What is your sample size, and how are you measuring IOP? Are you using a Goldmann machine in an ophthalmologists office? Who is doing the measuring and what is their skill level and training? What's the IOP history of your subjects before learning TM an TM-Sidhis? How many are being treated for glaucoma or ocular hyper tension?
The numbers you are presenting are quite radical. I know people who meditate in the waiting room before taking visual field tests because it helps them relax before the test, and they show no signs of elevated IOP when checked by the ophth afterwards. Twenty-four hour IOP monitoring can be useful to identify spikes in IOP that could be indicative of problems, but it needs to be done in a proper setting using proper test equipment. Even the tonopen is not accurate compared to a Goldmann and really needs to be calibrated against it. Are you an ophthalmologist? Associated with a research institute? I'm curious. Which one? According to you, who are the people who are at risk of having IOP elevated from doing TM? Hard to know how to give feedback or make suggestions when your "data" is so sparse an there are so many unknowns. This should be a relatively easy thing to study in double blind tests. What does your data show there? Thanks in advance. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, freeradicalfederation <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > My data shows that TM and the TM-Sidhis program can significantly raise > intraocular pressure (IOP). Elevated IOP is the most significant risk > factor for glaucoma, one of the leading treatable causes of blindness > worldwide. (TM doesn't appear to raise IOP for everyone. However, I > think we need to understand who is at risk for this side effect.) > > > I have shared my findings with a couple of the movement's researchers > (now former researchers) and with physicians who are familiar with (and > practitioners of) TM. So far I have not received any interest in regard > to understanding these findings in more detail. > > > Over the last several years I have continued to collect data. For > certain people there is no doubt in my mind that TM significantly raises > intraocular pressure. Given that this is such a dangerous risk factor > for glaucoma, I would like to understand the physiological mechanism > behind this IOP increase. > > Does anyone feel like speculating or offering suggestions that may give > me some ideas to follow up on? The physiological parameters I have > monitored so far haven't given me many clues as to the mechanism. > However, I have not monitored changes in blood flow in the areas around > the eyes. We have limited physiological monitoring equipment for EEG and > no fMRI. However, we have extensive and very advanced equipment for > monitoring IOP and we have good equipment for ECG, GSR, etc. > > > To demonstrate the magnitude of IOP change, here is one example of the > data (in HTML table format): > > > LEFT EYE RIGHT EYE > > Just after waking up: > > 14 > > 12 > > 13 > > > > > > 16 > > 14 > > 14 > > Immediately after meditating: > > 19 > > 17 > > 17 > > > > > > 28 > > 28 > > 30 > > > > As you can see, each measurement was repeated 3 times in each eye before > and also after meditation. The meditation values were recorded after the > full recommended rest period following a full TM-Sidhis program. No > other activities were performed during this time period. We have also > checked IOP after doing just 20 minutes of TM followed by 3 minutes of > rest without laying down, and found elevated IOP then as well. > > The elevated IOP can persist for a few hours or more. However, unless > someone were to meditate immediately before having their IOP checked in > an ophthalmologist's office, they would probably not know that TM was > elevating their IOP. There are no symptoms of elevated IOP in most > cases. > > > In this regard, TM is very similar to performing headstands. The records > show that some people have developed vision damage from headstands. > Ophthalmologists will now often ask patients if they perform headstands > but before the risk of headstands was understood, many people suffered > vision loss that could have been prevented. Again, this does not affect > everyone that does headstands and my guess is that it doesn't affect > everyone that does TM. However, we need to understand more about who is > at risk from elevated IOP as a result of TM. > > > I appreciate any feedback and/or suggestions. (And I hope the HTML table > format is readable. Most of this text is cut/pasted from an email.) >
