Re: Why the word "cure" should not be used.
Subject: OBJECTION to the minus -- is the second-opinion.
In fact there are a number of medical people who have "objected" to
the
over-prescribed minus.
But a PREVENTIVE solution (like Bates) requires that the person
START with the preventive method BEFORE ANY MINUS IS APPLIED.
Here is Dr. Prentice's discussion about the difficulties of plus-
prevention.
Again, this is NEVER a "cure" -- but a way of avoiding entry into
a negative refractive STATE for the fundamental eye.
Second-opinion best,
=================================
By Chalmer Prentice, M.D.
Transcription (c) A. Wik, 2004
----------+ | Chapter IX | +--------
The following are some very interesting experiments in myopia
which can be verified by any operator, and which prove that
refractive myopia depends on ciliary spasm, and that, even in
axial myopia, considerable repression can sometimes be made at the
near point. In either class of cases, repression must be made at
the near point. In various lengths of time, we shall be able to
reduce the myopia one or two dioptres, sometimes more.
In most cases satisfactory results will require considerable time and
patience; but a few experiments after the following example will
suffice to show that in some very advanced stages of myopia, it is
possible to suppress, or at least check, its onward course by
repression at the near point.
***** This fact renders the fitting of minus glasses to myopic
eyes
an open question. ******
EXAMPLE CASES
Age forty-three; myopia; had been wearing over the right eye
-1.25 D, left eye -1 D, with little or no change for the space of
two years; eyes in use more or less at the near point. I
recommended the removal of the concave glasses for distant vision
and prescribed +3.50 D for reading, writing and other office work.
After reading in these glasses for several days, the patient
was able to read print twelve inches from the eyes. This patient
was of more than ordinary intelligence and understood the aim of
the effort. In six months I changed the glasses for reading and
writing to a +4 D without seeing the patient. After using the +4
D glasses for several months he again came under my care for an
examination, when the left eye gave twenty-twentieths of vision,
while the right eye was very nearly the same, but the acuity was
just perceptibly less.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Similar results have been attained in 34 like cases;
...but the process is very tedious for the patients, and
unless their understanding is clear on the subject, it is almost
impossible to induce them to undergo the trial.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[Comment: Anyone considering "prevention" must understand this
issue. There is no "easy way" of prevention. As Chalmers
said -- the person must fully understand this issue. It is
for this reason that I suggest full transfer of "control"
to the person himself. If he lacks the motivation to look
at the chart, and "clear" himself, then no "third party"
(i.e., OD) can do it for the person. This is why I
separate a true-medical problem from preventing a negative
refractive status in the natural eye. I believe that the
above staement simply clarifies that point. OSB]
[Comment: We also have the "Neil Brooks" effect which must be
understood. (Read sci.med.vision to understand this effect
on an OD.)
CORRECTION:
I am an engineer. In my judgment Dr. C. Prentice was correct.
But equally, some numb-skull SIMILAR to Brooks could file
"charges" against ANYONE who he does not "like".
Neil Brooks posted the "charge" in PA, that he THOUGHT that
my second-opinion advocacy was "practicing medicine".
I responded by contacting the person involved and stated that
having an opinion supporting PREVENTION (say like
Steve Leung) is not "practice". Brooks always gets
confused on that issue.
But I truly appreciate the type of implied threat this
holds for ANY OD who would support plus prevention.
So Neil Brooks did indeed file a "charge".
But what I said was this (and not Neil Brooks) but
some other numb skull:
A few people will SUE ANY OD WHO SUGGESTS
PREVENTION-WITH-PLUS. For that reason, no majority-opinion
OD will EVER help you with true-prevention -- and I don't
blame them. I would not put myself at risk either -- nor
do I expect any majority-opinion to put himself at
professional risk either. But that is why you NEVER hear
about the preventive effect of a plus -- if used correctly.
As Dr. Prentice pointed out -- it is in no sense easy to
use the plus for prevention, and this is NOT a "cure", and
therefore NOT MEDICAL.
For reference for second-opinion ODs read this site:
www .chinamyopia.org
Engineering second-opinion,
On Apr 4, 3:32 pm, otisbr...@embarqmail,com wrote:
> Dear Second-opinion friends,
>
> Subject: The word "cure" makes for a very bad and false idea.
>
> My appreciation of Bates was in his FIRST steps
> of prevention -- i.e., was tp INSIST that the kids
> be cognizant of their Snellen.
>
> And further, the EMPOWERMENT of the kids to
> take the actions that are necessary for THEM
> to confirm their own clearing.
>
> I do not support the notion that this clearing a Snellen
> is EVER a "cure".
>
> It is essential that this work be under the
> complete control of the person doing it.
>
> If you use the work "cure" then you bring the
> entire medical world into the discussion with
> the implication that MEDICINE must "cure"
> a negative refractive STATE for the natural
> eye.
>
> How you "parse" these words is up to you.
>
> But a great deal of science depends on using
> simple and EXACT terms.
>
> Here is Bates discussion about his his
> SECOND OPINION, clashed with the majority
> opinion of his day.
>
> If the person himself had made these critical
> measurements himself -- has seen the results -- and
> kept on doing it -- then this "contest" of
> wills would end.
>
> ==============
>
> Dr. W. H. Bates
>
> Successful prevention rejected -- by people who do not like
> the idea of it.
>
> Chapter 32
>
> Why it is very important that you take control and do it
> yourself.
>
> ==================
>
> By Dr. Bates:
>
> Patients whom I have cured of various errors of refraction
> have frequently returned to specialists who had prescribed glasses
> for them, and, by reading fine print and the Snellen test card
> with normal vision, have demonstrated the fact that they were
> cured, without in any way shaking the faith of these practitioners
> in the doctrine that such cures are impossible.
>
> The patient with progressive myopia whose case was mentioned
> in Chapter XV returned after her cure to the specialist who had
> prescribed her glasses, and who had said not only that there was
> no hope of improvement, but that the condition would probably
> progress until it ended in blindness, to tell him the good news
> which, as an old friend of her family, she felt he had a right to
> hear. But while he was unable to deny that her vision was, in
> fact, normal without glasses, he said it was impossible that she
> should have been cured of myopia, because myopia was incurable.
> How he reconciled this statement with his former patient's
> condition he was unable to make clear to her.
>
> A lady with compound myopic astigmatism suffered from almost
> constant headaches which were very much worse when she took her
> glasses off, The theatre and the movies caused her so much
> discomfort that she feared to indulge in these recreations. She
> was told to take off her glasses and advised, among other things,
> to go to the movies; to look first at the corner of the screen,
> then off to the dark, then back to the screen a little nearer to
> the center, and so forth.
>
> She did so, and soon became able to look directly at the
> pictures without discomfort. After that nothing troubled her.
> One day she called on her former ophthalmological adviser, in the
> company of a friend who wanted to have her glasses changed, and
> told him of her cure. The facts seemed to make no impression on
> him whatever. He only laughed and said, "I guess Dr. Bates is
> more popular with you than I am."
>
> Sometimes patients themselves, after they are cured, allow
> themselves to be convinced that it was impossible that such a
> thing could have happened, and go back to their glasses. This
> happened in the case of a patient already mentioned in the chapter
> on Presbyopia, who was cured in fifteen minutes by the aid of his
> imagination. He was very grateful for a time, and then he began
> to talk to eye specialists whom he knew and straightway grew
> skeptical as to the value of what I had done for him.
>
> One day I met him at the home of a mutual friend, and in the
> presence of a number of other people he accused me of having
> hypnotized him, adding that to hypnotize a patient without his
> knowledge or consent was to do him a grievous wrong.
>
> Some of the listeners protested that whether I had hypnotized
> him or not, I had not only done him no harm but had greatly
> benefited him, and he ought to forgive me. He was unable,
> however, to take this view of the matter.
>
> Later he called on a prominent eye specialist who told him
> that the presbyopia and astigmatism from which he had suffered
> were incurable, and that if he persisted in going without. his
> glasses he might do himself great harm. The fact that his sight
> was perfect for the distance and the near-point without glasses
> had no effect upon the specialist, and the patient allowed himself
> to be frightened into disregarding it also.
>
> He went back to his glasses, and so far as I know has been
> wearing them ever since. The story obtained wide publicity, for
> the man had a large circle of friends and acquaintances; and if I
> had destroyed his sight I could scarcely have suffered more than I
> did for curing him.
>
> ================
>
> By this metod of "authority figure" and NOT
> BY SCIENCE OR FACTS -- this situation is
> perpetuated.
>
> It is no one's fault -- but it is necessary
> to understand why you must take control and
> clear your Snellen youself.
>
> Otis