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.

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

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.

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.

As for that array of glasses — I’ve been buying lower prescription glasses from zennioptical, and they work out quite well.  Great bang for the buck.

As for contacts, I haven’t worn them in about two months now, and that redness that my Oasys contacts gave me is still around.  Thanks again, Acuvue and the optometry community which apparently doesn’t bother to read between the lines when looking at research studies! You guys have been great in making me realize that I can’t trust optometrists since the more expensive the product they suggest/prescribe, the more they make and thus have much less short-term incentive to ensure that “new products” are actually GOOD for the patient (hello, conflict of interest and poor quality of care!)!

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.

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.  I don’t recommend getting their clip-on sunglass accessory.  They aren’t dark enough and do look rather dorky when you can see straight through to the frame underneath.  So without the sunglass accessory?  $15.  Seriously cheap.

Ready?

Dress warmer.

I know, it sounds stupid and obvious and perhaps not even applicable, but I have a theory about sneezing that I developed as a result of extensive international and domestic travel in different seasons and still getting the same allergy symptoms of uncontrollable sneezing, runny nose, and misery no matter the locale.  My theory is that big temperature changes in general and big temperature differences on different parts of the body cause me to sneeze.

Starting at around the age of 20 (I’m now 26), I started getting seasonal allergies.  I remember going outside on a warm spring day for a hike with my mom and sneezing so bad that we had to just give up and go back home.  I lived in Japan for a bit, and while there, I had sneezing fits all the time, and antihistamines did only so much.  I’d still get the sneeze fits and the runny nose in the morning and all that misery.  I moved to northern California and still had sneeze fits and runny nose and misery.  I visited New York and had sneeze fits, et. al.  No medicine helped anymore!  Last year, I went on a trip to Italy with my significant other, and I had a sneeze fest there, too.  It was windy everywhere we went, and the air was full of those white tufts that fly around Europe in spring, and I thought that it was dust and pollen and the other cast of characters responsible.  I took some antihistamines there, and that didn’t really provide much relief.  I used the neti pot touted by Oprah and that still didn’t do it.

I finally started thinking about what my parents had told me for my entire life — that putting on warmer clothes stops sneezing.  I learned in elementary school at some point that sneezing was the exclusive domain of allergies, so I never listened when I was younger.  Grown up and at my wit’s end I decided to just dress warmer before going to bed and to keep warm when I got up in the morning.

BOOM.  No sniffling.  No runny nose.  No misery.  No sneezing.  Whoa.  So I’ve applied this to every season and have come in hindsight to realize that the common denominator in my allergy fits in the past were probably a result of under-dressing.  On my trip in Italy, it was fairly warm, but gusts of cold wind kept blowing in on my naked shorts-wearing legs and my t-shirted arms, and I’d start sneezing.  In Japan, in the summer, I’d try to wear as little as possible to keep cool in the humid heat, but I’d sneeze like crazy with big temperature changes (e.g. outdoor to indoor transition and vice versa).  In LA, it was always warm, but you’d be surprised how cool one’s skin gets when it isn’t covered.

These days, I dress warm for bed and warm for the morning, and even if it’s warm outside, I wear pants and long sleeves.  If it’s really warm, I carry around a jacket for the inevitable sneeze fit.  I do a lot of thrift store shopping, and I used to sneeze a lot in those dusty little stores.  Now, as soon as I feel a sneeze coming on, I put on a coat (generally mine, but one off the rack would obviously do just as well!) get warm, and the urge to sneeze disappears. The dust doesn’t even seem to be a factor.  It’s amazing how cold one’s skin gets when it isn’t covered.

I don’t know if this will work for everyone, but it’s worked for me, and this little bit of old folks’ wisdom rings true for me.  I should’ve just listened to my parents!

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.

“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.”

“When a lens remains on the eye for a long, continuous period, metabolic debris, including CO2 and lactate, forms under the lens. With insufficient tear exchange, especially without daily lens removal, these and other waste products accumulate. Exotoxins produced by normal eyelid flora may also accumulate and are effective in inciting inflammatory reactions.

So, how do higher Dk materials designed for continuous wear improve removal of post-lens ocular waste? They don’t! I see this as a problem with how some manufacturers position silicone hydrogel lenses to practitioners, as well as to consumers. Although oxygen transmission is crucial for successful lens wear, it’s not the only factor. Good physiology, comfort, handling, vision and convenience are also important, if not more so. Unfortunately, high oxygen transmission doesn’t guarantee that the lens adequately meets all these criteria.”

Bravo to this optometrist for seeing through a whole lot of marketing mumbo-jumbo!

Though it’s got a bit of jargon to sift through, you can read the entire piece here (PDF) or here (HTML).

For those in the San Diego area looking for an optometrist who won’t try to stuff you into silicone-hydrogels, you can try Dr. Chou (full disclosure: I only know that he is in San Diego because it says so in the article. I’ve never had any contact with the guy.).

His bio:

Dr. Chou is a partner at Carmel Mountain Vision Care, a group optometric practice in San Diego. A graduate of UC Berkeley School of Optometry, he completed fellowship training in refractive surgery management at Jules Stein Eye Institute, UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Chou has authored over 50 eye care manuscripts including the book, Spanish Terminology for the Eyecare Team. He received the Nuemueller Award in Optics from the American Academy of Optometry and is on the editorial board for Review of Contact Lenses.

Dr. Chou is a consultant to CooperVision, Ophthonix, and the California Board of Optometry.