{"id":3957,"date":"2020-07-02T18:33:12","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T18:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annetarsia.com\/?p=3957"},"modified":"2020-07-02T18:48:51","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T18:48:51","slug":"can-eye-help-you-nuravelry-is-causing-severe-distress-for-many-people-but-not-others-perspective-from-a-knitting-optometrist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/2020\/07\/can-eye-help-you-nuravelry-is-causing-severe-distress-for-many-people-but-not-others-perspective-from-a-knitting-optometrist\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Eye help you? NuRavelry is causing severe distress for many people, but not others. Perspective from a Knitting Optometrist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the horrors of 2020, which are abundant and well-known, so I won\u2019t list them, the crafting community is reeling from a design change on our beloved forum, Ravelry. This change is causing neurological symptoms among users, ranging from mild to severe.\u00a0 The laundry list of complaints is long, including headache, migraine, and seizure.\u00a0 Here is a link to an article<\/a> (warning: it’s technical) about the issues, which are very serious and difficult to manage. Other people don\u2019t notice that anything has changed, causing the affected people to suffer more, thinking that they are not believed.\u00a0 Everyone wants Ravelry to \u201cfix\u201d the problem.\u00a0 I have sympathy for everyone, because I know that the science is not there to identify the problem, much less eliminate it.<\/p>\n

I am a knitting teacher and designer, but my day job is optometry. Optometric physicians are specialists devoted to fixing problems with visual discomfort \u2013 not just blurry vision, but vision comprehension and comfort.\u00a0 Our job is to get the information from the eyes to the brain in the most efficient way, so the brain doesn\u2019t expend any more energy than necessary.\u00a0 Figuring out cause and effect of triggering events, visual\/brain connections and therapy to improve the flow is long, hard and tedious work, done by researchers in medical and optometric schools.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t pay well, and people think you are crazy,\u00a0 unless you are one of the people who are affected and get help.\u00a0 And then, you can\u2019t explain it to anybody, so the efforts go unsung.<\/p>\n

Let me explain this from a knitting perspective.\u00a0 Many knitters have problems with intarsia, a knitting technique using multiple colors in one row side by side.\u00a0 Most hate doing it, while others think it\u2019s super easy, and what is your problem?\u00a0 Big disconnect, there. \u00a0Since there was no comprehensive instruction available, I wrote \u201cAnnetarsia Knits\u201d<\/a>, breaking down the yarn wrangling and techniques, and creating some new fun stuff (working it \u201cin the round\u201d, with no seam) in the process.\u00a0 Yes, it\u2019s easy, but some brains don\u2019t find it obvious and need to be shown a path. \u00a0Fortunately in this case, no vision exercises were involved.\u00a0 Thank God. I still can\u2019t get everyone to try it, and people may still not like to do it, but I have never heard of intarsia causing a migraine.\u00a0 That\u2019s the job of using mohair to knit a complex lace project\u2026<\/p>\n

Brains are mysterious.\u00a0 Studying them requires lots of equipment, time and willingness to hit many dead ends in the search for answers.\u00a0 Knitting has been shown in many studies (here is a link to a good summary of findings<\/a>) to calm the brain, without negative side effects.\u00a0 We can do those studies because the craft is universal, hasn\u2019t changed much in hundreds of years and subjects are willing to sit and knit with electrodes on their bodies for hours.<\/p>\n

Remember Virtual Reality? VR goggles? Yeah, they are still around, but they never really took off.\u00a0 Too many visual issues, and making subjects sick is a total deal-breaker in research projects.\u00a0 Optometry schools spent lots of money setting up labs, but the industry pretty much gave up and moved on.\u00a0 3-D glasses? Same thing.\u00a0 Much tweaking has been done, and they work much better now, but still some people absolutely get the type of visual discomfort that Ravelry users are experiencing with the new website.\u00a0 Visual therapy could help, and protocols have been developed, but most people just accept that they \u201ccan\u2019t\u201d use 3-D glasses.<\/p>\n

These failures illustrate that technology is moving so fast that researchers can\u2019t keep up.\u00a0 The New Ravelry would be absolutely fascinating to study, it might tell us a lot about how the brain and visual system work. But, it won\u2019t happen.\u00a0 Before someone can even write a proposal for the study, something will happen to make the issue go away.\u00a0 We likely won\u2019t ever know what happened, and the problem will continue to pop up again in different forms, because the cause has not been identified.<\/p>\n

Optometrists concentrate on finding relief for sufferers. Vision Therapy is founded on science built before computers, but fortunately the exercises and tools that allowed people to read printed materials can also help many people with computer usage.<\/p>\n

Vision therapy is very specialized, for each person, similar to any good exercise program.\u00a0 Optometrists who specialize in VT work closely with the patient to determine what circumstances trigger symptoms. Sometimes it\u2019s easy, and there is a quick fix (that was my situation). Other cases require patience, as sessions are over once the symptoms begin.\u00a0 \u00a0The exercises are tedious, and the therapy is not covered by medical insurance.\u00a0 We have a doctor in the office who is a Vision Therapy specialist, and she mostly works with children with learning issues.\u00a0 She evaluates the patient, works with parents to assess how the child learns best and what program will work for the family, as often the parent will help, at home.\u00a0 She then teaches a specific exercise program, sends them home with the equipment to practice daily, and gradually changes the program as they improve. \u00a0Families are thrilled with the results, which is usually permanent as kids learn to control their eye muscles. \u00a0Therapy visits are paid out of pocket, and cost can be a barrier for many families, so our office keeps visits to a minimum and we lower the fees as much as we can.\u00a0 Another barrier is that the exercises aren\u2019t fun, they are tedious.\u00a0 Sometimes it hurts to stretch muscles, and kids don\u2019t want to do them.\u00a0 Glasses can make the tasks easier, but VT actually FIXES the problem, if the patient is motivated. Personally,\u00a0 I did VT in optometry school, and it helped my ability to focus from near to far more quickly. \u00a0\u00a0I still maintain by doing \u201cpencil pushup\u201d exercise.\u00a0 Here is a great video on how to do this simple exercise.<\/a> A few minutes each week keeps my eye muscles tuned up.<\/p>\n

The optical industry is developing lens technologies (designs, filters, lens materials) to act as a barrier between screens and people, and this helps in many cases. Because technology changes so rapidly, and we don\u2019t have the scientific studies to predict and back up results, we don\u2019t know why some things work and others don\u2019t. This is frustrating, as we search for answers with trial and error. When options are uncomfortable, expensive or don\u2019t work, patients are angry, frustrated and feel like no one believes they have a problem.\u00a0 The doctors aren\u2019t thrilled, either, believe me!<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what Ravelry is going to do. We don\u2019t know what they DID, and they likely don\u2019t, either.\u00a0 I switched back to Classic Ravelry, and haven\u2019t had issues, but many still are and we won\u2019t know why. A developmental Optometrist who practices vision therapy can provide you the special testing needed to determine whether you are a good candidate for Vision Therapy to strengthen your system, and if there are any glasses options that could relieve your symptoms.\u00a0 It won\u2019t likely help with the immediate Ravelry situation, because that issue will be resolved one way or the other before you would see results from VT. \u00a0\u00a0But the way technology keeps changing, another type of trigger may come along.\u00a0 If you have binocular problems, controlling them might pay off when the next tech wave hits.\u00a0 If there is any justice, it will affect different people next time, so that they can understand what sufferers are dealing with.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the horrors of 2020, which are abundant and well-known, so I won\u2019t list them, the crafting community is reeling from a design change on our beloved forum, Ravelry. This change is causing neurological symptoms among users, ranging from mild to severe.\u00a0 The laundry list of complaints is long, including headache, migraine, and seizure.\u00a0 Here […]\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[312,172,311],"class_list":["post-3957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-computer","tag-ravelry","tag-vision-disturbance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3957"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3965,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions\/3965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}