Dr. Joseph Allen shares his personal eye health journey on the Doctor Eye Health Podcast, revealing how childhood vision symptoms, such as migraine with aura and eye floaters, sparked his passion for optometry. His path through optometry school exposed him to patients with chronic disease challenges, including systemic inflammation and diabetes. Discovering how diet and exercise enabled type 2 diabetes remission, he experimented with whole foods diet approaches that improved his gut health and eczema treatment. This episode explores how diet and exercise affect eye health and why he created the Doctor Eye Health channel for accessible vision care education.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ How childhood vision symptoms like migraine with aura and eye floaters can spark curiosity about your eye health journey and lead to a career in vision care education

✅ Why diet and exercise play a critical role in managing chronic disease prevention, systemic inflammation, and even achieving type 2 diabetes remission while protecting your eyes

✅ The powerful connection between gut health and vision, including how a whole foods diet and plant-based nutrition can improve conditions like eczema treatment and overall eye wellness

✅ What motivated Dr. Allen to create the Doctor Eye Health Podcast, and why does understanding the relationship between lifestyle factors and contact lenses, eye doctor visits, and comprehensive vision care matter for everyone

Subscribe to the Doctor Eye Health Podcast for trusted vision care education and expert insights that help you understand the powerful connection between lifestyle choices and your eye health.

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Dr. Allen discovers the secret to healthy eyes, and he shares his personal eye health journey with migraine with aura, which sparked early curiosity about the visual system

(04:53) Getting contact lenses in junior high transforms confidence and solidifies positive eye doctor experiences that inspire an optometry career

(08:01) Discovering that gut health issues and eczema were tied to dairy intolerance reveals how systemic inflammation affects multiple body systems

(12:20) Learning about type 2 diabetes remission through a whole foods diet leads to a three-month plant-based nutrition experiment with transformative results

(16:00) Experimenting with plant-based nutrition and increasing fruits, vegetables, and greens improves gut health, skin, and energy levels significantly

(19:58) Early subscribers validate the need for this podcast, and Dr. Allen emphasizes being curious about health symptoms and understanding that the eyes, mind, and body are interconnected

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

💎 Systemic inflammation shows up early in the gut health, eyes, and skin—being curious and proactive about your vision symptoms can lead to significant health discoveries and better chronic disease prevention

💎 Traditional medical training often focuses on treating symptoms rather than addressing root causes, but diet and exercise, combined with whole foods diet approaches, can create powerful transformations in both eye health journey and overall wellness

💎 Personal health experiences with migraine with aura, eye floaters, and eczema treatment inspired Dr. Allen to a deeper vision care education and motivated him to share knowledge to help others find answers about their own eye concerns

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Website: Doctor Eye Health

YouTube: Doctor Eye Health

Instagram: @doctoreyehealth

TikTok: Doctor Eye Health

Facebook: Doctor Eye Health

LinkedIn: Dr. Joseph Allen

Disclaimer: The information in this video is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content and information is for general information purposes only and does not replace a consultation with your own doctor/health professional. In addition, some of the links in this post may be affiliate links, meaning, at no cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Doctor Eye Health, Dr. Joseph Allen, Eye Health Tips, Eye Health, Vision, Migraine With Aura, Eye Floaters, Optometry Career, Chronic Disease, Systemic Inflammation, Diet And Exercise, Type 2 Diabetes Remission, Whole Foods Diet, Optometry, Eye Health Journey, Eye Care

Doctor Eye Health Ep 8 Transcript

What is keeping you young and healthy? And they'd all say diet and exercise like every single one. And. So it made me kind of think like, are these people just lucky? Are the rest of us just doomed to age and have all these diseases? Is this just part of human experience or is there something missing? Is there something that we as, as doctors, as healthcare professionals, are we truly treating a disease or are we just prescribing medications and treatments to like reduce symptoms and delay death?

Hey everyone and welcome back to the Dr. Eye Health Podcast. I'm Dr. Joseph Allen, optometrist educator, and someone who spent the last decade trying to understand not just how the eyes work, but how we work. Today's episode is a little different. Instead of interviewing guest or breaking down the latest in eyecare science, I wanna take you on a personal journey, a journey that shaped not only who I am as a doctor, but a creator, and honestly, as a human being.

I started seeing some spots in my vision. I actually would see this kind of grayish orb flashing spot in my vision that would kind of grow or change shape. Then after maybe 20, 30 minutes it would kind of fade, but then I would get a terrible headache and nobody else would see this spot that I, I would see kind of floating around the room.

Again, still at a young age, I would maybe I'd be on my walk home from school and I'd look up in the sky and I would see these kind of other drifting spots, or I'd close my eyes while I'm going to bed. And behind my eyelids, I would still see these kinda wafting drifting clouds of colors and light and.

Nobody that I ever spoke to about this could understand or confirm that they would see the same thing that I was seeing. And so I think even at a young age, it had solidified my curiosity about the visual system, about what we're seeing, about what makes up our eyes and our eyesight, and then ultimately interest in health.

Uh, because she needs, she needs strong vision correction. And so I ended up getting glasses around that age of eight, nine years old, and wore glasses all the way up till about junior high. And that was a big moment for me because I never really loved wearing glasses. They kind of, not only were they heavy on my face, I didn't like how I looked in them, but they also kind of made me feel tired or fatigued in a way.

Kinda like a cloud, always kind of hanging over my head. Uh, not really like a pressure or strain feeling, but just something seemed off. I was closed in behind, like a dirty windshield. And when I got into junior high, my mother, uh, I've showed this story before, another podcast, but, uh. My mother wanted me to pick a sport because I was very much an indoors kid.

So she brought me into the eye clinic and I got fit into my first pair of contact lenses. So shout out to Dr. Mike Ska, who, uh, was my optometrist when I was in junior high and inspired me and fit me in contact lenses. So that did transform my life because it not only gave me the opportunity, the freedom, I'm not wearing glasses, and that allowed me to play sports.

I started making more friends. That boosted confidence because I liked how I looked and meeting more people. Uh. I think at that time, the most important thing in my life was girls paying attention to me. And so that always kind of solidified a positive experience when I went to go see the eye doctor and I always loved and prioritized my contact lenses.

I realized that whenever they put my, my face behind the otter, the instrument would be asking, you know, Hey, does this look better? One better two, and we're checking for an updated prescription. I realized like, wow, I could really appreciate and just enjoy the crispness of vision and just was again, curious about.

Why was I seeing these floaters and even having this aura after having a migraine? In fact, I remember asking that question to Dr. Ska when I was in high school, and he basically educated me about the existence of a migraine aura. I still didn't fully comprehend what was going on neurologically, how they're tied together with my vision.

Uh, that didn't, and none of that made sense to me 'cause I didn't have the education yet. But I think even at that time, there was this moment where I realized that if I can't understand what I'm seeing or what's going on, maybe other people. Can't figure this out either, and they maybe are also looking for answers just as I was.

I think for all sense and purposes kind of on paper seemed like I was healthy. However, uh, kind of just on the personal side of things, I had been struggling with a lot of GI issues even since when I was young. Uh, and then in college, not only did I have continued GI issues, but then I started to have skin changes.

If I had continuously had a history of upset stomachs. Or, um, constipation or bad, you know, flatulence or something like that. And we're humans. We, we all have farts and, and have these GI experiences once in a while, but as somebody going through college and high school who otherwise would be healthy, that having this constantly, I never connected that this was an abnormal thing, that maybe not everybody has this experience so that something could be going on.

Or what could be causing these issues, uh, until in college, my, my own father, he mentioned like, well, you know, Joey, I, I'm lactose intolerant. Maybe you all, you are too. And so that was the first time I started thinking like, oh, you know, maybe, maybe there's some truth to that. Lemme see what happens if I cut out dairy.

Which I think ultimately is one of those fascinations of why, uh, I, I think I've always been driven to better understand and stay curious about. How lifestyle can affect us. In fact, going forward into the final years of optometry school and then into my residency. And during this time, uh, as a student, you are exposed to, uh, patients, to people that you're taking care of and seeing who have a lot of disease in these, uh, a lot of optometry schools, they're, they're located in cities that.

I, a lot of my patients would have not just a need for glasses, but they would have. Diabetes, they'd have high blood pressure, cholesterol, they had a stroke, erectile dysfunction, they had depression. They're on 30 different medications. They had cataracts, mac degeneration, maybe an inflammatory autoimmune disease that was affecting them.

That I think made me grow quite a bit as a professional and echoes a lot into what we produce here on the Doctor Eye Health Show. Now at that same time, especially in my residency, again, vast majority of these patients I was seeing were not healthy and they were struggling, but I had a few patients who had come in.

And they would be an older gentleman, for example, but he'd have no health issues. He would've no diseases. He was on an not on any medications and they'd be in good, good shape and mentally clear and enough. So you'd have to stop and be like, what is your secret? What is keeping you young and healthy? And they'd all say diet and exercise like every single one.

Right. There's a bit of a shift in mindset. I think that was, that even more solidified for me that, hey, there's more to know about what's going on with the body and certainly in the eyes than just the, the kind of, the classic. Science information that I had learned in my traditional training. And so without a doubt, that I think is one of the reasons why I've always been able to take my curiosity, dig deeper into the research.

Uh, because as an eyecare specialist, I know a bit about thyroid conditions, for example, but I don't know everything. So that's why we're going to be bringing on specialists in things like. Thyroid conditions, endocrinology, diabetes, and other areas of the human body. And I'll just share that early on in my own kind of journey.

And diabetes affects the eye in very critical ways. And so a lot of our education as an eyecare provider is understanding diabetes, the pathophysiology, but also how it affects the eye and the visual system. And they were talking on this podcast about how just with diet and exercise alone, if they caught diabetes early enough, they could not only control.

I started making some changes. In fact, I, I changed my diet. I always thought I was eating a good diet, so I started changing it to include a lot more whole foods, a lot more [00:16:00] fruits and vegetables. I started buying, uh, like kale and fresh spinach and uh, mustard greens and all sorts of different things for the first time in my life.

And I even truly went, I tried eating a true full, uh. A purely plant only diet, like a, a vegan diet without eating any sort of meat or eggs. Uh, I, I tried that for three months. I thought, you know what? Lemme just try it. See what happens. I'm not necessarily advocating specifically for a vegan diet, but uh, as I've mentioned in previous videos, and we will have in the future, uh, there is a lot of evidence for the benefits of eating whole foods and eating a lot of plants and benefiting not only the whole body, but for the eyes.

And it helped with a lot of my, my symptoms. And so that, again, reified my interest in like, Hey, let's better understand this. And so I started even researching more on areas of nutrition and, and how it affects the eye specifically. So again, we are gonna be having some, uh, amazing guests and researchers on who specialize in areas around nutrition and ways we can reduce disease.

As well as prevent disease from affecting things like our eyes and visual systems. But I'll add that doesn't just start and stop there. With nutrition, there's a lot of other things, right? Sleep around, stress, about movement, uh, sunlight, exposure. There's a lot of things going on there, uh, that all affect our, our full bodies and our eyes.

And then as I continued to go through my training and started seeing what was going on with my patients and wanting to find more answers myself. Going online, I, I sometimes would not find the answers I'm looking for and realizing that I can't be the only one having these questions and looking for these answers.

And around that time I also realized that a lot of my patients I was seeing in the, in the clinic, they were consulting like Dr. Google, right? They're going online searching for answers, and I'm like, there's really not much out there in terms of information about eye and vision care. Hence, uh, kind of why the Dr.

The first few thousand people that had started to subscribe and comment, you know, the first four months of starting something like a YouTube channel, nobody watches. So I was just making content and posting it for, you know, four or five months with nobody there. And there was a moment where I even was considering quitting because they're just, uh, I felt really disheartened that, you know, I'm putting a lot of energy and effort into sharing this and learning how to even make videos and, and the audio, the lighting, everything.

But this sort of still brings back full circle of me realizing there's stuff going on with the eyesight vision. It is a beautiful, beautiful gift that we have and wanting to be able to not only. Uncover these kind of answers of why we see and and understand our visual world around us the way we do, but then ultimately kind of deliver this answer, make it available for people just as I wish as a young kid, I had resources like this and sort of just as some closing kind of thoughts for today's episode of me sharing kind of my story, my health journey.

Not only to just trust your symptoms, but be proactive about it, and don't just investigate by asking Dr. Google, searching online or just taking my word for it always. It's important to consult your local healthcare professionals, whether it be your family doctor, or seeing a specialist like an eye doctor, an optometrist, an ophthalmologist.

Anything else going on systemic, because I think we can learn a lot about hearing from other people, and your story might in fact be similar to somebody else's story or may help somebody else who's going through something and is looking for, for answers just as I was when I was a kid. And so, as always, I encourage you if you're catching this over on YouTube.

Leave us a comment, please, down below and something I'm gonna read. Every morning. I do what I call commenting, uh, coffee and commenting. So I go back and I, I read through comments and try to answer as many as I can. Or if you are catching us and listening on our podcast, please, uh, like, and follow and leave us a review as well.

Keep an eye on it and we'll see you in the next episode. You've been listening to the Dr. Eye Health Podcast with Dr. Joseph Allen. For more resources, trusted information and helpful tools, visit dr i health.com. Thanks for joining the community that's focused on healthier eyes and a healthier life. Until next time.

Stay informed and keep your vision sharp.