Despi, our new BackTo20/20-participating optometrist is an interesting case.
She looked at the site, while it was still all “anti-optometrist”, and didn’t take offense. She read through a bunch of things, and asked intelligent questions. She pointed out that optometry isn’t the enemy.
I was truly surprised by her attitude.
Sure, we have quite a few optometrist friends. But they’re all fringe types. They’re either into behavioral optometry, or they will let you get lower prescriptions if you ask them. People you get to meet on the way, that you define as the non-mainstream. Despi though was just a regular optometrist, no previous ties or introductions.
I’d gotten really used to crap talk from the mainstream optometry field.
That’s why the site had been drifting into a defensive position. When you get so used to being attacked by a certain contingent, you eventually just start to hit first. Me in particular, I’d been very coddled by my in-person experiences, where individuals would pay five figures to talk to me, and wait for months to see me. Then whenever some retinal surgeon would hurl insults, I’d just shrug and think, well, another profit sucking idiot who doesn’t bother to take one look at prevailing science knowledge.
Here’s a very interesting observation I made. See if you end up with similar experiences:
1. People In General
Most people don’t care about myopia either way. Tell them that glasses are an option, a quick fix, but there are other ways, they mostly shrug and go back to checking Facebook. Casual interest, with quickly glossing over and losing attention once there’s no obvious quick fix solution.
2. Health Minded Individuals
This category, anyone from athletes, to individuals in the nutrition field, to yogis, people who understand that most food and medicine is designed to maximize corporate profits. Here’s where you get curiosity and questions. Anyone who already had first hand experience with taking personal responsibility for health, is going to look at this topic with curiosity and an open mind.
3. “Professionals” Who Rely On Myopia For Profit
That’s where this site used to have spiked walls. It’s curious how anyone who profits from myopia, immediately goes “I don’t believe it”. There’s no point talking science, or personal experience, or anything else, because all they’ll look for is possible holes in anything you say.
It’s really anytime someone is actively profiting from myopia, that you get immediate hostility.
That’s why I’d been anti-optometrist, till Despi came around.
Curiously, since that experience, and since changing the attitude of the site, we’ve been getting a whole lot more curiosity and positive attitudes. I have to say, interestingly, almost every optometrist e-mail and Twitter interaction has been surprisingly positive.
“I’d love to end myopia too”, is something I’ve heard surprisingly more than a few times.
Check it out:
See? Weird!
Goes to show how Despi was right. And despite my realizing that making money off myopia is a strong incentive to ignore alternatives, my view was way too narrow.
Even though some of these guys, not sure what to think. EyeLaser might get a little complicated, taking the @endmyopia way of thinking.
Dr. Alamri is one of the ones who really need good follow-up, which I’m not so awesome at. There are still a dozen e-mails floating around too, of busy professionals who have the same challenge with making time as I do.
Here’s what we need to do:
Vision health can be a profitable business. You can make money owning a McDonald’s franchise, and you can make money owning a local, organic, vegan restaurant. You can make money owning a gym. Health can be profitable, just as much as being a parasite relying on managing symptoms. It’s a choice.
We need to make that choice more available. You can sell just as many lenses for myopia control, myopia prevention, and myopia reversal, as you can to hide the myopia symptom. It’s just something that 99.9% of optometrists don’t know about yet.
That’s the real challenge, right there.
Want to contribute? Get a bit of conversation started. Refer your optic shop to endmyopia. Send them an e-mail, copy me, for a little intro. Point them at our Twitter. I’ll even do Skype intro sessions to help cover questions and get dialog started.
It’ll be good for you, getting more local resources to give you the lenses you really want, rather than insisting to crank you to the status quo 11.
And guess what’s next?!
Natural 20/20, and motorbikes in Bangkok, and more reasons to get rid of those %#$@ glasses. Hopefully you’re already subscribed to our teensy experimental Youtube channel.
Cheers!
-Jake
