Dr. Marc Grossman O.D. L.A.c.

Forward by Jason Elias, M.A., L.Ac

Jason Elias, M.A., L.Ac is co-author of Chinese Medicine for Maximum Immunity, Feminine Healing and The A-Z Guide to Healing Herbal Remedies.

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Excerpt: "Every so often a book comes along that makes you wonder why it took so long to materialize. This new book by Marc Grossman, behavioral optometrist and acupuncturist and Michael Edson, acupuncturist, certainly fits the bill. By integrating western medicine, nutrition, Chinese and Western herbal medicine, acupuncture and last but not least, metaphor, this book gives us the tools needed to not only make sense of the myriad of visual problems we encounter daily as professionals, but also offers us clear cut means to treat and heal these disorders..."

Preface

Natural Eye Care: A Comprehensive Guide to Vision Health and Healing offers a unique approach to supporting healthy vision from early childhood to mature age, with the understanding that healthy vision relies on overall health and emotional health. Filled with wisdom and insight of both ancient and modern-day healing methods, this book integrates the full range of alternative therapies as they apply to vision and vision disorders.

This book will help you make sensible, researched, and clinically based decisions to support vision. Chapters are devoted to a wide range of eye conditions and issues that include macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts, dry eyes, eye floaters, computer eyestrain, and much more, with recommendations that include Western herbs, nutritional supplements, Chinese medicine, and additional therapies. You will learn about the underlying causes of common visual problems and be given tools and techniques to develop your own eye health strategies. If a particular problem, cluster of symptoms, or changes in vision occur, please consult your eye doctor.

Natural Eye Care: A Comprehensive Guide to Vision Health and Healing shows people how to become active participants in their own vision care, giving back the power and responsibility they have so trustingly handed over to their eye doctors. The primary goal of this book is to offer a practical approach to vision care, based on the underlying philosophy that emphasizes prevention and support. In doing so, we celebrate the healing power within all of us and the mind/body’s inherent potential for self-healing.

Patients come in, year after year, with their eyesight worsening. For example, many eye care professionals just give stronger and stronger prescriptions that help weaken the eyes instead of eye exercises and lifestyle recommendations to help strengthen vision. Something is wrong with this picture. Diet, exercise, lifestyle, and targeted supplements should be a critical part of the discussion of how to maintain healthy vision, even with such eye conditions as macular degeneration, glaucoma, and retinitis pigmentosa. The peer-reviewed research is abundant in demonstrating these alternatives. They are listed in this book by eye condition.

This guide will educate readers about their vision difficulties, explain how to prevent vision disorders, and explore ways to help preserve vision for those with vision disorders. It will enable the individual to be a more informed consumer when it comes to vision care. Medication and surgery may sometimes be necessary or even appropriate treatment strategy, but nutrition and lifestyle choices always play an essential role in helping support healthy vision.

Doctors in China have reached out to the West to borrow the modern medicine we can offer. We in the West can, in turn, benefit from the ancient wisdom of the East. By combining the medical approaches of the East and West, along with other alternative health modalities, we may be able to achieve better health with less cost and greater success in helping patients preserve vision.

Natural Eye Care: A Comprehensive Guide to Vision Health and Healing is dedicated to the belief that a common ground can be created in which the strengths of modern-day Western medicine are united with the preventive approach of other healing modalities.

Part One: Understanding the Eye

Chapter 1. Anatomy and Physiology
Chapter 2. How the Eye Works

Chapter 3. Conventional Approach to Vision
Chapter 4. A Complementary Approach

Part Two: The Fundamentals of Healthy Vision

Chapter 5. The Role of Antioxidants
Chapter 6. Inflammation and Oxidative Stress
Chapter 7. Diet and Vision

• 7-1. Healthy Eating

• 7-2. Alkalizing Diet

• 7-3. Mediterranean Diet

• 7-4. Omega-3 and Omega-6 Balance 

• 7-5. Phytate Reduction

• 7-6. The Vision Diet

• 7-7. Other Diets

Chapter 8. Nutrients

• 8-1. Nutrient Families

• 8-2. Phytonutrients: Carotenoids

• 8-3. Phytonutrients: Bioflavonoids

• 8-4. Vitamins and Vitamin-Like

• 8-5. Essential Fatty Acids

• 8-6. Enzymes

• 8-7. Amino Acids

• 8-8. Minerals

• 8-9. Herbs

Chapter 9. Traditional Chinese Medicine

• 9-1. Overview

• 9-2. TCM: Disease and Food

• 9-3. The Chinese Five Elements

• 9-4. Acupuncture

Chapter 10. Self Help and More 

• 10-1. Self-Help Suggestions

• 10-2. About Juicing

• 10-3. Microcurrent Stimulation

• 10-4. Eye Exercises and Acupressure

• 10-5. Vision and Personality

• 10-6. Visual Hygiene

• 10-7. Yoga and Vision

• 10-8. Aging and Vision

Chapter 11. Natural Eye Care for Pets
Chapter 12. Drugs
 

Part Three: Vision Conditions

Chapter 13. Refractive Eye Conditions

• 13-1. Astigmatism

• 13-2. Farsightedness (Hyperopia and Presbyopia)

• 13-3. Nearsightedness (Myopia)

Chapter 14. Binocular Vision Disorders

• 14-1 Binocular Overview

• 14-2 Amblyopia

• 14-3 Convergence Insufficiency

• 14-4 Strabismus

Chapter 15. Internal Eye Conditions 

• 15-1. Cataracts

• 15-2. Color Blindness

• 15-3. Central Serous Retinopathy

• 15-4. Computer Eye Syndrome

• 15-5. Cone-Rod Dystrophy 

• 15-6. Diabetic Retinopathy

• 15-7. Dry Eyes

• 15-8. Epiretinal Membrane (Macular Pucker)

• 15-9. Floaters

• 15-10. Fuchs’ Disease

• 15-11. Glaucoma

• 15-12. Iritis

• 15-13. Keratoconus

• 15-14. Lattice Degeneration

• 15-15. Leber’s Disease (Optic Neuropathy)

• 15-16. Light Sensitivity (Photophobia)

• 15-17. Lyme Disease and Vision

• 15-18. Macular Degeneration

• 15-19. Macular Edema

• 15-20. Macular Hole

• 15-21. Night Vision

• 15-22. Ocular Migraine

• 15-23. Optic Nerve Atrophy 

• 15-24. Optic Neuritis

• 15-25. Retinal Detachment

• 15-26. Retinal Vein Occlusion

• 15-27. Retinitis Pigmentosa

• 15-28. Sjogren’s Syndrome

• 15-29. Stargardt Disease

• 15-30. Usher Syndrome

• 15-31. Uveitis

• 15-32. Vitreous Detachment

Chapter 16. External Eye Conditions

• 16-1. Bags Under the Eyes

• 16-2. Blepharitis

• 16-3. Conjunctivitis

• 16-4. Ocular Herpes 

• 16-5. Ocular Rosacea

• 16-6. Ptosis

• 16-7. Pterygium and Pinguecula

• 16-8. Styes and Chalazia

• 16-9. Subconjunctival Hemorrhage

Appendix

A-1. Juicing Recipes by Eye Condition

A-2. About Supplement Absorption

A-3. Effect of Mobile Devices on Vision

A-4. Protection from Sun Damage

A-5. Recommended Products

A-6. Amsler Test

A-7. Additional Therapies

A-8. Magic Eye

A-9. Essential Oils

A-10. Vision and Alzheimer's

A-11. Alkalizing Food Charts

A-12. Soaking and Sprouting

A-13. Vision Related Organizations

A-14. Dental Care and Vision

A-15. Pesticides in Produce: The Dirty Dozen

A-16. Emergency Eye Care

A-17. Alcohol and Your Eyes

A-18. Contributors to the Guide