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Over the past few weeks I have been trying an "acupuncture" treatment for nystagmus. Acupuncture in quotes, because its something a little different. Small patches with steel spheres are glued onto pressure points. You rub them several times a day, and even if you don't, the spheres create enough irritation to be noticeable. They actually make little holes in your skin, which take a few days to heal. They don't usually seem to get infected though.

The treatment helped my mother with her nystagmus. She had a nice objective test using her computer. With glasses, she managed to get to 20/20 vision. But for me, I feel no difference. I will test myself tonight and if anything changes I will make an update here but I think the nystagmus is actually a bit worse. I am looking sideways more.

Why I am responding differently than my mother, I don't know. Maybe its a matter of having the right placebo. To me, patches with steel spheres just aren't acupuncture. Maybe to her they are. maybe she, as a woman, is more used to jewelry and is not bothered by such irritations. I don't know.

Now I will try plan A again - eye training. Last night I sat looking checking nystagmus again by feeling the other (closed) eye with a fingertip. The exercise felt pretty good. Its nice to be able to stop the eye from shaking. Just stop it, even if the stopped eye does not see well because it de-focuses. I don't think I lost anything in terms of the exercises, having taken a long break. Maybe over time, the exercises will help.

"Look daddy, I am painting my milk!" said Kitty. Paint brush in hand, she is smiling at the little cup of white liquid, where a blue blotch of watercolor is slowly spreading. That's a good one, I could just end the story there. But there is more to Kitty than just cute outbursts. There is also sadness, and fear, and quite a few tears.

Why is such a sweet little girl afraid? "Oh no, your milk is ruined!" We say. "Oh no!" she says, suddenly sad. Fun has ended. Earlier in the day, she was sad, a lot. She was sad because she was too afraid to go to the store with momma. She really wanted to go, but she was afraid. Of what? Perhaps of having another accident.

Ah, accidents. Childless people wonder, why do parents talk about such trivial and base things, like peeing your pants, with seriousness, gravity, even trepidation? It is because to children, small things are great. Their world is small, and their hearts are open, feeling everything. Recently Kitty learned about privacy. Now when she uses the potty she makes me leave the bathroom. Even if I need to be there, to watch Captain splash in the tub. Oh, and the reason parents say "potty" instead of a toilet, is becuase its a very serious matter to a kid, its a huge deal. The adult equivalent to learning to use the potty would be learning to eat ants and grasshoppers: something truly strange and a little gross.

So why is Kitty afraid? Because her heart is tender, and small things can be scary. She sees them in books - maybe we also talk about them ourselves? She is afraid to go far form the house. Is it because she is afraid of wetting herself? a parent is like a detective, piecing together the whole story from little fragments. The criminals hide from detectives on purpose; Kitties and Captains hide not on purpose, but just because their hearts are as of yet unexplored terrain, raw and wild, and neither themselves nor their parents know how to untangle the great mossy beard of emotions.

Painted milk is in the sink, and we are playing with puzzles. Another tiny, profound crisis is over. Tiny, like a wisp of cloud that shields the sun for a minute. Profound, like time suddenly stopping its run for an instant.

It appears I have reached the limit of what I can do by simply trying to feel and stop the motion of the eye. I can halt the nystagmus at times, for a while, but not often. Basically, I have to be feeling very good to do that. So its time for a new hypothesis and a new approach.

Suppose that the eye uses the two vertical muscles to focus. They are called Superior Rectus (SR) and Inferior Rectus (IR). By simulataneously flexing these two muscles, the eye, could gain some acuity by distorting the field of vision. This would result in an "unstable equilibrium", since it would also pull the eye inward due to the offset of the muscles. The Lateral Rectus (LR), which moves the eye outward, would be called upon to move the eye to compensate. This situation might not be stable, and the eye might jerk around.

This would explain why nystagmus is worse when trying to focus on a distant object at the doctor's office. The eye would be trying to squish itself more and become more unstable.

If this is the case, one possible course of training to is to teach the eye to be open without focusing on anything. If this results in no nystagmus, then focusing was the problem.

When the eyes are closed there is no nystagmus. therefore, by keeping my eyes closed then slowly opening them, I might be able to consciously preserve the muscle positions when the eye is closed and learn to look without nystagmus. Focusing can be dealt with later.

A couple days ago my mother and wife took out wiggly-eyed daughter to a doctor who had seen her once before. Although they spent some time there, they returned with few questions answered, in many ways more confused than before.

During the previous visit, the same doctor recommended quaternary recession surgery. This shifts the four motion muscles back so that the amplitude of nystagmus becomes less. She even gave us a paper to read on the subject. My questions were, does this affect all motion, restricting eye movement, and what are the statistics on improvement/complications? These questions went unanswered, because like all doctors this one took control of the discussion.

This time she recommended K-A surgery, where the side to side muscles are shifted to another position. This moves the "base" location of the eye so that the null point is moved to center. During the visit, Anya displayed a null point on the right. The doctor did not believe my mother who told her the null point can shift. She did not ask them to make records or observations of the child's behavior. She reached her conclusion based on one observation of one activity - reading the letters - which for any nystagmus patient is difficult and unusual. When I have to do it at the optometrist, my null point also shifts to the extreme of one side so that I can no longer use that weird eye thing they make you use.

My mother might take her to Ohio where the purveyors of this surgery are headquartered. I will make detailed records of her daily activities, complete with photos etc. We are going to do this properly. Over the past two days, preliminary data indicate that she uses both sides about equally, but favors different sides during different activities. This would not make her a candidate for null point shifting surgery.

Putin worships at the altar of strength. To him, Russia's problems in the 80s and 90s were symptomatic of one thing: weakness. Weakness in the face of change, of the West, of Democracy, capitalism. So he took what was strong in Russia: the Mafia, and he made it his own, and he put it in charge of the state, because he perceived that it was the only thing that was strong.

Some compare him to Hitler and talk about his desire to make Russia a great power at any cost. But Putin lacks what Hitler had: a vision. Putin rules with a combination of strength-reinforcing images and messages, but these do not blend together to form a vision - Aryan race resurgent, banishing the lesser races. To Putin, there are friends, and there are enemies; there is a strategic vision to pursue his goals; but those goals, let us face it, are pretty simple: stay in power, keep getting 75% of the vote, make Russia strong.

If Putin lacks an Evil vision, he lacks a Good one, also. America's "Founding Fathers" earned that title by caring about the future of the country more than about their own short-term goals, or power in general. They wanted to establish an Order, institutions which would outlast them. The vision of those institutions - a Government of the people for the people and by the people, was daunting, rare, but inspiring. This task they accomplished, creating a steadfast, if now seemingly archaic, democratic system.

Putin, on the other hand, does not risk being called the father of the country. He likes the pageantry of children; often they are running around waving flags at his parades, or bringing him a bill to sign, just like in Soviet times. But he shall not be the Father of Russia, not until he can form a vision. A vision! For a country, and a people, which badly need to know that there are things in this world more important than strength.

It has been a week or so since I have had any luck with nystagmus; I am stuck.

Here's the thing. On some occasions, I was able to "brute-force" it. During meetings, or while driving (in a safe area) I would turn my head straight and look straight ahead. I would recite my little rhyme against eye-shaking. After a minute or so, the world would come into focus. I was very pleased.

But lately I have not been able to do this. My null point feels frozen on the left side; I can rarely use my right eye. I am not sure what I am missing. Perhaps I have not taken enough quiet time to feel the nystagmus. I will try doing that for a little while, to see if it helps soften things up.

"Your eyelid is twitching... your eye is still, but your eyelid is twitching". That's what my wife told me. Nystagmus is not easily to be tamed. I have learned to feel it, and in some cases stop it for a few minutes; but it is always temporary relief. It comes back, the world blurs, until I turn my head sideways, to find that mysterious quiet spot. Thus, with my head sideways, I have existed most of my life.

What is stronger, love or power? Is it better to feel and understand or to control and direct? I started out with Love, trying to feel the nystagmus, but as time progresses and I loose patience I try more to control. "You just have to convince yourself", my father said once. So I made up a little chant, a spell, of sorts. In another method, I also try just to see a small object without shaking. maybe a capital T in some presentation I am watching - or a speed limit sign - see it without blurring, just a clean shape. If it works, I can place my finger on one closed eye for a second and feel the shaking is mostly gone. Otherwise it shakes and this does not work, then I try the spell.

Also yesterday during a meeting, i caught it by looking off to the side, and brought it back to the center, it was an interesting feeling to dodge it that way, but I could not repeat it after the shaking started back up again.

If one Will do it, it can be done.

Current Location: USA

I have been living with nystagmus all my life. I received it from my mother, who received it from her father, who said he did not know where he got it. My brother has it, and now, so does my daughter. And for her sake, I am now revisiting nystagmus.

First, what is this rare condition? My eyes wiggle uncontrollably whenever I look, unless I look out of the corner of my eye. I don't really have a problem seeing; the world does not wiggle; but it is a little blurry and I often find myself turning my head sideways to look out of the corner of the eye, where the wiggling is less. it is called a null point. Some people's null points are always on the same side, but mine shifts from side to side every couple minutes. More about this in a minute.

I say revisit nystagmus, because there was a time when i spent a lot of time thinking about it and working on it. Between the ages of 6 and 14my mother took me to every famous expert she could think of, first in Russia then in the United states. She had my brother and me doing eye exercises every night all those years. she read a lot of books and tried almost everything - even feeding us lots of carrots.

The experts did not help a lot. Some treatments were available for very severe nystagmus, for example freezing the muscles in place with botox. Some new surgical options have come about since I made the tours of top vision hospitals as a child. they have to do with cutting and reattaching the little muscles which move the eye side to side. Sounds awful, to me, and therefore, as we consider the options for our daughter I am revisiting eye training instead.

In Japan, I heard that biofeedback is used to train the eye to stop moving. If you are aware of the motion (which I, ordinarily, am not) you can stop it. Or so goes the logic. For some people, their whole world shakes, that is called strabismus; Obviously, they are aware but can do nothing about it. Therefore, just being aware of it is not enough, but perhaps, there are different cases.

Is it possible to overcome congenital nystagmus?

I begin simply. Closing one eye, I look at an object several feet away and gently place my fingertips over the eyelid of the closed eye. I can feel the closed eye moving right away. The eyes move in tandem, and the nystagmus is the same in both. Step one is complete, i can feel the nystagmus, no need for an expensive biofeedback machine.

Incidentally, my father once made one. Two infrared diodes were attached to an eyeglass frame. One diode emitted infrared light, while the other received it. The signal was put to a speaker. It sounded like a buzzing. All this was wired inside a little box the size of a Walkman. It was very unsettling but it worked well. My brother and i hated it, because of the buzzing, and because we did not know how on earth we were supposed to stop the nystagmus. Now, however, I have some tools, and perhaps the endeavor is not quite as futile.

Tool number one is mindfulness. It is well known to those who practice meditation that the simple act of staying still calms the mind. This calm is real, and nystagmus quiets when the mind is calm - I have long noticed that it was gone when I was waking love. But, calm comes and goes, and I want my eyes to be still whether or not I am calm inside. Another tool is the scientific method. I have published a number of papers as a scientist, but can I achieve an understanding of my nystagmus that can lead to some corrective action?

Once at a milonga, I saw a very good dancer sitting out the dances on a couch in the lobby. "Why aren't you dancing?" I asked him. "I just had a really great tanda, and now I am just sitting" he answered. This is a common situation dancers face - what to do after a really great dance. I can say that I had tried his approach in the past; but I did not find that it provided a satisfactory solution to the problem.

That night, I had a chance to dance with a beautiful lady whom I had been watching for ages. When I first started out, I saw her dancing in DC, but did not have the skills at the time to ask her to dance. That night, at last, I got my chance. I knew I could not surprise her with anything, since she had danced with the best. But I had a great dance, a really, really great dance, and I think, if one person has a great dance, then probably the other person was not suffering too badly, and I was happy. After the tanda was over I sat down and watched the dancers; I was feeling great, but something was missing. The situation had not been resolved, somehow. After a time I saw that a woman was looking at me from a few tables down; we smiled at each other and went to the floor. She was much older and I could tell by the way she dressed she had not been dancing long; but she was eager, and wise, and I had a very nice time. And then after the tanda when I sat down, I had the additional intellectual satisfaction of having solved my dance equation: after having a great dance with a master, the answer is to dance with a beginner. QED.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: tango

There was once a discussion online about science and kids. The topic was, how can we get more kids to be excited about science. I posted that I was really never excited about science. I was excited about video games, adventure books, and some odd things like history. Never science. Someone asked me, why this was? I never replier because I did not know.

When people talk about the advance of science, I experience a feeling of slow doom and powerlessness. I feel like science is useless, like it is something extra, something contrived, something which does not actually make people happy. On an intellectual level, I can think about improvements to quality of life, etc. but on the level of my heart I do not experience the excitement that I sometimes see older people exhibit. I became a scientist mostly because I was good at it, and we often end up doing the things we are good at, because of a sort of career railroading effect. I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with that, and that is not what this post is about, anyway, this post is about feelings, because feelings are important. Somewhere, somehow, perhaps wrongly, I came to dislike science.

I have felt it in others, too. Like my friend Brett, for example. He likes the simple life, the simple things like hunting and camping, and once he asked me, do we need to keep going like this with science, always creating problems and solving them only to create more problems? And what is the point of improving the quality of life, when the secret to happiness it accepting things as they are? Is the Sparrow unhappy? Are the fish in the river unhappy? But of course, a person who rejects science, and clings to an earlier time would always be unhappy, because they would be rejecting reality in favor of fantasy, and not accepting the world as it is.

So where did it come from? Why is it that people older than me often love science? Maybe they were excited by the landing on the moon? Maybe they have just learned to accept the world as it is, and love it what what it has to offer? On the one hand, I grew up with Soviet science fiction which was... wait a minute, it was not particularly positive about science, was it? No, definitely a little dark in places. Then there was pollution. Chernobyl. And little to show for technology. But there are things I like about science, too. I love that I can video chat. I love that I can connect with people - and heck, computer games come from science. I like cars, let us face it. I like solar panels. And wind turbines. What about chemistry? I like fireworks. Heck, I like fire. I like rockets. Ooh, I like beer. And whiskey. I like biology. I like trying to understand basic things. What is, for example, pine sap? How can a pine tree take something which is just begging to congeal into unbreakable insoluble amber, and happily push it around its little trunk? Strange.

So, where did that feeling go? That little feeling of doom, that creeping slow death? I look now, and I do not see it any more. Was I really railroaded into a career of science, or do I actually find it exciting on some level, some level of which I am not often conscious, because for whatever reason, I tend to stay in the shadows. Perhaps I can think about that another night.

It's been a couple days, so I have had a chance to think about the debate a little. At first I was very disappointed in Obama. I felt he lost. I felt he was on the defensive a lot of the time. I have never thought he was a great speaker, unlike most of my friends. I always suspected he would be a poor debater - like me - not having the natural ability to think on the fly and formulate thoughts into powerful little messages. That is why I was a little afraid of the debate. What I did not expect was that Romney would choose that moment as his hour of self-revelation, and that Obama's defenselessness would be so obvious.

We all know the etch-a-sketch jokes, how Romney remakes himself. It all sees quite harmless, and we all know it is something all politicians do to some extent. Impress the base during the primaries, then tack to the center. So I have been waiting for Romney's tack to the center. It did not come during the convention. I thought that was strange. I thought that maybe he was crazy enough not to tack to the center at all. I was hoping this was the case. Not so. He chose that moment to become Moderate Republican Romney - against tax cuts for the wealthy, against cuts to education, willing to sacrifice the tax breaks given to oil companies. Obama was caught completely off-guard by this broadside. Every inch of his tired face seemed to say, "I wasted hours preparing to debate the wrong Romney."

Romney's transformation was masterfully orchestrated. The new ideas he put forward were so catchy I heard reporters spouting them the next day without even realizing their thinking has changed. One of the NPR reporters on the radio said, "there are two ways to reduce the deficit: increase taxes or grow the economy." The folly of this phrase is in the fact that it compares apples to oranges. Increasing taxes affects deficits directly, but growing the economy is indirect, it is not even something you can actually do. The economy is not a mushroom. You can cut taxes or increase spending and HOPE that the economy will grow, but that is a different matter. By equating the two things, Romney presented a very appealing choice: who in their right mind would choose to pay more taxes instead of growing the economy? Of course the reporter should have caught on to the trick, but there are few people whose mind is always clear. But we cannot all be like Diane Rehm.

It remains to be seen how the debate will affect people in general, how long Romney's success persists, whether the ideological edifice he has constructed (which to this point seemed quite shaky) will stand or fall due to some unforeseen flaw. Obama conceded the point, and retreated. He waits, having yielded the field of battle, for an opening to present itself. Things settle, glory is fleeting, and Obama is very, very good at waiting and seizing the opportunity. This meekness that some people malign him for, it can be a strength as well.