RevitalVision: Coming Down The Homestretch For Dr. White!

As we've posted before, Dr. White switched his RevitalVision program from Sports Vision to Low Myopia. He wanted to reduce his use of distance glasses, especially during the day. This involved a "re-boot" of his schedule as he went back to Session 1 with his new program. Let's check in and see how he's doing!

"I just finished session 16 of the Low Myopia program. My vision specialist had me start to use a very small correction with glasses after session 14, a -0.50. Wow...was it getting hard to see those Gabor Patches before that! Smaller and smaller, dimmer and dimmer--that was really hard work. At that point my results had gone from the high 80's and low 90's to the low 80's and high 70's, but now I'm back up around 90 again. It's STILL hard work, though!

The vision specialist and the program suggested that I start wearing my distance glasses LESS after session 14 and I AM seeing a difference. I was walking one of our dogs last night and I could read street signs and see details on cars from more than a block away! This is pretty much on track with what I've read, what my patients have been saying, and what the RevitalVision people predict."

There are a few more sessions to go. I'm sure I'll have more good news to share soon! "


Way to go Dr. White!

Dr. Darrell White Speaks About Revitalvision in Live Webinar tonight for Eyemaginations

Dr. Darrell White will be going live tonight at 6 pm!  

He was asked by Eyemaginations to be the presenter for the 
"Eyemaginations Premium Webinar Series: RevitalVision".

Revitalvision Website


He will be speaking and answering questions to fellow eye practitioners across the U.S. about Revitalvision the training system that "trains the brain to see better".

RevitalVision Re-Boot for Dr. White

He's back at it! Dr. White changed his RevitalVision program from the Sports Vision module to Low Myopia. His goal is to reduce the amount of time he is wearing the small distance prescription left over from his LASIK 13 years ago.

"Session 0 went just fine. This is the session where the program sets itself to me, where I am and what my vision is today. It's a little long--it took me about 34 minutes, but I scored a 94 so it looks like I'm off to a good start again. I'm sure the  8 or so sessions I did on the Sports Vision module helped."

The Science Behind Revitalvision

We'll keep you posted on Dr. White's progress. Everyone is very excited about this, especially Dr. White. He is even going to give an internet seminar on the subject for other eye doctors in August so he is VERY motivated to do well!

RevitalVision Re-Boot!

Here's one of the very cool things about the RevitalVision program: your vision trainer is in contact with you pretty much all the time and responds to your questions right away. Dr. White's trainer is Terry and she realized from Dr. White's questions that he would actually be better off doing one of the other RevitalVision programs in order to meet his goals.

"I was talking to the executives and head scientists about Dr. White and his progress. We decided that what Dr. White was really after was to reduce the amount of time he uses his glasses for things like driving at night. He was doing very well on the Sportsvision module and would likely have really seen a jump in his vision while wearing his glasses, but we felt that he would be more likely to achieve his primary goal by switching to our "Myopia" protocol."

Dr. White did the intro session for "Myopia" today without his glasses and is ready to forge ahead! "I'm very impressed by the responsiveness Terry showed to my questions. I've always loved this part of the RevitalVision program and approach, the interaction between the patient and the people running the program and the software," said Dr. White. "I love that Terry and her teammates are looking after my patients this closely!"

By the way, Dr. White scored a 94 in a 15:00 introductory session on Myopia.  Check back here for updates on his progress!

Dr. White RevitalVision Sessions 6 & 7

Dr. White scared the heck out of our technicians when he came out of the RevitalVision room...no one knew he was even in the office! Let's see what he had to say:

"My floaters got in the way!! I've had floaters since I was a young teenager and I almost never see them unless I'm looking for them. One of them sat right in the middle of my vision for about half of my Session 6. Thankfully no one was in the room with me; I would have had a
hard time explaining why I was
shaking my head so hard!

See yesterdays blog for some great info about floaters: http://skyvisioncenters.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-are-those-spots-in-front-of-my.html

I have the rhythm of the sessions down now. About 30 minutes each time. Smaller and smaller, lighter and lighter. I like the "Which one is darker?" sessions--I seem to be able to see them really well. I scored a 90 on Session 6 but only an 85 on Session 7. I'll have to wait for Kelly to let me know what that means. Does your score go down as it gets harder, or does this mean I'm slipping back into the average category? We'll see what she says.

This is really hard work, though. You really have to want to improve your vision to do this, but everything we've seen at Skyvision leads us to believe that it's worth it. I've joked over the years that the faster I get at doing cataract surgery the shorter my attention span gets! These 30+ minute sessions of intense concentration are good training for my attention span, too!"

Tune in for updates on Dr. White's progress.

Dr. White and RevitalVision Sessions 4 & 5

Dr. White is still doing great with RevitalVision and the SportsVision module. Here's what he had to say about Sessions 4 and 5:


"Wow! This is getting HARD! I mentioned last time that the images get smaller and smaller while they also get dimmer and dimmer. It turns out that the better you do on your previous sessions the smaller and dimmer they get as you go on! Tough stuff.

I'm finding that I need to take mini-breaks a little more frequently now since I am concentrating so hard. I've always had a bit of a dry eye problem (I use Restasis) so I've been using artificial tears during my sessions as well. It seems like my results are good, though. The program sends you an email after each session with a graph to show your results, and my trainer Kelly has been very encouraging. Each session is taking just a little over 30 minutes, and I got my highest score yet today on Session 5: a 92!

My goal is to get in at least 4 sessions per week and so far, so good. I'm still wondering when I will have to do this without my glasses, though."


Stay tuned for more updates from Dr. White as his RevitalVision adventure continues.

Dr. White and RevitalVision: Training Begins!

Dr. White is going gangbusters with his RevitalVision training using the SportsVision Program. He finished the 3 introductory "Session 0" sessions and moved into the training sessions; there are 20 training sessions. So far he has done Sessions 1 and  2.

"Wow! That's hard work! The program asked me to wear my glasses for each session so far; the hardest part is remembering to bring them to the office from my car since I don't really wear them that much. The sessions take a TON of concentration, and since my vision with my glasses is very good I have to hang in there with very small images that are very, VERY faint. Whew!

Although I knew the basic structure of the training program it's hard to truly be prepared for the work you do until you start. I knew that the images would get more and more faint, and I sorta knew that I would work with smaller and smaller targets. What was a little bit of a surprise is how the 3-image tests work. Not only do you have to pick which option has 3, rather than 2, images, and not only are they really tiny, and not only do they get really faint, but the images get closer and closer together as the session goes on! I was really concentrating hard there at the end of this one.

I think my scores were pretty good, 87 on Session 1 and 91 on Session 2, but I admit I have no idea what a top score might be. Maybe 100? My vision trainer Terry's boss told me I'm not really in the "High Achiever" category, though; it took me 29:56 minutes to do Session 1 and 25:00 mins to do Session 2 which he said was sort of average speed. [Terry's boss is a friend of Dr. White's so we don't know how seriously to take this!]"


So far Dr. White is on a pace of about 3 Sessions per week. Tune in for more progress reports.

Dr. White's RevitalVision Session 2

Dr. White went right back to RevitalVision to do his second session:

"Well, this time I was smart enough to bring my distance glasses in to the room right in the beginning! I'm going to have to ask my Vision Trainer when I'm supposed to stop wearing them because my goal is to increase my uncorrected vision, my vision WITHOUT wearing my driving glasses.

I think I know how this is going to go, now. Session 2 is the first calibration session where the RevitalVision program figures out where you are to start. I was a little intimidated when I saw the screen announcing 10 sections, though; it took me 35 minutes to do 4 in round 1! The program worked through images called GABOR PATCHES, little circles with lines in them that are various sizes and have various degrees of contrast or darkness. The tests worked me through series of images that were of gradually smaller sizes and gradually less darkness or contrast. I felt pretty quick, although I goofed up the responses on occasion by pushing the wrong mouse button, even though I knew the answer. I wonder if the program or my trainer knows when I do that?!

I've been telling patients that Sessions 2 and 3 last about 45:00; mine took 37:00 and I felt pretty good about the results. I do see very well with my glasses so that's not very surprising. Each screen in all 10 rounds only had one image, though. I have a sneaky suspicion that Session 3 is going to have 2 or 3 images on each screen, getting smaller and smaller, and dimmer and dimmer!

Hmmm...I might need to slow down a bit!"


Tune in for updates on Dr. White's experience and results as he does the RevitalVision Sportsvision Training Program.

RevitalVision Session 1 With Dr. White

Dr. White just came out of our darkened RevitalVision room after completing the introductory session. Here's what he had to say:

"I was a little surprised that the calibration process was repeated right in the beginning! We had the room and the computer and the monitor all set up yesterday so I thought I'd just fly into battle. No big deal, but I wonder if that will happen every day when I step up to bat?

The first training session is just to show you how to do the program so it's really important to be able to see everything. My time in the room is just a little bit longer than it might have been; I had to run out to my car when the program told me 'If you have glasses or contacts wear them for this part."!! I had a little crisis of confidence in the first module. I THOUGHT it said left button for first choice offered and right button for the second, but I got all flustered when the computer dinged at me! Was a ding good or bad?!

OK...dings are bad. First choice, left mouse button. Second choice, right mouse button. GOT IT! Phew!

After I got that critical detail down pat I flew through the second and third  modules. Total time for my introductory RevitalVision session = 27:00! I have a feeling it's gonna be way harder once I stop wearing even the tiny distance prescription I have in my driving glasses though!"

Stay tuned for more news from Dr. White's RevitalVision adventures!

RevitalVision and the Hubble Space Telescope

Train your brain to see better! How does this work actually? Well, we think a very good example that helps to explain how RevitalVision works is the Hubble space telescope. Remember when the telescope was initially launched and it was a big problem with focusing the telescope? It turns out that the mirror, the focusing element in most big telescopes, was very poorly focused. The mirror not only had some astigmatism but also had something called "higher order aberrations". It took five visits to the Hubble from the Space Shuttle to finally get the optics of the mirror right.

1990 Hubble image.

The last Space Shuttle mission was in 1999 so the last time the mirror was "focused" was 11 years ago. But every year since we've been getting better and better images from the Hubble space telescope. Absolutely brilliant views of distant solar systems and galaxies, each year bringing a clearer view of the rest of our universe. How can this be if we are using 1999 vintage optics?

2009 Hubble image.

Once the optics were optimized on the Hubble space telescope images that were captured were sent back to Earth in exactly the same way. However, here on earth, we have been using better, faster, and stronger computers to evaluate those images. In other words, we have been bringing better processing to bare upon those images. Hence, better views!

In a nutshell that's how RevitalVision works. Once we've done everything that we possibly can do to get a better image from our eyes, we can now use RevitalVision to make our brain process that image better! We can train our brain to see better!

How cool is that?!