Testimonies of Inadequate Medical Practices in the Eye Care IndustryWell, our societies have reached a critical time in history that we can no longer take our doctors' expertise for granted. For that reason, we will just let the patients have their say.
PeopleAnneOriginally posted
here.
Hi everyone,
I took my youngest son to see the ophthalmologist today and I am feeling so disappointed, frustrated and angry ….
Let me first give you some background history:
I joined the Frauenfeld Clinic program on March, 24th 2014 after my 2 youngest children (Robin,7 and Eline, 10) had been diagnosed with myopia. This made me really worry (it kept me awake at night) about their future eyesight. From my own childhood, I can clearly remember that, once I started wearing glasses (around the age of 10-11), my eyesight only got worse. It made me really sad and at one point (age 31-32), my right eye was at -8 and my left eye at -9 and I could not live without my glasses. I have been wearing contact lenses for most of the time and they were always less strong then my glasses.As I grew older, I made a little progress in both eyes (R: 7.5 and L:6.5).
When, I took Robin and Eline to an ophthalmologist she pointed out that our children “inherited” our myopia (my husband is also myopic) and she prescribed minus lenses (-2 for Robin and -1 for Eline).
As I have always been convinced that there must be other ways to help them, I started looking around for other solutions to prevent their eyes from getting any worse. One of the things I came across was the use of reading glasses.
It all made a lot of sense to me so I decided to talk to my optician about it. He had never heard about it and looked at me as if I was some crazy woman who wanted to try something out that could be harmful and advised us to use -1.75 lenses for Robin (they measured his eyes again) and -1 lenses for Eline. I felt so disappointed when we left because he didn’t even bother listening to me.
A couple of days after our visit to the optician, I came across the Frauenfeld clinic site and decided to subscribe.I decided to try the program myself (hoping this would enable me to demonstrate some improvements to the ophthalmologist so this would then convince her to help my kids) and for the last couple of weeks I have been focusing on improving my own vision.
I ordered my first close-up prescription R: -6 and L: -5 (based on the results of the Myopia calculator. This is -1.5 diopters lower than my distance prescription.I received my glasses on April 14th. Before this time, I’d been doing the morning focus differential awareness and stress reduction exercise; the 2×30′ outdoor activity and peripheral awareness exercise.
Since it felt so comfortable, I have been wearing my reduced prescription for most of the time. They offer me excellent vision for close-up work. I can work on my pc and read without any problems (taking into account the blur zone). The distance between my pc and my eyes is about 55cm (best vision is at 50cm).As I was in between jobs for about a month and the weather was nice, I spent a lot of time outside.Already, after a couple of days, I could notice some difference in my vision: in the morning I could read my alarm clock without glasses, could watch tv (most of the times only with some blurriness) and go for walks with my reduced prescription, could read sign posts, license plates…
When I went back to work, I didn’t experience any real problems with close-up work or walking around the office. I only experienced some blurred vision when I had to look at a presentation on a screen at a distance from me. After wearing my glasses for about 3 weeks I could also use them to drive to school and work.
Just for professional purposes, I decided to order reduced contact lenses (L: -5 and R: -6) and combine these with an additional pair of minus glasses (-0.75) to use for distance vision when needed. It would not be very practical to switch between glasses when I’m working at a client’s side.
I received my contact lenses today and decided to try them out. I was surprised how much more they improved my vision and decided to do a Snellen test. I was surprised that I could read the 20/13 line at a distance of about 5.20 m (didn’t try if I could read it from >5m). With my reduced glasses, I can read the 20/25 line (with active focusing) at a distance of about 5m.
My neighbours recommended me to take my kids to their ophthalmologist. I had to wait for more than 2 months before I could take my son to his appointment, which was today. In the meantime, I encouraged my children to play as much outside as possible, I watched the time they spend working up close, watching tv, playing games, reading, etc …
So this afternoon, we went to see the ophthalmologist. I was glad I’d already made some progress with my own vision. I very carefully (knowing how upset some professionals get when you ask them too many questions) asked her if my son’s vision could be improved (or if we could at least try to just stop the progression at this point) by using reading glasses for close-up work. I also told her about my own experience. Her first question was: “are there any other relatives in your family with myopia?” She then said that the main cause of myopia is that it’s hereditary (so not caused by cramped eye muscles) and that she had never heard of the stuff I was talking about.
She said that due to his young age (7), Robin’s myopia was (probably) due to the elongation of his eyeballs and that this was something genetic (so we couldn’t do anything about it). If he would have -2 than she would recommend him to wear his glasses all the time (this really shocked me).
To find out his true myopia (the genetic one) she could put some drops in his eyes to paralyse the eye muscles so they wouldn’t be cramped anymore. She also mentioned she didn’t expect this measurement to be any different from the one she did today and that this would then prove that his myopia was not caused by cramped eye muscles but by genetic elongation of the eyeballs.
With respect to my own progress, she explained this was due to my age as your vision can get better as you grow older (I’m 44 years and I don’t think that such improvement in vision over a period of 5 weeks can be linked to me getting 5 weeks older). She said my true myopia (the genetic one) might be less f.i. -4. Then why did I end up with -8 and -9 at age 32 ?
When she measured Robin’s vision, she came up with the following results: right eye: -1.75 and left eye: -1.25. At the time of the measurements, Robin was feeling tired as he’d been on a school camp for 3 days and had only been back home for about an hour. He also had a light infection in one of his eyes (at least that’s what the ophthalmologist said). She recommended us to come back to see her on an annual basis as his eyes would get worse every year.
So this is why I feel frustrated, disappointed, sad and even angry! How can I encourage my children to use reading glasses for up-close work if I can’t find an ophthalmologist who wants to give us a prescription? As an adult, I can order my own glasses over the Internet without needing any prescription.
Over a period of about 4 months, my son has been given 3 different prescriptions:
- Feb-March: -2 in both eyes
- End of March: -1.75 both eyes
- May, 14th: -1.75 right eye and -1.25 left eye → how come there is a difference in both eyes? There wasn’t one in the previous 2 measurements.
To be honest, right now I don’t really now what to do next.
Which prescription is the right one?
I live in Belgium and I just think that I will never be able to find a professional who will be willing to help me as this is still a very conservative country when it concerns eye care, medicine, etc
Has anyone of you been in the same situation as me or has anyone some advice for me?
Best regards to all of you,
Anne
DavidOriginally posted
here.
Hey all,
I started the program back in October and had been not using glasses for a bit before that, but wasn’t doing active focus or blur horizon work, till October. Anyway, had my first Optometrist visit in 2 years, just to break the ice and get things checked up from a general health standpoint. Some interesting takeaways:
1. I wanted to believe better, but was surprised how much glasses were pushed and mostly by the assistants and desk folks (they just assume that you are there to get your prescriptive fix). It truly was very sales oriented. I knew this was the case, but thought surely there might be a little more to the checkup than that. (They did take a picture of my retina which was cool to see and probably the most beneficial part of the visit)
2. I cleared 20/20 with both my right and left eye (measure by themselves) with my cheap -2.50 glasses from Zenni optical. Not that this was a surprise as I’ve been able to do this for the last month or so, but something about doing it in the Optometrist office that made it feel better. I did get an appointment for 8:30 am and went for a 10 min walk before the visit so it was good conditions for measurement. I started with -4.00 2 years ago and have only been doing targeted stimulus since October 2013.
3. Even with the reading, my optometrist wanted to pass this off as a case of blur interpretation and some overprescription that he said I was able to deal with the overprescription because of a higher accommodative range, so essentially I was able to deal with a -4.00 because I could accommodate better than the average person…however, this doesn’t explain the fact that -3.75 felt blurry if I put on my old glasses back when I first started…even my -4.00 glasses were not 20/20 compared to my -4.00 contact lenses I used all the time. He claimed that my true prescription was -3.00 or -3.25 which he said he got from when he shined a light into my eye while flipping through the lens settings and that when it flashes back bright that is the true myopia value (axial myopia?) of my eye at the time. Alex, does this seem right to you that maybe I’m -3.00 in my “true” value, but I’m able to use active focus to pull 20/20 with -2.5? When He put it on -3.25 I was able to read 20/15 no problem and half of 20/10. Since when was 20/20 not good enough

? To his credit he was fine with me staying with my -2.50s (that I sheepishly had to admit I bought online without their prescription), but said he would only write a prescription for -3.25 (in case I wanted it) because that was his determination of my “true” value was. Interesting to say the least. I wonder what he will say next year when I’m hopefully -2.00 or possibly lower? More blur interpretation? Maybe I’ll just interpret the blur better all the way down to 20/20

. I just wonder what the threshold for improvement is for them that they no longer could consider it blur interpretation. I know better, my vision is qualitatively (as well as quantitatively) better than it used to be. I also understand that, if they truly believe myopia is not reversible, then logically they have to have another explanation if they want to keep that paradigm.
My centimeter measurements are running in the 36-38 range after I push focus for 5 min or so, right in the -2.75 range which makes sense with my experience with the -2.50. On good sunny days, I’m nearly ready to push to -2.25, but on cloudy days or night the -2.50 offers enough stimulus still. Anyway, a small little update. I’m still keeping at it even though I haven’t been in the program since December.
Take care everyone and all they best with your efforts!
David
Jeanie BraveBelow is a letter (original link
here) from Jeanie Brave to Otis Brown, about her daughter's excessive overprescription.
JEANIE BRAVE'S LETTER:
Here are copies of my daughter's eye records and
prescriptions. You will never know how grateful I am for you and
Mr. Severson. When I stop and think of what could have happened
to Shanna had I not found you -- my blood starts to boil. I have
come to realize that people never question eye doctors as they do
medical doctors. We are all at their mercy and do not even know
it. You have my permission to give my telephone number to anyone
who you feel needs it.
A CHECK-UP BEFORE SCHOOL
Shanna received the new contacts on August 5. She puts in
-10.0 Diopter and is able to see -- she says one mile down the
road. I immediately told her to take them out. After begging my
optometrist to please give me information to stabilize her vision,
he becomes EXTREMELY UPSET. I then went to the libraries and book
stores looking for information but I found only William Bates'
name. I then ordered his book. Next I found Mr. Severson and
finally you in the back of his book. After reading your books I
immediately knew I had the wrong optometrist -- so I nicely asked
his assistance in obtaining a -6 Diopter lens for studying. The
doctor reluctantly gave them to Shanna, telling us to use them for
STUDYING ONLY. I then confirmed the focal status of Shanna's
eye's, by assisting her in checking her vision against the eye
chart -- both inside and outside.
8/26/95 20/20 -8.0 RE -7.5 LE
8/26/95 20/100 -6.0 RE -6.0 LE (Provided for reading)
8/31/95 20/40 -6.0 RE -6.0 LE
9/26/95 20/20 -6.0 RE -6.0 LE (See the -10.0 D prescription below)
Since she was seeing so well on 9/26/95, I told her to remove
her contacts and then come back outside. Without ANYTHING on she
stood 20 feet away and could focus on the 20/70 and 20/50 line for
about 2 or 3 seconds -- then she said it would flash or float
away.
AN EXCESSIVE -10 D PRESCRIPTION?
Prescription by Dr. Bob Smyeth, Optometrist, Dated 8/5/95:
Patient: Shanna Brave, Birth Date, 3/2/82:
8/5/85 20/20 -10.0 RE -9.5 LE (Prescription)