Moreover, I could absolutely
guarantee that no harm would come to their eyes,
at the time or in the future, and that if it did
I would take full professional responsibility.
Despite regular slanders by
doctors and others, I know of no demonstrated
case where undertaking vision education has done
harm, except perhaps to a few people who have
caused strain by practising exercises out of
books in a wrong way, or in being fanatical about
not wearing glasses.
This does not even begin to
touch on the fact that with vision education, the
improvement in the actual eyesight is, for most
people, only a tiny fraction of the total benefit
experienced from working in a completely holistic
and healthy way with the mind and body, with the
connection between the self and the world.
An interesting article in
‘Optometry Today’5 discusses the question fully and
concludes:
"Optometrists should
not defend eyeglasses and contact lenses for
their own sake. Patients don’t come to
OD’s office for eyeglasses or contact
lenses, but rather for good vision. If
there’s a way to safely provide that to some
patients more conveniently OD’s owe it to
patients to deliver that to them.
"OD’s also need
to let go of the academic idea that anything less
than 20/20 is unsuccessful correction. Many
doctors sniff at the fact that excimers can only
get within 1 .00D of emmetropia. Patients who are
currently -7.00D myopes would love to be able to
see well enough to find their alarm clock, their
glasses or contact lenses ..."
... to all of which one can
only say ‘amen’. But why have your eyes
scraped with a razor, burned with a laser,
swimming in steroid ointment, and suffer constant
pain and disturbed vision for six months just for
that when plenty of people get that far after 2
or 3 Bates lessons? Apparently because it’s
fashionable, and because there is enough money in
the game to pay for lots of convincing
advertising and to put together very clever
brochures which cover themselves legally by
containing all the facts somewhere, while
managing to gloss over them and convey a
completely false impression that it really is
quick, easy, painless and reliable.
At the same time, the
feasibility of this technique, with all its
uncertainties, underlines the equal feasibility
of what Dr Bates proposes. It is obvious that the
changes of axial length of the eye required to
correct the vision are very small, since only
tiny amounts of tissue are removed. (The text
book illustrations of the elongated myopic eye
are enormously exaggerated). That being so, only
very small variations in the muscle balance will
be needed to produce the same result, so why not
do it that way, safely, enjoyably, and harmlessly
and leave the eyes intact? Or is the worship of
technology causing more than one kind of
blindness?
References:
1 College of Ophthalmologists:
Excimer Laser
photorefractive keratectomy;
Patient
information document 1993
2 Optimax information brochure
3 College of Ophthalmologists:
Excimer Laser
photorefractive keratectomy;
Best clinical
practice guidelines 1993
4 Sunday Times 2/ 10/ 94:
"Laser Eye’ Cures’
worry surgeons"
5 Optometry Today — Insight:
"Will PRK with
excimer lasers eliminate
spectacles?"
Brett Halliday, quoted in the
article, has produced an informative video film on
the subject. If you would like a copy, send D8 to:
PRK Video, Seeing.
P0 Box 25, Shoreham by Sea, BN43
6ZF. If you would like copies of all the source
documents referred to in the article, together with a
selection of press cuttings &c, send £5 to:
PRK File, Seeing, P0 Box 25, Shoreham by Sea, BN43 6ZF.
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