The tendency for the vision to regress after
an apparently successful operation will come as
no surprise since after all, every bit as much as
wearing glasses, the operation amounts to
suppressing the symptom (the poor sight) without,
as Dr. Bates would say, addressing the underlying
habit of mind which has caused the problem in the
first place. But the point for most of the people
who would argue that the operation is 'easier' is
precisely that they do not want to alter their
habits of mind and it is this that is cloaked in
all the excuses about 'not having time, boring
exercises' &c.
Coverage of the Question in both the general
and professional press is, as would be expected,
mixed. Many of the women's magazines and some of
the dailies seem to take their copy directly from
the publicity brochures and hype the procedure as
reliable, cheap, instant and an effort free
solution. This is not only cruel, since a very
large number of the people who enquire will be
deemed unsuitable: too high an error of
refraction, unsuitable personality... but also
reckless since it creates a frame of mind which
is all too likely to sign up for the operation
without carefully considering that off-putting
small print.
The results of this are brought out by an
article in the Sunday Times4 which
says, among other points of interest:
"Studies suggest that
up to one in five patients undergoing the
treatment is left shortsighted or with
worse problems ranging from blurred
vision to scarring." A former
Moorfields surgeon, Brett Halliday, is
quoted as follows:
"The
history of eye surgery is littered
with operations that have been taken
up enthusiastically and then
abandoned when the long term results
are known." A patient is quoted:
"At
first it was brilliant then, after
about a month, the vision in the eye
suddenly -went back to where it was
before."
A
second attempt produced little
improvement. She spent £1300 on the
operation and an extra £200 on
special contact lenses.
|
That £1300 would have bought an awful lot of
Bates lessons, every book ever written on vision
education and a few good dinners. To a pupil who
would undertake to spend £500
on lessons, attend regularly and follow up
diligently all instructions, I think I could just
about guarantee that there would be "some
improvement in their vision" and that "a
proportion may be theoretically treated [by
the Bates method as opposed to PRK] to reduce
their myopia to a level which would make them at
least semi-independent of refractive aids."
3
This is as far as the College of
Ophthalmologists will go in
promising benefit from this expensive and
dangerous procedure, yet Bates teachers and other
vision educators can expect no end of defamation
if they ‘fail’ to produce 100 % success
every time, from pupils who (perhaps) cancel
lessons, don’t turn up, are too busy to
practise etc.
More . . .
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