New initiative in german-speaking countries

[alberat]

Hey there,

I just wanted to inform you, that I started something similar to DES for people in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
You can reach the site via http://tears4you.org

I tried my best, besides regular work, to set up something useful. Therefore I made interviews with docs, tried to present valuable information and also provide a similar product to onion goggles for ppl in german speaking countries.

I would be very happy, if some people could get back to me with some support or advice, because as a lone fighter with no support, it is tough to build something and also maintain it.

Thx to Rebecca for DES and ppl here doing their best to share with positive mood, although it's not always easy.

All the best and

Albert

P.S: @Rebecca: As I know, that there are some ppl. from german-speaking countries on this board looking for support and advice, I would be happy If you can think about a good way to inform about this german-speaking initiative.

[wetEyes]

Are you kidding me??? You have LASIK ads on your "dry eye" page? That is like having Marlboro ads on a lung cancer page!
In addition, you have online pharmacy ads on that page and try to sell these "books" on dry eyes you have written...

It comes across as an attempt to make money while pretending to support a noble cause.

[Rebecca Petris]

WetEyes, please let's be courteous to other users even if you find something disturbing.

I was asked to take a look at this site but I needed to use a translator site which I've never done before. I started but I'm afraid I forgot to go back and finish (sorry Albert!). I did not see the page(s) with LASIK advertising. If you could post a link I would appreciate it.

[wetEyes]

Hi Rebecca, I have edited my previous post and removed the curse words.

You can find a LASIK ad on the bottom right of this page:
http://tears4you.org/Patienten/alle-videos.html

It appears to be part of Google AdSense, which is an application that uses an algorithm to determine which ad is displayed on a certain Web page. In other words, I think Albert has not put the LASIK ad on the Web site deliberately. However, he should make sure that no ads for refractive surguery or contact lenses is displayed on the site....

[Stanza]

Hi, I had a quick look through, as an independent viewer.... the site seems like a nice info resource, there's some interesting utube clps all in one spot which are great when there's enough 'reading' material out there.

There's a list of doctors, which gives people resources in the german speaking countries, which I think is brilliant, we have that on here too don't we? And there's some tips, including reference to Dr Latkany's book on lid hygene. http://tears4you.org/Patienten/lidrandhygiene.html

There's also a bit on how people can make small or large differences to getting some understanding going on how serious dry eye is for people and what people can do - setting up support groups, talk to media/politician connections etc.

Planned is a Q&A page with german speaking doctors. They are asking for volunteers at the moment.

I hope I haven't mis-represented anything, I'm not a native german speaker, but it looks like a nice resource to me for those in german speaking countries (the website quotes that DES affects 13 million in these countries). There are adverts but I didn't see any Lasik ones when I was on.


S.

[alberat]

Hi there,

@weteyes:
First of all: This is a noble initiative: I am doing this besides regular work - with best intentions - and a minus on initiatives financial statements.'

But as I am a privat person and not an official governement body funded by taxes (or sth like that) I have to find ways to sustain the initiative.

While Rebecca sells useful products for dry eyes, I gave Google Adsense a try. From the beginning I blocked all the LASIK advertisements of my adsense profile to get rid of them, because I do not want these companies to promote themselves on my site. BUT as it seems, these companies flourish and new ones are coming out of nowhere. Then I switched to images and I can't see any LASIK ads anymore. However, it is likely that I will stop using ads anyway - like I mentioned they are one approach to sustain a site like this.

The pharmacy ad has the following background: I try to serve people with DES in a good way, which implies knowing that a lot of people just need these eyedrops against dry eyes.
And because that's a fact, I know that a lot of ppl would be very happy saving about 30% when buying these products - so I think that's a very important and useful information for them.

I don't want to dig into these financial things here further, one thing to finish:
Pls see the good things:

There are about 10 clips with docs about topics related to DES on this site - without the initiative none would still be there

So far I talked personally with about 100 eyedocs from german-speaking countries to improve treatment and more ... without the initiative some ppl would still have not found a good doc in their area.

Everyday the initiative gets about 5 e-mails from ppl with DES and I am happy that they have someone to talk to and find information - before the initiative no one was there - you could write an employee from Alcon Pharma that was all.

So that's from my side. No one is perfect, nor am I, but I think it is important that someone actually does something. In this way I also invite everyone to join, make things better and to do something against DES.

albert

[wetEyes]

Hello Albert,
thank you for your answer. I believe your intentions are sincere. It's great that you want to do something against DES and I would be happy to help you. For a start, I recommended a dry eye specialist on your site.

[alberat]

Many thanks for your words and the doc-posting.
If you got any further ideas, you know how to contact me.
all the best