Anthem Blue Cross raising rates

Well, for those of you with Anthem Blue Cross, you probably already know this, but this criminally greedy company has decided to raise monthly premiums again. My premium is going up 11%. My female friends’ rates are going up over 20%.

A while ago I posted about how I was going to switch to Kaiser, but Kaiser’s application system thwarted me (which is a whole other topic). Looks like I may have to begin the Kafke-esque process once more. In just under two years of having Anthem Blue Cross insurance, I’ve had my rates raised 3 times and my benefits cut to the point where I’m considering getting the barest of bare bare bare bones plans to just help in case I land in an E.R. and stashing away money to become a health care tourist in southeast Asia should I end up with anything particularly nasty and slow.

End of 2008 update on red eyes as a result of Acuvue Oasys

It’s been about 6 months since I last wore contact lenses, and I continue to get big red veins around my irises, particularly on the medial (inside) edges.  I NEVER had veins like these before. Before Oasys, if I had veins appear in my eyes due to contacts, it was lateral (outside) to the irises and never actually TOUCHED my irises.  In the last few days, the redness has started to clear up a little as I have forced myself to maintain awareness of how much I squint while using the computer, and this has — through some physiological means by which I doubt I’ll be ever to explain — helped.  There are periods in which my eyes look REALLY white again, but if I start getting squinty, the heinous veins come right back.  Eye drops have been no use so far, and I’m certain that I am allergic to some of them through some less than wonderful experiences.

If anyone has any input on good eyedrops for this, please post it here!  Best of luck to us all in the New Year!

Drug companies are starting to get their come-uppance

This one is not actually directly related to my experience (though it has ramifications for the quality of health care I receive in general), but I am quite happy to have read this article in the NYTimes today:

Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company, paid ghostwriters to produce medical journal articles favorable to its female hormone replacement therapy Prempro, according to Congressional letters seeking more information about the company’s involvement in medical ghostwriting. At least one article was published even after a federal study found the drug raised the risk of breast cancer.

Looks like Big Pharma is slowly being out-ed for its dangerous ways.  I am hoping that the deceptive marketing practices of the big pharmaceutical companies in the last decade start falling so far out of favor that they become explicitly illegal.  Vioxx, Redux, and — I strongly believe Gardasil in the future — are all examples of a drug approval process that is skewed too far in the direction of “innovation” (and profit) at the expense of conservative, proper, rigorous, long-term testing.

The Truth About Silicone Hydrogels Part III

Well, it’s hit the mainstream now.  Silicone hydrogels are pointlessly expensive. According to the article at CBSnews.com titled Newer Contact Lenses Don’t Cut Infections, studies (that have been sited in previous posts here and here at studymyhealth) have shown that silicone hydrogel lenses are NOT the holy grail they were marketed as.

Finding that the newer lens materials don’t reduce infection risk is disappointing, Dart writes.

Although experts thought that the lack of oxygen getting to the cornea was a factor in infections, the findings suggest that other factors may be more important, he says.

The lenses may reduce the turnover of skin cells on the front of the eye, for instance, Dart says, boosting infection risk.

The studies were funded from a variety of sources, including CIBA Vision USA, which makes a variety of contact lenses. One of the supporting organizations, The Vision Cooperative Research Center, receives a royalty on the sale of silicone hydrogel lenses.

I’ll tell you that what makes me quite glad is that the spinmeisters funding these studies ended up getting burned by them.  Make sure you go to your optometrist with this new knowledge and get yourself back into your older, cheaper contact lenses before you suffer yourself some permanent eye damage.

Re: vision improvement

Just to clarify, I am currently trying out these eye exercises.  Based on things I’ve seen people say about it (see blogger sassisailor for instance or people talking about their eyes getting better at snopes), I have a feeling this stuff works, so I’m giving it a reasonable effort. The mainstream view seems to be unanamiously against the idea that you can do anything to improve your vision, which just doesn’t make sense to me.  I know for a fact that my vision is better at some points in time and worse at others, and I have always worried that optometrists would catch me on a bad day and overprescribe me accordingly.  So I’ve been giving this stuff a shot, and I know that my full strength glasses are definitely not comfortable for my eyes anymore.  To what extent is my vision better?  I don’t have the tools to measure, but my wide array of glasses tell me I’m about -3.75 in both eyes now vs. -4.25 and -4.75 before I started doing anything…

Looking for a LASIK alternative?

My ordeal with my Acuvue Oasys contacts has been a kind of blessing in disguise as it has put me on a quest to solve my eye problems. Well, last week, i came across this interesting site that talks about the use of prescription lenses and its negative effects on the eye. It also has a collection of exercises to do to actually IMPROVE your vision. No money is made off the information provided. No sales gimmicks. Just straight information to help you improve your vision from someone who has apparently done it himself.

From Spectacle Hobby by Jacob Raphaelson, OD, 1961: The bad effects of minus lenses on vision and health have been recognized by many optical men in earlier years, in this and other countries. There have been many voices raised against the promiscuous use of minus glasses at the beginning of th century, and a few feeble voices were heard up to the decade of 1950. In the decade of 1950, the fitting and wearing of minus glasses became the rule rather than the exception.

In the last century, in the land of the Tzars (Russia), minus glasses were sometimes used to evade military conscription. A few months before the appearance for army examination, the conscript went to an optical doctor and got a pair of strong minus glasses which he wore steadily until prior to the examination. He was then sure that he would be rejected on account of his vision. The minus glasses had weakened his eyes and made his distant vision very poor.

Need glasses?

So for those of you in the growing ranks of those unable to wear contacts because their silicone-hydrogels have screwed their eyes (and also for those of you who just need a pair of glasses), I bring you a money-saving device to help you get glasses without breaking the bank.

It’s called the internet!  Over at glasseyes.blogspot.com, a fella named Ira tells all about how to get cheap glasses online for a fraction of the cost of a regular retailer.  I received my first pair of glasses from zennioptical.com and they look and feel good (although I did mismeasure my pupillary distance — I had it measured professionally AFTER I ordered my first test pair — and have already put in an order for another 3 pairs of varying styles and the correct pupillary distance).  Total cost with shipping, anti-reflective coating and a clip-on sunglass accessory?  $20. 

A cheap simple home remedy for seasonal allergies

With all the marketing of the latest greatest antihistamines (allegra, zyrtec, etc.), I thought I might share a cheap, simple home remedy for allergy symptoms with you all.  It may sound silly and perhaps a bit obvious, but I swear it has cleared up all my allergy symptoms (for those of you who have read previous posts, that means all the symptoms that still lingered after ditching my oasys contacts).

Ready?

Do It Yourself kit for people whose optometrists won’t listen

So your optometrist won’t listen to your complaints about Acuvue Oasys or other silicone hydrogel lenses? He keeps insisting that they’re better for your eyes even though your eyes are getting redder and drier with every visit?

Well, rather than get mad at your optometrist for not bothering to read up the research instead of prescribing you steroids and anti-inflammatories, hand over this handy dandy set of research abstracts and let the science speak for itself. If your optometrist is willing to read the barrage of marketing propaganda the contact lens manufacturers send them, maybe they’ll be willing to read a bit more in depth to find out the truth?

Click here to download PDF.

An optometrist asks: “Are Silicone-hydrogel Contacts Overrated?”

An illuminating piece written by Dr. Brian Chou in Contact Lens Spectrum sheds some more light on silicone-hydrogels:

“Like many of my colleagues, when CIBA Vision first launched its Night & Day contact lens, I prescribed it for a large number of patients for continuous wear. Indeed, many patients successfully wear this lens. But an unexpected number of my patients came back, complaining of symptoms such as light sensitivity, redness, burning, itching and foreign body sensation…”

“Nevertheless, certain practitioners have already professed silicone hydrogels as the new standard of care even for daily wear. I believe such a claim is unfounded and mistaken…For the vast majority of patients, it’s still perfectly reasonable, if not compassionate, to prescribe advanced hydrogel lenses.”