And the circle is complete.Originally Posted by Chris Ryser
And the circle is complete.
Sounds awesome. Thanks Chris
How on earth has this thread continued for so long? Is blue light blocking the new "are you giving out PD"?
Annie, it must be. My original post back in early August was simply to introduce a new product. One that is not sold at chains. One that is not available from online merchants. Rather than see this as an opportunity, a handful of members chose to pick apart everything about it. I was shocked and dismayed at the lack of professionalism. I was lectured on how to be a good rep (giving away free products) and accused of using "weasel" words if not outright lying.
Years ago, maybe 2000-2001 at an OAA meeting, I defended our forum when it was described as a "bunch of wackos and nut-jobs". I've done everything I promised in that original post. I've supplied multiple pictures as requested and have still been met with rude and unprofessional comments from members who question my veracity, even though they admit to never having the product in hand.
I can only assume that the problem is with me, not the product. So to end this discussion, do you give out PDs?
I've read most of this thread, although I'll admit some of the more techy crap I've skimmed over. Quite frankly, it's been a bunch of weenie wagging about who's science is more sciency.
As to the PD question, I do what my employer tells me to do. I currently am not giving them out, for free or for a price.
If one day I own the zoo and run it, I think that there are arguments that are very valid on both sides. The reality to all things optical is this: While our jobs are based on science, our products rely heavily on the perception of our patients. Therefore everything we do is really magic, and sometimes the magic works, sometimes not, and we roll with the punches and adapt to each individual patient.
+1
Well, you see it's like this. The topic really has very little impact on the visual system of the patient.
It does, however have an immense impact on the egos of all those erudite respondents to something that most of them have apparently never seen. It sort of reminds me of the good old College days sitting around with a jug of cheap wine and a bag of Appleton Gold Kush debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Personally, I find discussions, and I use the term loosely, of this nature to be very amusing.
As to the PD thingy, you got much bigger fish to fry.
You can pooh pooh the threat of artificially strong and and near blue visible light sources on the retina (premature apoptotic cell death) and on the circadian sleep cycle (general health damage from too little sleep), but I think the jury is in on those scientifically, and I'm using that jury information to help keep my patients as healthy optically as I can. If I happen to make a few bucks doing it, I'll sleep just fine doing so.
Well, If you are taking care of your patients then I hope you are making sure that they are all eating an all organic diet full of all of the vitamin/mineral supplements that we as a nation are missing. And Free Range only meat and wild caught fish. Why not sell supplement in your office too. That will also make you a few bucks.
Are you also preparing them for an impending apocalypse? You should have a side business selling shelf stable food and prepper gear. That will also give you added income.
Fear will make them buy anything.
No I do not sell any supplements and never have. However, I freely give nutritional advice when appropriate or when asked for it.
My most common nutritional advice is to eat at least one whole egg per week. Why? Because the yolk is loaded with more zeaxanthin than you can get from a whole bottle of expensive supplements that contain it. I have lots of vegetarians in my practice, but most of them are ok with 1 egg a week for macular health.
But I also don't sell eggs. I'm an optometrist. I do eye care and fit vision corrective and protective devices. That's all I do. I also don't cotton to apocalyptic or conspiracy theories. I'm a Californian.
Pooh, pooh.
I received a Conant UV++ sample kit the other week. The lenses have, unsurprisingly, a noticeable color cast when placed on a piece of paper. However, as mentioned previously, the cast is comparable to an unactivated Transition lens. It's also very comparable to a SeeCoat Blue with paper backing (but without any of the blue reflection, obviously).
Unscientific but noteworthy anecdote: when shining a blue laser through the UV++ lens, the laser loses probably ~20-40% intensity, whereas when shone through a SeeCoat Blue there's no noticeable change in intensity.
Regardless of potential ARMD and all the rest, this new in-monomer technology has anti-blue reflective coatings beat, even if just for the lack of any blue reflections.
Yeah, the Conant rep gave me one of those. Careful, that's a real LASER putting out real UV as well as Blue and Violet visible. I'm amazed they are giving those out like candy. If a kid aimed one of those at someone's eye for a while there could be hell to pay. And if you must use them for demo purposes, make sure the REFLECTED laser radiation is also directed away from all eyes.
I have compiled all of the available published studies, and am trying to dig up unpublished ones, but have found grave errors in most of them (most don't accurately identify either the intensity or the exact frequency they tested with, "Blue" is very vague). I do recommend Blue Light reducing products, but not to prevent a specific disease like but to improve clarity and depth perception, which they do very well.
Vastly better studies are needed really to determine a health benefit to any of these products, because our bodies own systems for dealing with harmfull light of all spectrums have not been assessed at all, and barely identified.
But the one glaring exception is post IOL patients, who have their crystalline lens replaced with a clear IOL with no Melonin or yellowing from aging. They remain to me the group at greatest potential risk.
Thereblue / UV++ is the only product that is both highly effective, and can be worn at night. Products that only block 20% or less of Short Wave Blue are not very effective when simply turning down the brightness can have a great net benefit, at far lower cost. Blue-Tech remains effective, but is best in a clip-on that can be removed.
Sunglasses are simply the greatest tool anyone has to reduce the greatest source of Blue Light exposure, and those also remain sadly untested, but its where we should begin our Blue Light reducing dialogue.
Where blue light is being mentioned more and more these days, is there anyone that can point me in a direction to where I could study up on it? Somewhere reliable that isn't backed by any major lens manufacturers.
Sharpstick, my hero.
I think it's good to be skeptical.
1. We don't really, really know what "blue light" (undefined) does to the eye, as a population. That study would be immense. Case-specific, well, yeah, there could be a justification. But that's not the marketing plan.
2. We can't really easily test "blue light" blocking in most offices, and we have to rely on others. We sure could use spectrometers.
3. Anything marketed as having to do with "digital devices" is automatically in the skeptical category, in my book. Good gravy, we'll look back on this time and laugh at ourselves, someday. Remember all the "buzz" about electricity at the turn of the century? (I'll bet Chris and Judy do...)http://thequackdoctor.com/index.php/...ctrical-cures/
Last edited by drk; 10-06-2015 at 12:50 PM.
I try not to be skeptical, but I do like to remain on the cautious side in new stuff like this. Blue light may very well be bad for us. Time and more studies will tell. In the mean time I will offer the product if I have a client that insists on it. What could it hurt I figure. At least I never got on the bandwagon of the 'full spectrum lens" Signet put out in the early 80's or so. (Some doc convinced them that the human eye benefited from "All of God's light rays".)
This thread makes me blue.
Not in the first year. Most AMD is diagnosed behind old, yellowed media!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19901205
They may have been on to something. HEV light may be good for us.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9160021Despite analyses stratified by sun sensitivity, sun exposure was greater in control subjects than in cases with AMD.
Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. - Richard P. Feynman
Experience is the hardest teacher. She gives the test before the lesson.
trying to dig up unpublished ones, but have found grave errors
asking Google " amount of scientific studies on blue light damage ?" I got:
About 25,100,000 results (0.37 seconds)
You are getting way too many results because of your query style. You should enclose any phrase for which you want exact matches in double quotes. For example, query google with "Blue light damage" with quotes will ONLY return hits that contain that exact phrase and will eliminate a lot of garbage, in this case dropping the returns to less than 30,000 hits. Alternatively, you might want to make use of the Search Tool button just below your query line and specify a time frame such as "past year" or a custom time range, instead of having google search "all time" back the beginning of google.
You are right Bill, I am very familiar with what you are saying, but I wanted to get the highest number possible in this case to answer the original post.
I have compiled all of the available published studies, and am trying to dig up unpublished ones, but have found grave errors in most of them (most don't accurately identify either the intensity or the exact frequency they tested with, "Blue" is very vague).
But 25 million is not really a manageable number for anyone I know of. Referring to his original post, I just typed in: Unpublished blue light vision
and that going back to the beginning of time Google only returned some 630K; manageable? maybe for a guy who claims he's found ALL the published ones. I've found that for most google queries and really any database queries, fewer words are better than more words.
First we came up with a UV protection that protected 100%
Beside the Google I have been looking into blue light protection since 1984 and seen plenty of reports on it ever since.
First we came up with a UV protection that protected 100% when everybody used products that just went to 380 nm because the lenses did not have the yellowish tinge, and then 1985 we came up with a full blue blocker that totally protected right up to 525 nm. And now this is all the latest fad in technology.
Not quite. The latest fad is reducing the VISIBLE BLUE radiation. UV protection is well known and well understood, as you state. Total blue blocking is also well known and understood in the realm of sunglasses. It's that pesky visible blue blocking while being wearable in public is the new problem. I mean who wants to wear strongly blue reflectors and/or deeply yellow colored lenses in public?
Not me
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