IMPORTANT ARTICLE ON ASPHERIC IOLS

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

The current issue October 2008 of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Today has two interesting articles:

1. Aspheric IOLs are predicted to reduce the frequency of car accidents by Douglas Koch MD  shows that moder aspheric IOLs give such better vision at night that they reduce autoc accidents compared to people with cataracts and multifocal IOLs.

2. "Mixing MultifocalIOLS by Jonathan Christenbury MD is about a ophthalmologist that had a ReStor IOL put in one eye and a ReZoom in the other AND HE'S HAPPY. Wow. Don't hear that much.

There are a few other stories by eye surgeons having various types of surgery on themselves.

you can access these at http://www.crstoday.com/Pages/CurrentIssue.php

JCH MD

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

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[JodieJ]

There are many cataract surgeons promoting clear lens exchange procedures, usually with ReStor, ReZoom, or Crystalens.  Many of their former patients have posted on this site.  The increased risk of RD seems to be the least of their concerns; they are most concerned about improving their impaired vision with their multifocal/accommodating implants.    

[Harold14370]

This is from another web site:

"Statistics suggest that the lifetime risk of retinal detachment as a cataract surgery complication in the United States is about 1 percent. That number rises to about 2 percent after YAG laser capsulotomy. It is important to be aware of this cataract surgery risk."

So our friend Dr. Waltz is willing to risk giving 1 of every 100 patients a retinal detachment, just on the basis that they don't like wearing glasses. That seems rather irresponsible.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

yes indeed.

JCH MD

[AnnaE]

Yeah. Like an RD.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

For those interested read also the article by Kevin Waltz OD.  To me it summarizes a lot of what's wrong with some of my eye surgeon colleggues

QUOTE:
" I have always been described as an aggressive surgeon because I have always been more willing to remove a patients's seemingly minor caract than most of my colleagues. After undergoing cataract surgery myself, I bedcame more aggressive still"

I wonder if Dr. Waltz would have stopped doing surgery completely if he had had a bad result.

JCH III MD

[JodieJ]

Dr. Jonathan Christenbury did not perform surgery on himself--he names the colleague who did his surgery in the above article.  In his online advice column where he recommended bilateral ReStors to everybody, he claimed to have bilateral ReStors in his own eyes.  Now he's saying he has a ReStor/ReZoom combination (???)  I just checked out the comments about him at www ratemds com to see what's been added.  There are some new additions, but it seems that some of the old comments concerning ReStor have disappeared.  

[Harold14370]

I thought the one by a doctor who had Lasik done on himself was interesting. He proclaims himself "100 % satisfied." He then admits he has lost contrast sensitivity on cloudy days, needs artificial tears and steroids for his dry eyes, no longer has 20/20 vision, and now needs reading glasses anyway due to presbyopia. Yikes.

[AnnaE]

I know several eye docs who should operate on themselves. They don't deserve any better, and a lot of their patients would feel more "even."

[JodieJ]

1)  The manufacturers of both the Tecnis and the AcrySof IQ provided evidence of enhanced night driving with their IOLs.  (The article's author is a paid consultant for AMO and only mentions their IOL, the Tecnis monofocal.)  The patient education video at www tecnisiol com has more information about this topic.

2)  Dr. Christenbury's name has appeared in past discussions on this site.  He used to write an online advice column for cataract patients, where he recommended bilateral ReStors to 99.9 percent of those submitting questions.  Admittedly, I submitted a fake scenario in which I described myself as an obviously poor candidate for multifocal IOLs.  His recommendation to me:  get bilateral ReStors.  (Another site on which patients rate their doctors contains many complaints from his former patients who really did get bilateral ReStors.)