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Medical Forum / General / Vision / November 2005Dr. William Trattler asks that patients lobby against contact lenses
Contact lenses are DANGEROUS??? With over 5 million refractive surgery procedures performed, and visual quality, corneal integrity and corneal nerves compromised in each and every one of them, refractive surgery must now be the leading cause of vision loss in the United States. Anybody have statistics on diabetes? Dr. William Trattler asks that patients lobby against contact lenses: http://asklasikdocs.com/forum/other/106.html 3. "LASIK question" Posted by William B. Trattler, MD Excerpt: My last comment is to inform some of the LASIK bashers that one of the alternatives to LASIK - contact lenses - can also be a serious health risk to the eye. As a cornea specialist, I take care of contact lens-associated corneal infections on a daily basis. Many patients in the United States go blind every day from the use of contact lenses (especially when patients sleep in them). So please also lobby against the use of contact lenses if you want to reduce the risk of eye injury in the U.S. Bill Trattler, MD Miami,FL Let me chime in. I am not much of a fan of contact lenses either. I guess them being an irritant and drying my eyes out is good reason why. If they were completely comfortable and I couldnt feel them at ALL I would wear them them. Yesterday I wore them for 6 hours. My eyes felt fine at first but they slowly dried out then I was blinking hard and often. The last hour they really irritated my eyes and my eyes actually begin to hurt! I couldnt wait to rip them out! Instantly my eyes felt much better but still a little irritated. When I put my glasses on I experienced spectacle blur and it looked like I was looking thru dirty glasses but the lenses had been cleaned perfectly. The mild irritation in my eyes lasted all night. I never wore contacts much and never will. Maybe an hour or two once in a while is all ill be doing. My eyes are too valuable to let suffer from contacts! I know lasik is risky too and I have researched comparing the two. From my research, sleeping in your contacts is riskier than refractive surgury. Careful wear of contacts and proper steralization of them and never sleeping in them may be safer than RS but not completely risk free. I warn people NOT to sleep in contacts but many dont listen! My own optometrist warns others too. He told me people come in all the time with ruined eyes from sleeping in their contacts. They would have been better off getting LASEK frankly. Truly is lying. RS is nowhere in the same galaxy as this bogus vision loss claim. Trattler doesn't claim contacts to be dangerous in and of themselves, maybe in the hands (and minds) of nuts like Truly. Bottom line is RS is not a "leading cause" of blindness and contacts should always be used with proper care. SErebel Dear Dr. Trattler, I know it takes a brave man to "buck" the "standard practice". I have learned a lot about the "second opinion" from the MDs who have the courage to make a statement of this nature. On a recent post, a man stated that he had corneal erosion. While no one can "prove" it -- I suspect the long-term contact lens can produce that result. I know it is very painful. Something to be avoided. Best, Otis I find it ironic when a group of refractive surgery haters picks on a person (myself) who donates their time helping people with questions or problems after refractive surgery. The best part is they take excepts of my comments or replies to them...and then post them on this website as if I am talking to everyone. Case in point is my recent posting at AskLasikdocs explaining that contact lenses have risks - including blindness. I am currently caring for more than 2 dozen patients with central corneal scars from contact lens-related infections. These patients range from age 11 to age 60. The 11 year old girl developed an acanthamoeba infection from her contact lens wear - and had to endure 6 months of triple antibiotic therapy to clear her infectiom. She unfortunately still has a central scar, which limits her vision. The point is - everything has risks. Of course - in my reply to these individuals (who change their name online so much that I do not even know what name to call them) - I said if you are lobbying against LASIK, you might as well lobby against contact lenses. Obviously my comments were directed solely at the indiviual person - as I recommend contact lenses all of the time to my patients, and lecture on the proper use of contact lenses in patients with dry eye. I think it becomes pretty obvious why there are not more doctors participating on these bulletin boards, answering patient questions, etc. Then again - these people want to get rid of all of the doctors online so that only their voice is heard. Best regards to everyone else Bill Trattler, MD Miami, FL you are replying to otis brown, an anti-eye doctor zealot who believes most eye doctors give people corrective lenses to induce myopia thereby making them further dependent on refractive correction. he actually hints at an eye doctor conspiracy. he took the original post that started this thread and reposted it at his website (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/i-see/) as an example of what evil practices eye doctors are capable of (i.e. putting contacts of patients). he thought the original post indicated that you must be a renegade eye doctor who finally "saw the light" and was advising people against contact lenses. sadly, he is a simpleton. i am sorry that your remarks get taken out of context. yes, there is risk in everything. i too have an excessive number of patients who insist on extended contact lens wear against my warnings. and indeed there are various eye-doctor "haters" who misunderstand and misrepresent what you tell them. and are not very objective thinkers either. best regards to you, retinula midwest OD This is a reply to Otis. Otis - thank you for your comments. I actually was not being brave or bucking the system. The person named Truly (at least on this website and who uses other names on other websites) is taking my comments out of context. Contact lenses are a great device for correcting vision. Clearly contact lenses have risks, but they do a great job of correcting refractive errors. My comments were in response to a person who was bashing LASIK. In my opinion - LASIK (as with every surgery) has risks, including blindness. In fact - I switched to surface ablation 4 years ago because surface ablation provides better quality of vision, less dry eye, and less risk than LASIK (but of course, still has risks). My comments on contact lenses being risky was in response to a posting by one of the LASIK bashers - my point being that if you are expending all this energy and efforr trying to scare everyone about LASIK, why don't you also consider the issues with contact lenses. You can see my actual posting below. The sad thing is that this person then writes a heading suggesting I am making a statement to all patients....when in reality (and the poster knows it)...my comments were directed soley at that person. Thank you again for your comments Bill Trattler, MD Miami, FL Dear Dr. Trattler, Subject: Correction to "Retinula's" statement. I argue for prevention with a "plus" lens -- provided that the person is strongly informed of the reasons for it. I simply do not "bash" eye-doctors, only suggest a mechanism of chage. I strongly support the second-opinion by optometrists, like Steve Leung OD, who you will find at: www.chinamyopia.org It is tragic that some ODs can not accept that there is a second-opinion that can be developed for the prevention of nearsighedness -- and must "bash" me for pointing this out. As far as contacts are concerned, I agree with you. I personally could not wear them for more that six hours. My eyes would turn red, and "hurt" the next day. Maybe that was a "warning" about corneal erosion. In any event, I would caution a person about Lasik -- although when successful it is great. But if not -- it can be a profound tragedy. Thanks for the post -- and keep up the excellent work. Best, Otis Bill is quite correct. CL's have inherent risk to all patients. The thing is, the OD can reduce the problems by appropriately testing and discussing the issues with the patient. The same goes for RS, tonsilectomies and getting a mortgage. Bill isn't the bad guy here, he is merely stating fact. dr grant
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