Eye Update

It has been a while since I have posted an update about my eyes. For those who are not longtime readers, about two years ago, actually a little over two years ago, I developed a serious eye condition. This was caused because I was diabetic for 25 years or so. I no longer have diabetes, but the damage was already done, so I am fighting to save my vision.

The condition that I had was called diabetic retinopathy, it was to such an advanced stage that the doctors called it prolific diabetic retinopathy. The disease further developed into a macular disease.

Thankfully, I have a great eye doctor, she is considered to be one of the best retina specialists in the Philippines, where I live. Over the last year or more, I have been going through rounds of having injections into my eyeballs, and this does help, but it is also expensive. Additionally, even after these treatments, the effectiveness wears off, and it must be redone again. Usually, when the medication wears off, I just have a slight degradation in my vision. However, that is not always the case.

From around June 2017 until late December 2017 my vision was actually pretty good for the first time in more than a year. I could read and see fairly clearly.

On December 27, when I woke up, I was more or less blind in my right eye. I could still see some things, but my eyeball was really filled up with blood, meaning that that was about the only thing I could see. During the time from December 27 until now, I have had a couple of injections into that right eyeball trying to break up the blood and make it possible to do laser surgery on the eye, to cauterize the blood vessels. Unfortunately, the injections have not been effective in breaking up the blood to the extent necessary. My vision has improved somewhat after these injections, but not enough, not nearly enough.

Coincidently, or perhaps not coincidently, from late November until recently, I have done a very little fasting. My wife was home from her work in Alaska during this period, and I decided that I would eat a reasonable ketogenic diet while she was here, and not fast very much. I did a few 4-day fasts during this time, but nothing longer than that as I normally do.

About a week ago, I started an extended fast, which I will update you about tomorrow, and have been sticking to it completely. Funny thing is, over the weekend, my right I really began to improve a lot. I would say that as of Sunday (the day that I am writing this article) the blood has cleared in my right eyeball by about 50%. It is my belief that this is due to fasting. After a few days is when this started, and that is when autophagy kicks in when you are fasting. Autophagy is the process where the fasted body starts eliminating cells that are unhealthy and reproducing healthy cells. I believe I am literally seeing (through my own eyeballs) the process of autophagy working in my eye. It is very exciting.

At this time, I plan to continue fasting and I hope to see continued improvement and complete elimination of the blood that is in that eyeball. Right now I do not have any further injections scheduled in my eye, and I’m going to avoid making any such schedule until I see what is going on as I continue fasting.

So, for about the past six months, my eye condition has been very bad. I had stopped using injections for the second half of 2017 because my vision was quite good, but when I had a major leakage of blood in late December, things became very bad. It is very difficult for me to read, or to see anything very clearly. My right eye was my good eye, but now I’ve come to depend on my left eye, and it is not that good.

I am very excited about these developments, and I will keep you posted as I see any changes, which I hope will be coming soon. Actually, the changes are ongoing, and I can see the changes, but what I am very excited about seeing the elimination of this condition, and I believe that is going to happen.

I hope to see that soon.