glaucoma

     Before meeting Dr. Kondrot, I had been treated for glaucoma by other eye specialists, and was using the drug Travatan.  The pressure of my eyes varied, and generallly the attitude of doctors was one of concerned resignation that my glaucoma would by nature continue to worsen.  The latest physician prescribed another drug to take with the Travatan.  In this, I saw the beginning of a process that would lead to more and more drugs (with their harmful side effects), and an eventual eye operation.  So I chose to put off starting the new drug until I had gotten another opinion.  I had been fortunate to find Dr. Kondrot on the Internet, and felt doubly lucky to learn that he had an office in Phoenix, as I lived in the Phoenix metro area.  His attitude was one of good-natured optimism, and his office did not have that sense of nerve wrenching, teeth chattering sterile coldness that one experienced in many medical offices.  Dr. Kondrot's office had an unthreatening sense of light, and good feeling.  It was my hope to not continue to add additional and stronger drugs to my therapeutic routine.  I wanted to stay, at the worst, on the Travatan only.  All of Dr. Kondrot's major remedies brought improvement to my eyes.  But the one that had the greatest effect was the homeopathic color remedy.  I had continued taking the travatan each night before bedtime.  Though it worked well at times, at other times my eye pressure moved above the normally safe range.  Then last December, Dr. Kondrot started treating me with the color remedy, and I got immediate results.  I took it on the tongue from a dropper once each morning and once each night.  Since then (for the past eight months) my eyes have always remained at normal or better levels.  Being in Dr. Kondrot's care, I realize that having glaucoma is not a hopeless plight, and that further and more revolutionary possibilities lie ahead in the treatment of the disease.

Anonymous:

  I realize that having glaucoma is not a hopeless plight, and that further and more revolutionary possibilities lie ahead in the treatment of the disease.

Hi. You said a lot of important things in your message. I'm really glad you shared your experiences with us.

Your last statement is, in my mind, possibly the most powerful part of your message. I have personally come to the realization that glaucoma is far from a helpless plight -- it is a true blessing for me. I have become a better person because of glaucoma and the process is still continuing. I'm enjoying the positive changes and my whole life is benefiting.

By the way, simply getting out of a negative emotional state and into a positive one will benefit my eye pressure (and probably any glaucoma patient's eye pressure) dramatically. I've written a lot on this in my eye pressure blog already and I'm going to write a new post about my experiences of the last couple days. I'll post a link here when I do it.

I think Dr. Kondrot is wise to create a sense of light and good feeling in his office. (While I believe it could be shown scientifically that this environment would have a healing effect on glaucoma patients, at this point I simply trust my own experiences as to the concrete value such an environment conveys.) I also believe the importance of Dr. Kondrot's good-natured optimism should not be underestimated.

Your message is a great one to kick off the discussions in Dr. Kondrot's forum. In so many glaucoma support groups I see a lot of discussion that reinforces the negative. The support, while well-intentioned, often comes from people who have no experience of glaucoma except a negative one and, therefore, the newbies are led down the same unhappy path. As I began to document all the factors that influenced my own intraocular pressure, I found that I simply had to avoid many (not all, of course) of the discussions in glaucoma support groups. (To the extent that I pick up the negativity in the worst of those messages, there is a measurable elevation in my intraocular pressure.) My own experience of glaucoma has been very positive - but I have to protect that feeling. I have cultivated a lifestyle and a mental and emotional state that has helped me reduce my eye pressure without additional drugs or surgery. (That state, like all of life, is a delicate balance.) Prolonged exposure to a group of people having mostly negative experiences with glaucoma could easily undo a lot of the gains I've made. Therefore, I am very, very pleased to read this message from another glaucoma patient who is having a positive experience -- and who just naturally felt like writing an uplifting, happy message. (I can see this message comes not from trying to be positive, but from actually having positive experiences, just like I do.)

By the way, I would like to encourage everyone to register instead of posting anonymously. If you register, you can choose to be notified by email when someone responds to your messages. There are many other benefits. A few of these include:

• Being able to edit your messages later (such as to fix a typo or correct something.)
• Being able to easily find all your past messages.
• Establishing relationships with other members. Don't underestimate the power and importance of relationships established online.
• And, of course, the option to be notified by email when someone responds to your messages. This is a huge convenience.

I would like to extend my welcome to everyone as Dr. Kondrot kicks off this new forum.