LASIKSOS | Is There a Doctor in the House ? | |||||||||||
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Informed
Consent.
Thousands of Laser Eye Surgery Patients Asking for Help ... with Eye Injuries & Diseases that Started at the time of their Laser Eye Surgeries. If you really want to educate yourself about refractive surgery, I suggest you expose yourself to the sight of thousands of patients asking for help with the corneal disease which onset at the time of their respective refractive surgeries, and receiving little more than offers of punctal plugs and marathon rounds of contact lens fittings. Along those lines, these websites may be of assistance. Similar websites have been taken on off-line, though I have previously archived them. I am willing to make those archives available -- for viewing, not re-publication -- to members of the print and broadcast media. I am also willing to make
those archives available -- in certain circumstances, and for viewing,
not re-publication -- to MEDICAL RESEARCHERS and members of the general
public.
==> The Surgical Eyes Bulletin Board http://surgicaleyes.atinfopop.com/4/OpenTopic
==> The Chicago Laser Center Bulletin Board http://www.lasikprk.com/VisionPlaceIII/bb/bbNOW.htm A Search URL to use
in case the URL for Dr. Horn's Bulletin Board moves
==> USENET Newsgroups, "sci.med.vision" and "alt.lasik-eyes" http://groups.google.com/groups?q=sci.med.vision&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en http://groups.google.com/groups?q=alt.lasik-eyes&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en
NOW OFF-LINE. I wonder if they were bad for business ? As previously stated, I have archived them. I am willing to make those archives available -- for viewing, not re-publication -- to members of the print and broadcast media, as well as the general public. While they were on-line, both online forums provided a valuable resource for persons seeking help with post-op complications, or information regarding the true breadth and extent of refractive surgery complications. ==> Ask LASIK Docs ==> American Eye Center
Of the approximately 150 patients
I have personally emailed with who have experienced bad - and worse - refractive
surgery outcomes, most of them have arrived at their current predicament
via a 2-stage process:
Of those 150, 2 had their surgeries performed by "rookie" refractive surgeons - surgeons with fewer than a thousand refractive surgeries under their belt. There is a lot of television and print media coverage of "laser eye surgery" these days, wherein the importance of selecting a "highly skilled surgeon" is described. Admittedly, it IS important to have a surgeon who is skilled at the mechnics of the procedure, and a surgeon who has good enough vision to see an inflammation of the lamellar interface before it progresses through 3 stages to a condition known as "corneal melt." However, amongst the emails and legal cases I have in my possession, the vast majority describe bad outcomes experienced by patients who chose highly-experienced refractive surgeons to perform their surgeries. Now, it appears, LASIK itself
is getting a bad name, and so the refractive surgeons are changing the
name, marketing "LASEK" and "all-laser LASIK".
BE NOT FOOLED. The same highly experienced refractive surgeons who made deceptive statements during pre-op consultations selling LASIK - the same people who said "LASIK is safe" - are now the ones saying that "LASEK is safe", and that "all-laser LASIK" is safe. Unfortunately, by and large,
these are the same highly experienced refractive surgeons who demonstrate
a consistent pattern of ignorring contra-indications to elective corneal
surgery - contra-indications such as contact lens intolerance.
What COULD happen Versus What HAS Happened. There is an important distinction
here. The "informed consent" form talks about what could happen.
But there's a BIG difference between what COULD
happen
and what HAS happened. For example,
I have found that the staff of "VIP" LASIK surgeon TLC-affiliated Doctor
Thomas Tooma in Newport Beach likes to tell prospective pre-ops what a
GREAT surgeon he is - what a caring person he is. I have also found
that they don't like for prospective pre-ops to find out that Doctor Tooma,
himself, has at least 8 patients on whom he has performed LASIK, who have
experienced considerable damage to their eyes after LASIK. I'm not
referring to people who got hit in the eye by a tennis ball. I'm
talking about patients of Doctor Tooma who were asymptomatic, relative
to corneal disease, before LASIK - patients who then developed symptoms
including the following after the surgery:
If you are considering LASIK, and are presented with a list of complications describing what COULD happen, I suggest you do a little investigation, and find out about the negative outcomes experienced by patients of the LASIK surgeon whose services you are considering. Copyright 2002, 2003 Roger E. Bratt |