Matthew Furey's eye problems

[k2ster]

Not sure if this is the place to put this post but here goes.

I am on Matt(hew) Furey's mailing list from purchases I made years ago. Even though I don't always agree with everything he says or does, I do enjoy getting his emails. His emails have been sporadic lately and today he let us know why. Here is what he sent:

<<I am lying in bed dictating this email to my friend, Eddie
Baran, who is with me in New York. The reason why I am
dictating this email is simple; I can't see and am mentally
preparing myself for major surgery tomorrow at 10 am.

On Monday afternoon I flew to Helsinki, Finland with members
of my International Mastermind. A few hours after landing I
began having trouble with my eyes. By the next day I could
barely see anything with my right eye. Luckily, my left eye,
which I now have 20/20 vision in due to Lasik surgery, I
could still see half ass.

In my experience, many health issues will go away in a
few days if you simply ignore them and go about your
daily business. This has not been the case with my
right eye.

After many years of absorbing traumatic blows to this eye,
I guess something was bound to eventually give way. On
Thursday I went to see an eye doctor in Finland who quickly
referred me to another eye doctor wh quickly referred me
to a surgeon who wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

After being scheduled for 8 am surgery Friday morning, I
opted to follow Dr. George Thurber's advice and fly back
to the U.S. where I could get the finest medical care. The
lady doctor in Finland told me this was not a good idea,
as I may totally detach my retina and be permanently
blind. I escaped from the Finnish gulag-spital (Fureyese
for gulag hospital and their primitive diagnostic equipment).

Early this evening I met with a surgeon who examined me
extensively. Tomorrow at 10 am he will do the surgery to
reattach my retina. This surgery, depending on what needs
to be done, may take four weeks or longer for me to recover.
During this time I will be resting and healing. I will do my
best to dictate emails giving an update on my progress as
well as sending out messages filled with inspiration and
enthusiasm.

I will also look into doing a regular podcast.

Although this is a difficult time for me, I remain committed
to my message which I summarize in two words:

"Rise Up."

I believe there is much good that will come from this
situation even if I can't see it right now. If you feel so
inclined, I will gladly accept any prayers or positive energy
you send my way. I am a non-denominational human being,
so whether you are a Jew, gentile, Christian, Buddhist,
Muslim, Hindu or anything else, I will appreciate your
thoughts.

All for now,

Matthew Furey>>

Here's wishing you a speedy recovery, Matthew!

Keith Koger
Charlotte, NC

[Scott Sonnon]

Keith,

The Nordic countries are the world leader's in health care, certainly the farthest thing from "gulags" (I know personally.)
Flying with a detached retina is lunacy due to the air-pressure changes.

Regardless, eye issues are nothing to fool around with. During MMA sparring preparing for my last fight, I detached my left retina. Scary stuff not being able to see. Fortunately, mine healed due to special exercises and rest, but without surgery.

Good luck to Matt on his surgery.

[k2ster]

Coach Sonnen,

Oh, I completely agree with you regarding Finland. I love that country! That is just Matt sticking to his "Politically Incorrect" stance. I don't know why he says and does such things, that's just him. But then he'll turn around and write about how wonderful China is! Go figure.

Sorry to hear about your retina, too. This is the first I have heard of it.

Matt sent out an email today that he had successful surgery in the good ol' US of A.

Keith Koger
Charlotte, NC

[Scott Sonnon]

Honestly, Keith, I don't know anything about Matt.

I don't mention my detached retina here, because it's not really exercise related, and crying about it to others doesn't really do anyone any good.

I'm not slighting Matt for doing so. Maybe he was just reaching out to his community for support through something scary.

Ultimately, in the fitness industry, and even martial art industry, we're all on the same side... I don't have any problems reaching out to anyone that's having to go through something scary.

But his comment about Finland is just plain stupid. I've been there many times, and loved it like you.

[k2ster]

Coach Sonnen,

Actually, I think people might be interested in the eye exercises you did. Did they come from doctor's advice or was it something you picked up through your explorations of healing/physical fitness? Not trying to pry, just curious.

Keith Koger
Charlotte, NC

[Scott Sonnon]

Keith,

If you search the forum archives, you'll find the exercises I used to resolve my Thygeson's disease. They're the same I used to help the detached retina. Fortunately, my retina was torn on the bottom, not on the top. Gravity helped pull it back into place, and the exercises aided a level attachment. My doctor's couldn't prescribe exercises, since the thought was alien to them, and they couldn't endorse them for liability purposes, but they saw the rationality of the approach and couldn't deny the results.

[k2ster]

Coach Sonnen,

I had to do a Google search to find out what Thygeson's disease is! And I thought I was plum ej-oo-kate-ed. :-)

Seriously, thanks for the info.

Keith Koger
Charlotte, NC

[k2ster]

Coach Sonnen,

I noticed from the archives threads that you referenced that the eye exercises you used came from Warrior Wellness. This program has been retired to the vaults, correct? Any plans on resurrecting the eye exercises in a future program? I think there would be an interest, especially amongst us baby boomers.

Thanks,
Keith Koger
Charlotte, NC

[Scott Sonnon]

Keith,

Not at the moment, there are no plans.

[Paul K]

I am one of many here who have used Coach Sonnon's eye exercises. The information originally appeared on a posting and latter as a magazine article. Below is the original by Coach.

Eye Disease Remission
by Scott Sonnon
My family and I wanted to thank all of you for your support since last October, when I was diagnosed with a rare eye condition known as Thygeson's Disease.
Thygeson's Disease is a type of inflammation of the cornea. In my case it came as a result of a unique combination of corneal fatigue caused by inappropriately prescribed contact lenses with insufficient oxygen transmissibility, and a viral infection that I contracted on a continental flight last year.
The disease manifests as areas of loss of epithelium from the cornea – the clear part of the surface of the eye -- and results in a breakdown of integrity of the corneal epithelium, cellular infiltration, and/or clouding of the cornea. The lesions appear punctate (they look like dots or points). In my case it was like trying to look out of a window completely smeared with lard. These episodes were sparked by just about anything: smoke, dander, pollen, sweat, and especially contact lenses.
Some of you expressed surprise when you saw me wearing eye glasses these past few months, and some people misunderstood why, during the Softwork seminar, even in the midst of a drill, I would wipe sweat from my eyes. Now you know. More sweat in the eyes equals less chance of seeing anything, much less a strike or a second attacker.
Doctors had told me that in general the condition lasts for 2-5 years, and in some cases up to 30 years. The use of topical corticosteroids can bring dramatic symptomatic relief in some people – but not me. Since there is no specific treatment for this disorder, I had to create a solution. Doing nothing about a disease wasn’t an option.
To address this problem on a daily basis I went to work with a family of eye exercises derived from Warrior Wellness, and with two exercises from yoga which my wife, Jodie, taught me. I've also been taking 2,000mg of vitamin C per day, which has been said to 'assist' in disease remission.
I'm happy to announce that after my checkup this week my eyes are “miraculously” clear of the disease and I am now back in contact lenses!
Thank you all for your support over these past months. It's one thing to be legally blind but correctable in vision. It's quite another to have corneal fogging that made me feel like I was wandering through a steam room (an occupational hazard for martial art and Clubbell® swinging!) It's been a trial of patience and of learning to cultivate and listen to my other senses.
Time wasted complaining is time lost practicing. 100 years ain't that long to live. I'm trying to make the most of this ride, since I'm over 1/3 of the way to the finish line!
I used several approaches that may or may not have had an effect on my condition. There's no way to know for certain if any of them, some of them, or all of them combined caused the disease remission without a 'double-blind' study (sorry about the pun, had to say it!)
1. Clovers with eye movements: 3-5 reps / day clockwise and counter-clockwise. (Warrior Wellness)
2. Sun gazing: several minutes / day with eyes closed looking up at the Sun (an impressive feat to manage to perform daily when living in the Pacific NW)
3. Distance gazing: whenever possible, instead of allowing my gaze to fall within a few feet of me, I took my glasses off and stared into the distance while attempting to focus on an object (and elicit an adaptive response.)
4. Palm rolling: throughout the day, whenever I felt any type of eye fatigue (but always at least once each morning), I rubbed my hands vigorously and held them over my eyes. I then rolled my eyes around the contours of my warmed palm heels while applying slight pressure – with eyes closed of course.
5. Removing glasses while eating: this may sound insignificant, but it was a ritual that I created to help me remember my daily exercises. Connecting my vision to the sanctity of our family meals was important for me. It reminded me to feel thankful for the vision that I did have, which still allowed me to see my family, my friends and the world.
During this time I learned how to fight without contact lenses, and despite being legally blind I had little problem adapting. Actually, my poor vision was a great asset. Foveal vision - the very small cone of our concentrated focus - solicits the cognitive mind (reflective thought), which is not very useful in maintaining flow in martial art.
Movement registers through peripheral vision - information that does not require our concentrated focus and does not solicit the cognitive mind, but relies rather on the subconscious (pre-reflective 'intuition'). With no working foveal cone due to the vast deterioration of my far-sighted vision, all movement registered peripherally, and it 'appeared' that I could flow easily.
Back in my competitive days there was a blind wrestler named Pat on our university team. Lack of vision never seemed to hinder his performance. Pat and I used to tussle and talk a lot. He described the world in 'colors' of force: rushes moving this way, whispers moving that way, swirling and twirling. These conversations came back vividly while I was compensating for my condition.
Although I felt that I had learned a great deal by practicing with uncorrected vision in my early years, I find strangely humorous the depth of my over-dependence upon this sense. I once blurted out to Dan that he had to come closer because I couldn't hear him without my glasses on!
80% of how we communicate is through non-verbal language, and much of that information is passed on through facial calibration. I was suddenly thrust into a world of 20% communication and I felt 'deaf', unable to comprehend what people were saying, unless I had my glasses on.
Paul Ekman, Ph.D., psychology professor at the University of California, wrote a great book called Emotions Revealed in which he analyzed the ways that people’s faces express emotion, and how we read and interpret these expressions. Professor Ekman discovered that 'core' emotions - anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, contempt and happiness - are recognizable throughout the world.
Without being able to 'see' the emotional content behind words, face-to-face talks felt to me more like internet discussions – nothing but raw text. One thing I learned, however, is that we do not SPEAK as clearly as we TYPE. We are much better at explaining what we mean in text than we are face-to-face, because when communicating in person we intuit that the other person understands our meaning even if our words don’t come through.
Accept for me, of course. Without correctable vision I seemed to stare blankly at my interlocutors with no reciprocal facial recognition patterns. During the filming of my most recent project I had to wear glasses for the first portion, despite the fact that glass lenses play havoc with artificial lighting. Why? Without my glasses I couldn't 'focus' on the camera as I was speaking. To the camera I appeared "spaced out", my "soft eyes" weren't looking at anything in particular - just gazing out into nothing. Imagine that you see someone sitting on a bench daydreaming at the park, seemingly unaware of you passing him by. Without any change in his face, imagine that he suddenly addresses you by your first name and asks how your wife and kids are. It would feel a bit eerie, wouldn’t it? Now imagine that was me, dreamily gazing through the television screen not AT you, but TOWARDS you somewhere, while talking. It just looked creepy.
The director however was a genius. Although I wore my glasses for the first segment, I refused to wear them during the subsequent action scenes. He placed a blown up yellow rubber glove on top of the camera with a small light inside. I 'pretended' that this glove was a person's face, and suddenly emotional content beamed from my face. Pretty funny stuff.
I found the same thing to be true whenever I had to have a conversation with someone while not wearing my eyeglasses. It appeared as though I couldn't care less what this person had to say, because reciprocal facial recognition didn’t cross my face. Have you ever spoken with someone who seemed to exhibit complete apathy? It’s very frustrating, isn't it? Imagine that the person in question was your wife or your children trying to speak to you, and you’ll understand why I am so thankful to have my vision restored. I didn't WANT to appear apathetic to my family, but with this disease I was incapable of reciprocal facial recognition to the emotional content of their words.
Most of our communication is "face-to-face" rather than "word-for-word." Our faces communicate pure honesty, while our words can deceive, insinuate or deflect our true feelings. Sure, I could still hear syntax and para-language (HOW things are said), but so much else was left out. It was like a sudden deafness, as if the world flipped suddenly into primary colors and all of the hidden richness lost its luster.
Our vision is such a precious gift, one that I found I had taken for granted. Staring down at my daughter last night as I read her books before bed (the same books that she has been insisting upon for weeks LOL), I felt overwhelmed with gratitude that my sight had been restored. I could once again see the multitude of flashing emotions that sparked across her face as I read: surprise, interest, curiosity, anger, fear, adoration, shyness, and on and on throughout the stories. Her face was truly a window to her innocent little soul. What a blessing vision is!

[k2ster]

Paul,

Thanks for the reprint. That was the article that I found in the archives.

Keith Koger
Charlotte, NC

[Luke Chohany]

Check out "Bates Method" for more info on such exercises. A big deal of vision problems are rooted in excessive facial tension. Next time you walk outside notice how you squint :mad: . With trained eyes, the pupil will do it's job and contract under high intensity light saving your vision. Take a close look at all your friends and try to spot the ones with lots of facial tension. I bet they wear glasses!

Sometimes it's hard for people to believe that vision is improvable, but that's easy to understand considering all hogwash we are fed by modern optometry.

I personally accidentally improved my vision using "EyeQ" which is meant to be a speed reading program. I have some experience with lazy eyes (my affliction) if anyone is interested.

~Luke