IZON Wavefront Prog. Lenses:Post your experience

[Metronome]

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[j.west]

thanks for the report cory

this kind of suggests, to me, that perhaps myopia may sometimes be a result of the eye "over-minusing" itself, to compensate for lack of clarity due to higher abberations?

Just a thought.

It certainly explains why myopes are so easily overminused

allergies, watery mucousy eyes, certainly must cause some variance that would result in minor abberrations?

[rob.optician]

I started this thread many moons ago and promised an update, then completely forgot!


Two Izon reps. came to our office and set up the equipment for a day. Every staff member (5 of us) and a few patients all used the equipment that day. We were told that those of us who were candidates would all get a pair of Izon lenses so we could see the difference...well after that day we never heard from Izon again. They were very friendly when they were here. I may have thrown them off by pulling out the posts from this message board that I printed out - just to try to get answers to these questions that we're all raising, I don't think they anticipated that happening. One of the reps. we have known for a very long time...so it was surprising that we never heard from either of them again. No follow-up calls to see if we were interested in purchasing the equipment. No lenses. Nothing. They would not return any calls.

In their defense I have to say I do not know what happened...maybe they both quit Izon - maybe there were other issues going on within the company that caused us to fall in the cracks and be forgotten? I know that can happen sometimes. So, no hard feelings to them b/c there are many practices out there that have had different experiences.

I have talked with a few people that have tried the lenses and they have all said the same thing: They are good - but not $300-$400 more good.

Unfortunately that is the best update I can give you...that's the extent of "my experience" with Opthonix/Izon. :)

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[rob.optician]

I received a very pleasant and professional phone call from a representative from Ophthonix/Izon a couple days ago. Turns out, I had the facts wrong - if you do not order the equipment - you do not get to try the Izon lenses for free.

So...this whole time I've been waiting to try the lenses out to see if I liked them, but since we decided not to purchase at this time - we will not be receiving a pair of lenses.

Thanks to Ophthonix for following up on my post! :)

[DR.P]

Please use this thread to post your experience dispensing the Izon Wavefront Guided Progressive Lenses.

This product is a large investment for any office and if those opticians that have dispensed these lenses could post their experience it would be a great help to the rest of us.

How are patients responding to the new "custom" design?


I have had the unit since September. I have dispensed well over 150 pair.



Can the patients actually see a difference in these lenses compared to their old prog. lenses since the Izon corrects multiple distortions?


I take each and every patient into the exam room with both pair of glasses.
In most cases the Rx varies by a miniscule amount. That is why I feel there is a very fair comparison.

What are you selling them for? How are patients responding to that price point?

I sell SV for $300 and Progressives for $600.
This has not been a sticking point for a single patient. It is a sticking point for me. Amortizing $31,500 and making very little more in actual dollars while paying an "enormous" lab bill is extremely painful. That said, it is at the very least an extraordinary tool for explaining decreased acuity in one eye versus another eye with identical prescriptions.

What about how long they take to get (4 weeks)? and what if you have to remake the lens, is that taking another month?

Our turn time is between two and three weeks. When one goes bad, as it has on occassion, they turn the next lens a bit more quickly. You should hear some of the complaints. I repeat, they are few and far between. I have had five failures in the entire seven months and those were "MY FAULT" I tried to put them on patients who were not happy with anything.
Big mistake. You all have had such patients. But since the first month I have had not one failure. Two or three bizarre reports from patients...."I have to look up in the superior nasal corner to see, but boy is it clear. Remake the lens and its perfect.

Overall, how has the Izon lenses and the Aberometer affected your office?

My revenues were up last year by many, many tens of thousands of dollars.
Selling a $600 lens and almost requiring a new frame because I want IZON to cut and edge it (and believe me, they use a pretty slippery coating, don't try this if you have an old edger).
You also don't put this lens into a $3.95 frame. So the average pair goes out of my office at are you all sitting down....$1000. and I have sold more than 150 of them. Friday I sold two and had the opportunity to sell two more. The problem was the abberations were so minimal that the company did not want to make them for fear the patient would not benefit.

NOW on to that letter.
I of course received it. Everyone who owned one received "it". I believe that there is "some" truth in "some" of the statements made in the letter.
The company has never brought a training film to demonstrate exactly how this works. I personally spoke to the head honcho a few weeks ago.
I personally heard some things that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

That said, whatever they actually do to the lens, it works!
I have had a patient come from Alaska who is extremely anal and pleased.
I have a patient who came from Costa Rica...a Lasik failure...says he can finally drive at night.

I really don't know if its snake oil, but it has made some otherwise unfixable patients happy! Placebo? If it is, its a darn good one.

Feel free to e-mail me privately, I keep no secrets.

Allan J. Panzer, O.D.

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[DR.P]

Many of the Rxs are for Single vision so there is no way to put the patient into a Zeiss to compare.
My patient from Alaska only bought two pair of Single vision. His response was that the night vision was a considerable improvement.
I have considered doing a side by side comparison with Zeiss or Varilux physio 360. I guess I am suprised that Zeiss or varilux haven't approached any of their accounts to conduct the Pepsi Challange.
Darrell, wanna give it a go?
Allan

[AWTECH]

Many of the Rxs are for Single vision so there is no way to put the patient into a Zeiss to compare.
My patient from Alaska only bought two pair of Single vision. His response was that the night vision was a considerable improvement.
I have considered doing a side by side comparison with Zeiss or Varilux physio 360. I guess I am suprised that Zeiss or varilux haven't approached any of their accounts to conduct the Pepsi Challange.
Darrell, wanna give it a go?
Allan

I am sure that the low volume that I-Zon is producing, (compared to a large lens company), does not give a large company such as Zeiss or Essilor any reason to do such a comparison.

There is limited upside in giving away expensive products. By doing such a comparison it actually helps I-Zon only. If all of the business that I-Zon currently has were to switch to Essilor, (for example), Essilor would not even know this had happened.

[rdcoach5]

DRK, The "diopter" is a unit of measurement based on curvature. Only the second-order wavefront aberrations, which are comparable to sphere and cylinder errors, can be strictly expressed in terms of curvature. Curvature is related to the second derivative of the wavefront height. (Though in the popular Zernike series used for expressing wavefront aberrations, each order includes some lower-order terms, as well.) Higher-order aberrations involve terms with higher derivatives, so the terms would involve D/mm, D/mm^2, etcetera.

It is also possible to express wavefront errors in "equivalent" diopters. Essentially, this equates the root-mean-square (RMS) wavefront error of the higher-order wavefront errors at a given pupil size to an equal RMS wavefront error of the second-order errors, only. Since the second-order errors can be expressed in terms of diopters, this allows you to express all of the wavefront errors in "equivalent diopters." However, the effects of the higher-order aberrations on vision aren't the same as the effects of the second-order aberrations, so this approach isn't especially meaningful...

Darryl, just out of curiousity of a non- mathematician, is there any level of math at which you are not proficient? String theory, anything?
Bob Taylor

[Darryl Meister]

Darryl, just out of curiousity of a non- mathematician, is there any level of math at which you are not proficient?

I was a mathematics and computer science major in college, so I have a bit of an advantage. Of course, some of the physicists and mathematicians in our R&D department have forgotten more than I'll ever know on the subject!

[au]

Hi all,

It has been for some time for the Izon lens to develop, how is the result?

Compare with the physio or physio 360, is there much difference between ?

Is the iZon lens company only provide these lens (SV) or someelse has joint into the market ?

I check from internet the Izon help a meeting in 2007
checkhttp://http://ophthonix.izonlens.com...ner-forums.asp

thanks all


:cheers:

[optigrrl]

...

Just out of curiosity, why did George come back in April and delete all his posts?

[eromitlab]

Had the zView installed a couple of weeks ago, and we've sold about five pairs so far. I am anxious to see how things go at delivery with some of our established PAL wearers (especially since they were wearing Comfort or Definity).

360 Technology didn't fly well in our office because of the overwhelming clarity over other lenses we dispense (people just couldn't adjust to the design or the sharpness), so I am a little apprehensive about the iZon PALs. I know there's no comparison from a manufacturing standpoint, because it's a vastly different process; however, patient perception is what it's all about and if these people that just dropped $1000+ on new glasses are not happy with the exceptional clarity that these lenses are supposed to have, we're gonna have issues.

Personally, I have done incredibly well with Physio and 360 lenses, the vision is far and above better than any other lenses I have had. I am very curious about how well I could see with iZon lenses, even though I am not an ideal candidate for them (higher order aberrations were not high enough). I am considering making up an exit questionnaire for the patients who buy iZon lenses so I can maybe come up with an idea how people benefit or not benefit with this type of correction.

I am excited about having this type of technology in my office, but I am holding my breath on how well it will do with our patients until I see the end product.

[AWTECH]

Had the zView installed a couple of weeks ago, and we've sold about five pairs so far. I am anxious to see how things go at delivery with some of our established PAL wearers (especially since they were wearing Comfort or Definity).

360 Technology didn't fly well in our office because of the overwhelming clarity over other lenses we dispense (people just couldn't adjust to the design or the sharpness), so I am a little apprehensive about the iZon PALs. I know there's no comparison from a manufacturing standpoint, because it's a vastly different process; however, patient perception is what it's all about and if these people that just dropped $1000+ on new glasses are not happy with the exceptional clarity that these lenses are supposed to have, we're gonna have issues.

Personally, I have done incredibly well with Physio and 360 lenses, the vision is far and above better than any other lenses I have had. I am very curious about how well I could see with iZon lenses, even though I am not an ideal candidate for them (higher order aberrations were not high enough). I am considering making up an exit questionnaire for the patients who buy iZon lenses so I can maybe come up with an idea how people benefit or not benefit with this type of correction.

I am excited about having this type of technology in my office, but I am holding my breath on how well it will do with our patients until I see the end product.

I would be interested to see if you are getting results based on the Abberometer Rx reading being different than the DR refraction or is it the IZON PAL.

[nickrock]

Good point AWTECH. As a technician that performs refractomerty in an office that has an Alcon LADARWAVE CustomCornea wavefront system, I know from experience that nothing will ever replace the the subjective refraction. A machine may spit out an Rx that is definitely accurate but that does not always mean that is what the patient prefers. Many times it will give a cylinder amount and no matter how hard I push it the patient doesn't want it. Slippery slope in Rx'ing objective and skipping the subjective.

[wasan]

[Fezz]

I attended a seminar last Thursday about the lenses. I sat with the CEO. We had a nice conversation. I came away from the evening thinking about all the BS I had heard. My conclusion was that if the evening was based more on how the lens was going to increase our profits, BS marketing gimmicks, card tricks, and testimonies from other offices that use it(authors of some trade rag articles)-than the actual lens----that the actual lens was not that great. I got sick of the vague answers, no answers, and bogus "canned" answers. Might be a good lens-might blow. I didn't really learn much about it!!!

[DocInChina]

I attended a seminar last Thursday about the lenses. I sat with the CEO. We had a nice conversation. I came away from the evening thinking about all the BS I had heard. My conclusion was that if the evening was based more on how the lens was going to increase our profits, BS marketing gimmicks, card tricks, and testimonies from other offices that use it(authors of some trade rag articles)-than the actual lens----that the actual lens was not that great. I got sick of the vague answers, no answers, and bogus "canned" answers. Might be a good lens-might blow. I didn't really learn much about it!!!

How were the suds? Hopefully the evening wasn't a total loss. :cheers:

[Fezz]

How were the suds? Hopefully the evening wasn't a total loss. :cheers:

The suds were OK-until they closed up the bar before dinner! That damn bar closed up tighter than Johns wallet!!

:D:cheers::D:cheers::D

[eromitlab]

Frankly, it seems to me that there is a lot of marketing malarkey that goes along with the lens, whether it's to protect their technology (like a squirrel hides an acorn) or if the sales people just don't understand the technology well enough to come up with clear, direct answers that aren't canned and coached.

I think this technology is a promising one and I am anxious to see how it works out for the patients, although I am also apprehensive about how well it will work on the patients' faces. The proof will be in the delivery I guess. I know from my own experience that Physio 360 does what it says it can do, and the indications are that this lens (the PAL design) is improved but that the corridor is a little more restricted than the Physio 360.

The visual overload that comes from wearing the lenses is also something I'm concerned with, as the Physio line didn't do well in my office. Some patients thought the lenses made things too clear... if the iZon PAL is even more enhanced, how is this going to be percieved?

My only guess is that because the instrument prescribes to the lenses directly and only for the individual the end result is a much more palatable visual experience; whereas Physio (so I have been told and not by someone affiliated with Ophthonix) was designed to overcome the aberrations of the lens materials and making of the lens molds (optimized, yes, but much less specific than iZon), and that the lack of specificity is sometimes not exactly what is needed.

I have some other interesting observations, but I will save them for another time... I'm a little too worn out to go any further. :hammer:

[rinselberg]

eromitlab, Fezz et al ...

Have you perused the articles that are available online at ...
http://ophthonix.izonlens.com/reviews/sci-papers.asp

..?

Just a suggestion, in case you haven't taken a look at these articles.

As the saying goes, "I don't have a horse in this race ..."

[rinselberg]

iZon Lenses ... FAQs ... includes some FAQs on the PAL/progressive option.

If you haven't already seen it ...

I'll "pipe down" now ... unless someone has a response that I can speak to.