fog for about a year? Well, yeah. Okay, tell me more about that. Did you notice, like, walking through the hallways in school, there was this sensory overload, and you're like, I can't take in all this information without feeling like I need to just hide in a tree. He's like, absolutely. I still feel that way. I thought that was just, I'm a little bit insecure. And then we kept unpacking and he said, well, yeah, I don't like to read anymore. And I now get everything printed out at school so I don't have to read on screens because screens cause this strain and light sensitivity that I can't handle, and I get dizzy and nauseous when I'm on screens. It's like, dude, you had a head injury. Just no one diagnosed it. And you have digital vision disorder and post concussion vision syndrome, yet no one even knows to make those diagnoses. So this is a kid who they now have him taking a bunch of supplements, but he's still struggling. This is literally a slam dunk in terms of treatment. Like, it's going to take some time to use the eyes to rewire the brain and set him up with new. A new visual environment that he learns from and develops the new pathways in firing and wiring to support that. But he has a perfect prognosis. He just had no idea. And I mean, it was as simple as kind of connecting the dots and asking the right questions. But so many people just think with head injuries, like, either I got my Bell rung. I'm fine. I have to get back in there. Or the opposite, go sit in a dark room and then you'll heal. Neither one of those is right. Wow.
- [34:08]
B
And what are the long term effects of kind of ignoring that or just chalking it up to oh, yeah, you know, it was just a concussion because my, my husband talks about that all the time. I mean, he used to play football back in the day before they had good helmets and yeah, got his bell rung all the time. We have friends that were in the military. I mean, TBI is rampant. So what should these people be looking for as, as kind of the repercussions of ignoring the concussion of the tbi?
- [34:38]
A
Yeah. Well, so in this kid's case, he was actually doing something called suppression of binocular vision. So what that meant was there was this kind of competition or rivalry over which I to use. And with very specific testing, we could tell that from 2ft to 6ft, he was ignoring his right eye. In the distance he was ignoring his left eye. And at near, he was alternating which eye he was ignoring. You can't teach a brain to ignore an eye if you try. It's not how a brain is wired, but it's this kind of defense mechanism that he's put into place because it's been too hard to use both eyes together. His brain has said eyeballs. I can't listen to you both. I'm gonna just pick one and shut the other down. That's impacted his depth perception. He's 16. At 16, the most important thing in life is getting your driver's license, having independence, showing off to whoever you were trying to show off to. Yeah, he hasn't gotten his license because he doesn't feel safe in a car. And turns out he has very, very reduced depth perception or 3D awareness, because if you're ignoring an eye, you can't have depth perception. And for him it's really unstable. Had someone even just measured his depth perception, they would have said, well, this doesn't seem right. What's going on here? Let's figure out why. So I think that's one big piece where, you know, he's avoiding tasks in life that should be something that's simple and easy. But had he gotten his license, I mean, imagine if something terrible happened on the road because he was so tunneled in, he was so central with his visual processing and his peripheral vision, his side vision was collapsed. That means you're not going to see a car coming in from the side or you're Going to seize a car, stopping or in a different, or something in your, in your path and then not be able to respond and react appropriately because literally your first contact to your world vision is not functioning like it's supposed to. And when there's a head injury, there's always neuro inflammation. And what that means is functionally our autonomic nervous system, our, you know, our system that regulates all the important systems, it, when it gets stuck in fight or flight from a vision perspective, our pupils widen, we get locked in with this tunnel vision. And so when that happens, he's actually becoming so central, like he's looking through paper towel holders and he's just lost in space. For an adult who has that scenario, like falls happen often as we age because we don't see the change in elevation from the tree root on the sidewalk, or we don't see the elevation on the curb, or we misjudge a step because we're not trusting what we see. There's always a reason why and there's always treatment that can be done to eliminate those mismatches. Just no one knows to look for these areas of opportunity for improvement.
- [37:13]
B
Well, and even when you're talking about how his brain was protecting him and it was, you know, decreasing the vision from here to here, that's not something that you can tell yourself to do. You can't say, hey brain, now cut that out. Let's focus the right way. This is, is exactly where your screen fit. Training and literally rewiring your brain has to occur because it's not something that we can choose to do.
- [37:41]
A
And this kid, this young man, excuse me, he had perfect eyesight. He had already had an eye exam and the doctor said, no, your eyes are fine. And he saw the 2020 line. And what I shared with him initially, because I could see how resistant he was, I said, dude, your eyes are fine. This is not your eyes. This is how your brain is receiving the input from your eyes, organizing it and knowing what to do with it. So anyone listening? The take home is there's so much more to vision than just 2020 eyesight. And by recognizing that digital processing could be a piece to the puzzle, so much can be unlocked and so much potential can be achieved if we know what to look for the right work to do. So I think really your question 10 minutes ago is looking at areas of struggle and looking where things are harder than they're supposed to be and trusting your intuition to know that there has to be a reason why. We just have to figure out how to find it. And we need our inner vision for ourselves to match the outer vision for our world. Because when those are linked, then there's a wide open playing field for so many aspects of life.
- [38:44]
B
You're so right. I mean, even as you're telling that story, I'm thinking about a friend of mine who we're going to connect with and actually have him come out to see you and work directly with you. For years he had a, a gate issue and his doctor said it was most likely from the flu shot, that it produced an NS like response in his body. And they kept blaming it on, well, it's like brain and spinal cord. Brain, spinal cord. But he would always describe what he was seeing with his eyes as he actually wanted to build out a pair of glasses so that I could experience it because he, he couldn't get the doctors to understand that deep down he did not believe it was an Ms. Thing or a brain and spinal cord thing. He always believed it was a vision thing. And he said with one eye he can see like this far and the other eye he could see this far. I'm not doing it justice, but I know you're understanding what I'm saying. And it sounds to me like this is a vision problem that is affecting his gait, his motor function, the way that his brain actually connects to his feet and moves.
- [39:58]
C
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- [41:23]
A
He's given the answers to the test. I mean, vision is intended to guide movement, right? And when your visual midline is in a different place than your body midline, there's disequilibrium, everything's thrown off. I bet he gets motion sick often and has a hard time understanding what's moving and what's not. And his visual and vestibular systems are in a tug of war with each other. And you bring up a really important point. We have dozens of patients in treatment right now who have symptoms or struggles consistent with a head injury, but have not had a head injury that they can recall. But all of these symptoms came about after either a vaccine, a booster, or getting some sort of virus. I'm not going to say the four letters where, if there's already systemic inflammation and now neuroinflammation comes in, we're not able to use our eyes the way in which our brain is wired. Our eyes, brain and body are speaking different languages. And then we go down this path of not functioning the way we're supposed to. And so if there's an event that caused a change, I mean, that is a brain injury. And, you know, especially if he's diagnosed with ms, like there's, there's testing that would suggest that that is likely or unlikely. But if he's focusing his eyes at different planes, it's like a seesaw in terms of which eye his brain is using. That's going to cause a fight or flight response that makes the simplest of tasks really challenging.
- [42:51]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, I want to go back to this ADHD because I'm, I'm so intrigued. And my friends and I always joke around that we do have ADHD because, you know, it's like squirrel. I think that's just part of being an entrepreneur in type A. And our brains are firing in different planes all the time. But what about the kiddos that are actually diagnosed? You, you mentioned earlier about in school, and they're, you know, they're losing focus because they're not looking at the teacher, so they automatically think it's a behavioral problem or it's a learning issue when it really could be tied back to vision. Give me a case on that where literally vision therapy impacted someone that was previously diagnosed with adhd, but it wasn't adhd. They didn't need Ritalin. They needed to fix their vision.
- [43:42]
A
Yeah. One in four children has a functional vision problem significant enough to impact learning. So we have a young man that. I saw him at 11. He was on his third stimulant. And when it wasn't improving his behavior in the classroom, their solution was, well, just. He must need more or must need a different medication. This kid hasn't gained weight in about a year and a half because he's on so much that's ramping his body up and preventing that.
- [44:12]
B
Yeah.
- [44:12]
A
And this was a kid where I said, did our testing. And one of the simplest tests that everybody listening can start, can do tonight with loved ones. Look at a pen or pencil, and it should. It should seem like there's one pen, bring it down midline, and we should be able to converge our eyes effortlessly to our nose, where we see one all the way in for him. I brought the pen close, and around 14 inches, his eyes are converging, converging. And then his brain says, hold on, eyeballs. I don't know where to aim you. One eye drifted out, the other looked at it. He says, oh, I see two. And then they start altering which one point pointed there. That's something called a convergence insufficiency. So it usually doesn't have anything to do with the strength or the length of the eye muscles. It has to do with a spatial mismatch, visually thinking that pen is farther back than where it is. So he's making. He's attending the space behind it. We went through treatment. Not only did his double vision completely go away, And I said to him, right after I did, I said, buddy, do you sometimes see two of things when you feel like there should only be one? And he, like, jaw dropped. He's not in his head. The mom is in the corner saying, you never told me this. And he's like, no one ever asked me this. He didn't. I mean, no kid, those things should be any different than that. We went through treatment, double vision went away. He went off all of his medication. And this is not a story that just happens once in a while. Like, we see this every day. Convergence insufficiency that we just identified or talked about with him is three times more likely in children diagnosed with ADD or adhd. Two times the risk of an eye turn, a strabismus is with people with adhd, Two times the odds of having farsightedness or astigmatism, meaning if you can't focus your eyes, you can't focus your Mind. And any change in eye movement is a change in attention, voluntary and voluntary. So again, if your eyes are darting all over the place and you're not able to control them fluidly and smoothly, your brain's gonna be working on overdrive and having a really hard time keeping the eyes focused and then the mind focused.
- [46:08]
B
Now, is there any tie to autism as well? I'm totally just tossing this question in and I don't know what the answer is going to be for me, but. But I'm just thinking about my stepson who, and I know, like the, the eye connection with autism. Actually, I can't speak to this. I don't know what they actually blame it on except the whole sensory thing. But now hearing you talk about add, adhd, I'm wondering, could we improve autistic behavior and possibly focus if we treated these kiddos vision? Because I'm just thinking of my stepson who, you know, just trails off and just like, you know, does this and kind of looks up in the air. He doesn't want to bring his eyes in and focus on you.
- [46:54]
A
Yeah. I mean, many people diagnosed with autism have difficulty processing and responding to information from all their senses, but especially their dominant sensory system of vision. And so often in this population, there's difficulty with social interaction and with communication because they don't know where to look and they can't control eye movements. And sometimes the signs of a vision problem can be masked by the behaviors that are used to try and make sense of the world around them. And so as a generalization, I think a lot of times people with autism have difficulty connecting their eyes to their bodies and poor eye contact. There's always a reason for it. And I saw an 8 year old this morning actually who was at his first progress evaluation from treatment. This kid looked at me for maybe 30 seconds combined in the first two hour evaluation three months ago. And today it was like, oh my God, Dr. B. Like, you have gray hair. I'm like, first of all, I don't have that much gray hair. What are you talking about? But it was like he saw me for the first time. The mom said, he's now reading. He's now writing in straight lines without the sizing and spacing of letters all over the place. He's able to pay attention in the classroom. And she said the biggest complaint from school now is he's overly attentive. He's reading everything off of the walls now, reading street signs when in the car going a fast food restaurant, which he should not be going to but like, reading the menu. Because before, his world was so closed in. And the work we do with all of our patients for treatment is so freaking cool. We rely on augmented reality, virtual reality, eye tracking software. Really cool tech, really low tech stuff as well. But we have the ability to utilize something called prism lenses, which basically reposition where something's located in space. And the first time we, we put these glasses on him, we. We had prism that moved everything from the world down, upward. And so especially for somebody who's a toe walker, which he was. Yep, we put these glasses on and all of a sudden his gait was perfect and his heels were hitting first. And literally putting these on for about a minute, it felt like an hour. He was just looking around the room and was like, oh, man. Like, what? What is this? A room that he had been in a bunch of times, but now, literally, his world's opening up.
- [49:17]
B
Oh, my God, Bryce. First of all, I have total chills. Second, you just exploded my brain a moment. Yeah. Bod is a total toe walker. And I always thought, like, I'm like, oh, his gait just isn't right. That's the developmental delay of the. Of the autism. But maybe not maybe.
- [49:39]
A
Very likely fixed. It's very likely his world is distorted visually, and so he's adjusting his body to compensate for what he's not able to do visually. Often somebody like Bodhi is also relying on touching everything because tactilely, that gives him feedback, because as corny as this sounds, he's not able to touch the world visually yet. When you can touch the world visually, it's like, I don't have the need to rely on other senses to give me feedback because I feel safe.
- [50:07]
B
Damn. Okay, if yalls mind aren't blown by now. My goodness. Holy cow. Okay, this is crazy. All right, now let's move to the other end of the age spectrum. To us paramenopausal menopausal ladies.
- [50:21]
A
Yes. You'll be there in a couple decades. I know, right?
- [50:25]
B
Yeah, I still got time because I'm only 29, but. Okay, so you said that our vision doesn't have to get worse with age, that maybe we can avoid readers or at least push it into the. The 70s, 80s, whatever. I mean, people are not used to hearing. Used to hearing. What I heard is like, get prepared. Any day now you're going to need those readers. So what can we do? What are the habit lifestyle factors that can actually help us preserve or improve our vision over time?
- [50:52]
A
So just to be clear for sure, our visual Function changes as we age. And if you don't do anything, you're going to notice up close gets harder. So this requires active work to counter it. But the whole mindset of cognitive capacity drops as we age and vision declines as we age. Although both of those happen, that's not normal, that's just common. Right? So what we can all do, number one, when you get to the point where you first start to notice up close gets blurry. That is like the most important time in life for vision to not take the bait and to really focus on, all right, what's going on here? How do I support this? So a simple thing we can all do. I call them eye push ups. Cover up an eye, take your thumb, bring it started all the way straight ahead, and then slowly bring it towards you down midline until it gets a little blurry and then stop. Try and make it clear so you're going to look really hard. You can think about locking in your focusing system. Visualize your pupil getting small because the focusing muscles behind the pupil hold it for five seconds. And then you can look across the room for five seconds and relax your focus. Throw it out, look soft, kind of diverge your eyes and back at your thumb for five seconds, back in a distance for five. So it's kind of a gross stimulation, relaxation, stimulation, relaxation. When do it, the same amount of time, right eye as left eye. Most people realize that the thumb with one of their eyes can be held a little closer than the other, meaning you're able to focus one of your eyes closer in space than the other. Which then would mean with both eyes open, you're likely using one a little bit more dependently than the other. If you do this every day, you literally will not need stronger reading glasses, and in many cases not even need them at all. There's obviously way more intense and complicated treatment or vision exercises we can do. But if you, let's say you could get that thumb a millimeter closer in a week, okay, Weeks add up, millimeters add to centimeters, centimeters add to inches. And then all of a sudden you're holding stuff so much closer than you were because you're actively countering what was changing. My wife, when she turned 42, literally like the next day was like, Bryce, I can't read the back of the medicine bottle. Do something here, do something. And fortunately, she knew the functional eye guy. So I said we had the secret recipe, you know, had it put her through a program. She's now she has the focusing system of somebody half her age now. And Just like she exercises the rest of her body, she does her vision exercises every day, but to the point where things are solid again. I can confidently say I will never wear reading glasses, but I also know what to do. So if somebody listening is like, listen, I don't want to do this work. It's so much easier to put readers on. Do you put the readers on? But to not be dependent on being close with a loved one and having to put readers on to make sure it's the right person, or to be able to read your phone and pick out a text without having to like be so dependent. I mean, we can absolutely do more with less. And if you are wearing readers, get the lowest number you can and wear them as little as possible because you do become dependent on them and that then becomes your new normal. They need something stronger to maintain that same clarity when we go down the cycle.
- [54:10]
B
Well, on that point, what is happening? So I did notice when I got my readers, you know, I'll put them on, then it's like, oh, this is so clear, it's amazing. And then I put it down, I take them off and I go, oh my gosh, my eyes are now effed up like, Yep. They don't want to refocus to where they were before I put the readers on.
- [54:30]
A
So something called a combinative tone. Basically you put the glasses on that muscle that was trying to work like an old school camera lens, that instead of being on autofocus, it's on manual focus. You put the lenses on and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, I can see stuff. But then the muscle becomes like it's stuck in mud. You take them off. And then what you could do before, there's more effort required and you're more. You're stuck more in that manual focus state. So that's why even like the eye pushups we talked about, that's building flexibility, going from near to far. But hold it at clear more than 5 seconds, hold it for 10 seconds. Stamina allows for screen engagement, reading up close over time. But flexibility allows for more of the activities of daily living and then also not to let far away get blurry because of the near problem. So that's the equivalent of saying like. This is like saying doing push ups. You're gonna get in better shape. Well, you're gonna get stronger pecs and that's good to do. But in this case, the focusing system is the most important system responsible for age related changes. So hitting that system hard is important. And then if you Want to be more proactive. There's much more complicated stuff we can do as well.
- [55:42]
B
Okay, so, yeah, let's talk about the complicated because you, you got me started on screen fit training.
- [55:47]
A
Yes.
- [55:48]
B
So I'm just getting going. I'm super excited about the results. So talk to me about what? Why did you build this out? Thank you for building it out so that I don't necessarily have to come see you as much as I do like you. It's travel. So tell people what, what am I doing here with the Screen fit training and what, what's the benefits that I can expect?
- [56:05]
A
Absolutely. So Screen fit is kind of like doing body weight work at home instead of going to the gym. If you want to get in ridiculous shape, you're going to get in better shape faster. Going to the gym, working with a trainer, one on one on a customized program with all the strength, cardio, flexibility, all the type of equipment, but not everybody has access to that. So Screen Fit is designed to be a do it yourself program from home. There's 30 lessons in each course. Each lesson is 10 to 15 minutes to do. And it's really to establish the right visual skills and abilities for reading, for screens, for driving at night. And it is very carefully programmed sequence learning where it's one new lesson a day. You go over the previous lesson. You don't need any equipment. There's a video of myself with a patient going through what to do. You then put the phone or tablet down. It's not more screen time to treat screen time. And then you do the exercise. And the intention of this is ideally 10 to 15 minutes a day. But these are exercises you can do at a stoplight in the bathroom in between zoom calls, where vision is top of mind. And it's stuff that you're working on. We've had thousands of people go through it with 100% of people who finished the program seeing a reduction in symptoms, which I want to knock on wood every time I say that. As young as 5, as old as 89, going through it successfully. And I created this because I realized, especially at the beginning of COVID like screens aren't going anywhere and most people do not have the visual foundation and the brain capacity to handle this. We got to get ahead of this. And so I created this because, well, not everybody has access to flying to Maryland and doing our intensive program. And it's been an absolute monster. I mean, the amount of people who've shared clinically that the errors they were chat they were struggling in are no longer issues. Anymore, it continues to blow my mind. I will say for the avoidance of reading glasses or a reboot to get rid of them, we've really only found close to 100% accuracy with that. When people come into the office and do our intensive program where it's 12 hours of work and five days and it's a lot. But if you reboot the brain, it's a lot easier to keep what you have and maintain it than it is to build from scratch. If you're wearing a Plus 5 reader, you can just screen fit. You're getting more efficient visual skills for reading. You're going to probably notice less motion sensitivity, if any. If you have it, you're going to notice more productivity. You're probably not going to get out of your Plus5 readers, but you could probably get them lower. And what's great about this program is it just gets you across the start line. It's a way to get going today to start on the vision improvement journey. And for many people, that's all they need.
- [58:45]
B
Yeah.
- [58:46]
A
So headaches, eye strain, all of that, right?
- [58:48]
B
Oh, yeah. Headaches and eye strain are huge. And just to stop your, your vision from getting worse and worse and worse because like, like you said, and I love how you said it, the goal is to use the lowest prescription possible. It's okay if you still have to wear glasses or contacts.
- [59:04]
A
Sure.
- [59:04]
B
But let's get it as low as possible for sure.
- [59:07]
A
And to know what work to do. I mean, it's. Especially on the Internet. It's like the wild, wild west when it comes to vision and what to do. And there's a lot of people talking about sunning and palming. And if you do these simple things like, you'll never need glasses again. I would say it's typically a lot more complicated than that, but by all means, try those. That's not going to hurt you. But these are very specific, programmed exercises. And ideally it's. You do it five days a week, so it's 30 lessons, that's six weeks. But you could do these three days a week. You can do it one day a week. Your whole family can do it. You only have to buy it once. And we've made it. So it's a really, really low price point. Because the goal of this is to get it in as many hands as possible. And because you're a rock star, we want to hook up your audience. And so Normally it's, it's 4.97. To enroll in screen fit, we're going to drop $200 off if you use code. Dr. Amy. And then it's 297. So that's like a for percent discount. There's really no reason not to get going with it. And you can even like we have an entire team behind it that answers questions. We've got a community where there's currently a community challenge going on where we have hundreds of people like cheerleading each other. It's awesome. But yeah, it's just use D R A M. I. E. Dr. Amy. You know, we get 200 off.
- [60:24]
B
Absolutely. And we're going to put all that in the show notes for sure. But I mean, this is just, it's a no brainer because like you said, the whole family can use it. Do they have lifetime access so they can keep going back and doing the training?
- [60:37]
A
So yes and no. I would say yes in that when you sign up, you're good to go. But we are in the process of turning it into an app and when it goes into the app, we're going to do our best to make sure everyone who was already enrolled still still has access to it. We also have a customized virtual reality vision training program for all of our current patients in office. And so we're going to be merging these and then making a lot easier. But if you're enrolling and you're in our tribe, we're not going to make you buy it again if the setup is different. So just if there are issues, just reach out and you're good to go.
- [61:12]
B
Well, and you'll probably increase the price at that point in time. So get in now with the $200 off and you'll be locked in. I love it. I love it. And we're going to put all that in the share notes. So wait, Bryce, a couple more questions before I let you go, because I know a lot of people are going to be thinking about these and thinking that if I just look like Dave Asprey, I'm going to save my eyes.
- [61:33]
A
Yes.
- [61:34]
B
And that's all I really need to do. So talk to me about the blue light blocking glasses when we're using the screen. I got the yellow on right now. And then of course we go to orange and red at night and all that. Are these helping me or are they kind of a waste of time? Because I don't see you have them on right now.
- [61:50]
A
I love that you're bringing this up. So blue light has gotten all of the attention these days. I kind of joke and say blue light and gluten are like dating and dancing together at the Prom blue light is, is not bad for us. Blue light's actually essential for us. Natural blue light from the sun to help set your circadian rhythm. So getting out first thing in the morning, in the evening, that helps your body know where you are, time of day, and helps secrete melatonin in the right fashion. But artificial blue light from screens, that's blasting your eyes and brain all day long, that's what's causing, that's the problem. And we have these cells in our retina, photoreceptors whose sole job is to signal sleep or being awake. And then they send melatonin, the signal to, to spread out over the brain. When these are overly stimulated all day long, an absolute disaster emerges. And so brain blue light in the evening before bed. Absolutely. Those glasses are wonderful to help calm your brain, regulate your nervous system through vision. Other stuff does that too. It's with brain training, but ideally you want to be off screens for two to three hours before bed. But if you're not, put those on. And that's going to help you a ton. But I think the huge missing piece here is that blue light typically does not cause headaches, Eye strain, loss of place with reading fatigue, light sensitivity, all of that. What causes that is near point stress. And the screens presenting this different visual demand that we don't have that foundation in place to support. So there's many people who are like, I wear these blue light glasses religiously and I'm still struggling. There's others, though, who get terrible sensory overload from junk lighting. And in those cases where the fluorescent lights are really bothersome, or LED lights, then blue light absolutely can regulate how our eyes, which are light receivers, what they absorb and what they then send to the brain. So I would say that's a long winded way to say definitely, those are great. In the evening, during the daytime, though, I think way more important than that, you want glasses that allow performance to be improved over time. And in some cases, that's a very, very small amount of prescription or a small amount of prism, what we call digital performance lenses, which also have a blue light filter in there. But there's so much more to the visual stress than just the blue light. Okay, that makes sense.
- [64:13]
B
Yeah, totally. No, that, that clarifies a lot because sometimes I have, I have, I have blue light blocking guilt from not being on camera with these, but I don't love them.
- [64:23]
A
So do you feel different when you wear them?
- [64:25]
B
No, not really.
- [64:27]
A
And in a lot of cases, there's placebo, and placebo is Not a bad thing. But I would say like during the daytime and if you don't feel like you're in fight or flight or you don't feel like you're really irritated from lights, those are just protecting how the light that your brain is receiving.
- [64:44]
B
Yeah.
- [64:45]
A
Way more important for you.
- [64:46]
B
Biohacker.
- [64:47]
A
Yeah, and nothing wrong with that either.
- [64:50]
B
Exactly. All right, well, before I let you go, let's leave the audience with something. So what is the one big takeaway from our discussion that you want people to hold on to besides going to screen fit and getting on that and start doing the push ups for your eyes? That's. That's my takeaway. But what's your message that you want to leave with?
- [65:11]
A
People love that and only get one message. All right, so I would say if you have a headache, you may go to a neurologist. Let's say if your child is squirmy in the classroom, you may go see a psychiatrist or learning specialist. And if you're motion sick, you may see an ENT or otolaryngologist. But with almost any symptom, we all need to consider that vision could be and is likely a part of the problem. And so that's why I always advocate putting your vision first, which goes way beyond going to your eye doctor to see if you need glasses, because there's so much more to vision than just 2020 eyesight.
- [65:48]
B
I love it. Bam. There we go. And I agree, I agree. I mean, you're, you're. Oh, here's another pun. This discussion has been so eye opening. And it really has been, though. But it has been. I made so many connections as I was talking to you, from, you know, my, my stepson to my friend to me. I mean, this is fantastic. And I'm so happy that we talked about it because it's information that needs to get out there. It can change people's lives. So we'll put all, obviously all of this into the show notes. But can you tell people where they can find you and follow you?
- [66:21]
A
Absolutely. And I so thank you for having me because when we know better, we can do better. So my practice is myvisionfirst.com and that houses all that we do screen fits on there, all the products that we have, all about our, our programs. And then I would say social media, but Instagram's probably the best place. Dr. Bryce Applebaum is the handle. But my ancestors wanted to make life really hard for me. So Applebaum is spelled E L, not le, not like the fruit. But if you put in you'll find us on there and we try and post reels and informative information where it really gets you to stop and say, oh wow, I didn't realize that having a hard time learning to ride a bike was a functional vision problem. And that can be treated.
- [67:01]
B
There you go.
- [67:02]
A
So trying to open eyes as much as we can. Pun intended.
- [67:05]
B
Pun intended, exactly. We'll leave you with that. Dr. Bryce, thank you so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure and all the screen fits stuff is going to be below. So if y' all take it and you do this training, make sure you message me on Instagram, let me know what you thought about it and what changed for you and I will keep you all updated on my screen Fit training and I'll let you know my vision changes as well.
- [67:30]
C
So thanks, Dr. Bryce.
- [67:31]
B
I appreciate you.
- [67:32]
A
Thank you for having me. Appreciate you.
- [67:40]
C
The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer Podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition treatment or before making changes to your healthcare regimen, including medications, supplements or other therapies. Use of the information provided in this podcast does not establish a doctor, patient or client provide a relationship between you and the host, or between you and any other health care professionals featured on the show. Any medical opinions or statements made by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or affiliated parties. Statements regarding dietary supplements or health related products mentioned in this podcast have not.
- [68:25]
B
Been evaluated by the fda.
- [68:27]
C
These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease Disease. Some episodes of the Thyroid Fixer Podcast may include sponsorships or affiliate links. The host may receive compensation for discussing or promoting certain products or services. Any such sponsorships or affiliations will be clearly disclosed during the episode. All opinions expressed are those of the host or guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsors. The inclusion of a product or service does not imply endorsement by any healthcare professional featured on this podcast.