Transition Glasses and Their Role in Vision Improvement

What are transition glasses?
Transition glasses (T-Glasses) are a weaker version of the regular glasses usually prescribed by your optician. Usually transition glasses will be between 50% and 80% of full strength glasses. Transition glasses are very important in natural vision improvement as they allow your eyes room for improvement.

General Philosophy:
That the students go without glasses as much as possible applying the relaxation and better vision activities. The transition or T-glasses are worn when necessary, for driving, work or when the student feels the need for correction. Even when the T-glasses are being used we encourage the student to continue their vision ‘games’.

Our purpose is not to give the student highly ‘efficient’ vision in optical terms but to allow the visual system to be experienced as the organic living and self-healing function that it is. This means the student may go through a period of dealing with blur emotionally, mentally, and physically. It also gives the eye an opportunity to change. Locking the eye into a tight correction means the eyeball will always have to ‘please’ the curve of the glass. The eyesight changes, glass does not. Optical refraction commonly reflects stress levels both of the student and the person measuring. This has been shown numerous times with computer refraction. On the same day NVI students have been given three different prescriptions for distance lenses varying by as much as 3 diopters.

Astigmatism Correction:
From moment to moment both the amount and the angle of astigmatism can vary. Therefore we ask that this correction be totally eliminated from the lenses if possible. The “if possible” means that the optician, being aware of his/her legal responsibility where driving is concerned, must make their own judgement about whether the astigmatism correction can be totally removed in the first pair of T-glasses or if it will all come out in a subsequent pair. Leaving in 0.25 or 0.50 in the lenses is in my estimate counter-productive. NVI students are given vision activities for smoothing out astigmatism and with some teachers there is also work with the emotional component.

Driving and Sharpness:
When an optician, optometrist or M.D. first begins reducing lenses for NVI students they tend to give stronger, clearer 80% corrections for those students who want to use their T-glasses for driving. After some time the eye professionals realize that with many NVI students these glasses are too strong, often within two weeks. THEREFORE WE ASK that the driving glasses be a weak 20/40, 6/12 or 80% which will still meet driving requirements. If the eye professional is encouraging to NVI students the latter will be motivated to return more often to have a partial refraction and to further reduce their lenses, remaining within the legal range. Often students feel they are being patronized and discouraged in their endeavor to self-heal their sight. They don’t return to the professional and we have all lost both ‘scientific’ data and the opportunity to mutually work toward reversing the massive trend toward human visual blur. Let us change this relationship now.

When No Driving Is Required:
For students who don’t have to meet safe driving requirements the T-glasses Could be reduced by at least 20% and perhaps up to 50% reduction.

Be At Ease:
We suggest that the student be given a set of test lenses and go outside the office or shop and be asked, “HOW DO YOU FEEL WITH THESE LENSES?” The psychological factors and conditions of use affecting eyesight have been documented many times. We ask for a friendly supportive atmosphere when the student is being refracted so that this person’s relaxation skills are prevailing rather than their anxiety level about pleasing an authority figure and being under test conditions.

By Carina Goodrich
www. JanetGoodrichMethod.com