NPR Morning edition story: Lasik-induced Dry Eye

[willwork4tears]

Any other NPR junkies out there?


I thought people might be interested in knowing there was a story on Morning Edition this morning on Lasik-induced dry eye.

Although my dry eye isn't from Lasik, I was annoyed at a quote from one doctor that she's "never had a patient whose dry eye couldn't be successfully treated." Really? She makes it sound like Lasik-induced dry eye is so uncommon or rarely severe/refractory. Maybe she just doesn't have very many patients. Or maybe her definition of "successful" isn't the same as a dry eye patients'. Either way here's a link to the audio file.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=122360078

[dianat]

When I was still seeing my LASIK doc for my extreme dry eye after my surgery, my doc's favorite line was, "I've never seen anyone not get back to baseline." Jerk. I guess I was his first.

[Guest]

Yup! My LASIK surgeon thought the same thing. Then after much begging on my part for something other than artificial tears, he said "You have blepharitis. It tends to be chronic." He gave me Blephamide drops to use in each eye every THIRD bedtime (Telling me it's the only thing that works, and cautioning me not to use it any more than that), and sent me on my way.

Now that I know more about blepharitis, I don't know why he gave me Blephamide... I always thought it was for anterior blepharitis, which is characterized by red, flaky lids etc. I've never had flakiness, and never any redness on the lids... weird...

/sigh

[Jade]

Posterior blepharitis is inflammation of the meibomian glands. Anterior is on the outside at the base of the lashes.

[Guest]

whoops! I meant to say ANTERIOR blepharitis! Thanks for pointing that out!

[willwork4tears]

Chemia -

They didn't interview any dry eye patients for their take or opinion. Only the doctors. This is a good observation that the story was actually one-sided. No wonder I was disappointed!

[Rebecca Petris]

When I was still seeing my LASIK doc for my extreme dry eye after my surgery, my doc's favorite line was, "I've never seen anyone not get back to baseline."

Fair enough. The others probably switched doctors before the final routine follow-up, so he didn't see them, did he

[Raginator]

A friend of mine (a paralegal) reminds me to pay very close attention to what people say or print.

"I've never seen anyone not get back to baseline".

Define "seen". Define "baseline".

And how does the doctor measure the tear film and determine "baseline"?

I used to be a careful shopper. Now after my lasik procedure, I'm even more careful, even skeptical at times.

[bodryn]

Expertise of doctors

I found a very convenient phrase to live by: Q: What is the difference between God and a doctor? A: God knows He's not a doctor.

Maybe that's why such misleading information, or lack of sufficient information, is out there. Maybe from doctors who themselves aren't the best judge. I saw somebody saying something like: "Caveat emptor. If they ended up with bad results, it was their own fault. They should have done the research." So apparently they think it was not something people should be warned about ahead of time. But if the information out there is itself misleading, and procedures haven't even been done long enough to know the long term results.... I do have relatively mild dry eyes, but thank goodness I have good painless eyesight and can focus clearly. My heart goes out to all those less fortunate.