Hi! I was quoted in a local newspaper. Even got in the picture! [Lin/Linda: That’s Sue in the white top on the right side of the photo.] Nothing earth-shattering, basically I had been thrown to the reporter by one of my hip hop instructors. “Here. Talk to her!” I gave a little pep talk about how great the dance classes are and how civic-minded the studio is to sponsor charity events. You know the drill.
Anyway, I sent the link to Lin. “Look! I’m in the paper!” Lin comes back ASKING me to write a page! Wow. An invitation to preach -uh- talk about the benefits of exercise. You remember: better health, better attitude, even an anti-dementia weapon. I took up regular exercise at the age of 25 and I have never looked back. And we KNOW there is no greater zealot than a convert.
That is not quite what she wanted, though. She wanted to know why I stand where I was standing in the photo!
Uh…it’s my spot. That is where I stand. I am pretty much always a front row girl.
Does it help you see?
Yeah. That too.
Turns out Lin was interested in how I have adapted to my vision loss. How do I keep up my activities? How I dance so well? ….uh, not that. Basically how I follow along and don’t zig when we are supposed to zag. She wanted to know if I use eccentric viewing.
Eccentric viewing is a little trick that can help us AMD types quite a bit. It is natural to put your macula on what you want to see. In “normal” people, the macula is the area that gives us the sharpest vision. It would make sense to use it. The problem is, my macula has sort of disintegrated. Nothing to focus on what I want to see.
Enter eccentric viewing. With a little (ok, maybe a lot) practice you can train yourself to use a section of your peripheral retina to see what your macula no longer can. It won’t be as sharp an image as you may have gotten with your macula but at least it is an image.
Do I use it in class? Some. My main instructor introduces quite a bit of fancy footwork. I focus on him mid-body when I am trying to figure out what he is doing. I don’t care if his waist is blurry. I need to see his feet! They come through well enough in my peripheral vision. Looking directly at his feet would leave me clueless.
I use eccentric viewing walking. If I hear a car, there is no sense putting my blind spot on the road. Unless I want to get run down, of course! If I focus above the road, I can see the car in my peripheral vision. Thus, I avoid becoming roadkill for another day.
Same thing finding the dogs. Did one of my little darlings sneak out and is now running around the yard? Looking directly at her is a good way to make her “disappear”, right into my blind spot. If I focus above her, I may be able to apprehend her.
I say “above” because one of my “sweet spots” is on my lower, peripheral retina. This is not the same for everyone. You will need to play around with eccentric viewing and find your own.
We have done several pieces on eccentric viewing. Lin can put the links in at the end or wherever. I would suggest you read them and try to apply the concept to your own lives. How else are you going to learn those hip hop steps?!?
Written November 13th, 2018
Sue is correct, we’ve written quite a bit about eccentric viewing. Here’s the link to all the pages on our website that refer to it. When you do a search like this, the pages are in reverse chronological order (most recent at the top)–>https://mymacularjournal.com/archives/tag/eccentric-viewing