General Chat

It seems that Optical Express will leave no stone unturned in their desperate attempts to stop me - short of murder of course, but they missed that chance in 2012. (See Patrick James Green page)

Stephen Hannan sent a lengthy email to John McDonnell MP yesterday, containing information intended to discredit me.

The information had previously been sent to Richard Harrington MP, who strongly supports his constituent Shabir Ahmed, another damaged OE patient in litigation.

Unfortunately for David Moulsdale et al, Tweedledum forgot to mark the correspondence ‘Privileged’.

At eight o'clock this morning, Tweedles sent another email to John McDonnell, "Stephen Hannan would like to recall the message, "Optical Express - Richard Harrington Letter”.”

Too late boys!

This is one of the attachments included in Tweedledee's email:
John has since replied to Tweedles, asking what his purpose was in sending the email, saying that he would be concerned if Hannan's purpose was to interfere in his or any other Member’s role as a Member of Parliament. This was copied to the Speaker, John Bercow.

For the record, the information dug up by OE’s private investigators has nothing to do with eye surgery, is over 20 years old (I was at university), and is no secret - far from it, but it’s totally unrelated to eye surgery, or My Beautiful Eyes campaign.

However, as OE think it’s of such interest, I’m speaking with a journalist later and we’ll see what we can do about getting press cover.

NB: I sent a Subject Access Request to the Royal College of Ophthalmologists on 22 July, so it’ll be interesting to see what other ‘evidence’ OE et al provided to persuade them to remove me from the Working Group.

The Schilling's email was from Alexandra McCready btw. (I'd wondered who the blonde woman was sitting at the back of the court room, and had assumed she was an Optimax employee.)

According to Ms McCready's report, I told District Judge Silverman that I was "patient advocate" for, “hundreds of thousands of patients on My Beautiful Eyes”.

I do so hate being misquoted Ms McCready! Perhaps you should take a leaf out of my book, and record important conversations to ensure accuracy when repeating a person's words!

And, she couldn’t possibly have overheard my comment outside court, because I said it to Russell Ambrose' barrister - after Ms McCready had left! Therefore, either someone else was eavesdropping, or Russell told Moulsdale himself!I

I'll post more from Tweedledum' email when I have time

The worst part is they're blatantly adding good reviews on their trust pilot site and deleting the bad ones: www.trustpilot.com/review/www.opticalexpress.co.uk

Just to mislead people like me who are researching providers!! I'm so glad I found OERML - thank you so much for all your efforts.

I'm going to try and leave a poor review with the expeirience I've had with optical express so far (endless phone calls, hasselling me every which way possible, misleading, etc) but I bet it gets deleted.
____________________________
admin: I normally protect the identity of posters, but on this occasion, in the interests of transparency and for legal reasons, I am displaying the IP address for ‘J-Harlem’, which is Optimax, OE's main rival.





Should OE and/or Optimax lawyers wish to contact me, you have my 'phone number

This is on Optical Express' website:

"20/20 vision or your money back

Your level of vision under this promotion can only be confirmed at an Optical Express clinic by an Optical Express clinician."

---

That is such a joke, how many times have I been told by OE that I have 20/20 vision?!

So let's get this straight, OE operate on you and guarantee you will have 20/20 vision - or refund your money, "come back to us and we tell you that you have 20/20 vision", simples!!

Stephen Hannan, can I have a refund? Your own surgeon told you that I do not have good vision!

We can't win - we get our eyes lasered and are left virtually blind. So Optimax and Optical Express get the cream and leave us patients in a complete mess.
Optimax closes clinics, Ultralase closes clinics - David Mousldale picks us up and lasers us to death again - then we are referred to the NHS...

Sasha get the MP to sort this out......

'David Moulsdale, chairman and chief executive of Optical Express, said: "aftercare is a vital step in the eye surgery process."'

Is that why it took 7 weeks for you to book me an appointment at your Harley St clinic when I told you I had problems?

Anyway, summer is here and myself and a couple of friends wore Optical Express Ruined My Life T shirts to Goodwood Festival of Speed at the weekend. Over 200,000 people attended - absolutely packed!

Those shirts really get a reaction, I must have spent half my day talking about OE and the rest of it watching the racing. Plenty more festivals still to go, you couldn't buy that type of advertising !!

Stephen Hannan, you still have the chance to meet with me...

Now this really is hysterically funny, for a number of reasons!



Not least because, at our Case Costs Management hearing in May, barrister Tim Walker (7BR Chambers) told District Judge Silverman that his client - Russell Ambrose aka Optimax, blames me for their loss of business!

And as for Optical Express offering free aftercare to Optimax patients - LOL!

I'll let you into a secret I've known for the last few years, Russell Ambrose and David Moulsdale are both desperate to be the last man standing.

The pair of them are like little boys having a p*ssing contest - unfortunately at the expense of our eyes!

I wonder, does OE's generous offer extend to my aftercare too

I couldn't possibly comment

www.opticianonline.net/ten-optimax-clinics-risk-closure/

Polly wrote: Having just found out that David Teenan has been elected on the Board, I am appalled. I read his blurb requesting votes and I cannot believe that he is serious about providing 'fair and balanced information' about refractive surgery.

How can this man, who heads this evil profit driven and immoral company, be given any position of responsibility and repute?

Three guesses Polly! The president of the Royal College of Opthalmologists is Scottish and David Moulsdale has always rubbed shoulders (or pound notes?) with friends in high places!

"He is also highly regarded in government circles and his entrepreneurial skills have earned the praise of Gordon Brown, the Chancellor.”
www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stori...private-eye-1-505593

Gordon Brown was my MP and didn’t want to know when I asked him to support me!!

In the study I completed for the Surgical Eyes Foundation, Depression and suicidality were common among patients who identified themselves as having problems. Dry eyes and Night vision problems were the most highly correlated. Around 80% of patients stated being told there was nothing wrong with their eyes. That was back around 2003.

With the benefit of hidesight and the revelations of Dr. Morris Waxler, who was the FDA's chief research scientist on Lasik, it's easy to see that happened. Dr. Waxler has stated that he cut deals with prominent surgeons and industry groups, thereby "degrading the quality of the clinical trials data" (Dr. Waxler's words). This was because surgeons were already using the Excimer laser without FDA approval. When you look at the original clinical trials, available at the FDA site, you see that dry eyes and HOAs were considered "side effects" rather than adverse events. Had they been considered adverse events, Lasik could not have been approved. But there was enormous pressure from the industry. So dry eye and HOAs simply went into the side-effects category, with no further investigation.

This violated the principle of beneficience in the Belmont Report, an historically important touchstone of medical ethics signed into Federal Law in the wake of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and in response to Dr. Mengele and other Nazi physicians (see www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.html ).

To quote the report, "2. Beneficence. -- Persons are treated in an ethical manner not only by respecting their decisions and protecting them from harm, but also by making efforts to secure their well-being. Such treatment falls under the principle of beneficence. The term "beneficence" is often understood to cover acts of kindness or charity that go beyond strict obligation. In this document, beneficence is understood in a stronger sense, as an obligation. Two general rules have been formulated as complementary expressions of beneficent actions in this sense: (1) do not harm and (2) maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms. The Hippocratic maxim "do no harm" has long been a fundamental principle of medical ethics. Claude Bernard extended it to the realm of research, saying that one should not injure one person regardless of the benefits that might come to others. However, even avoiding harm requires learning what is harmful;"

Since the clinical trials for Lasik avoided learning what is harmful by simply forcing dry eye and HOAs into the category of side-effects, it meant that when Lasik reached the marketplace, 1) surgeons who honestly signed onto Lasik would not know how the surgery could go wrong and what it could do to the eye, and 2) that patients would have to fight to get dry eys and HOAs accepted as adverse events, 3) that there would be enormous pushback from industry as this fight unfolded, and 4) that the burden of proof would be on patients, 5) that the industry could repeatedly claim "Oh, those problems have been taken care of by new technology," and on and on.

For the record, SSRIs have been a problem for Lasik patients...they contribute to dry eye and dilate the pupil...that means that antidepressants can actually take the two most common reasons for suicidality, depression, and PTSD...and make them worse. As such, what you might think of as psychiatry's first line of defense against these syndromes when treating failed Lasik can end up being just another deathtrap.

Approximately one year after debilitating Lasek eye surgery, left with clinical depression, my GP diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and referred me for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT).

PTSD is an anxiety disorder, caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events.
www.nhs.uk/conditions/Post-traumatic-str...es/Introduction.aspx

Simplistically, the purpose of CBT is to help you manage your problems and stop them having a negative impact on your life.
www.nhs.uk/conditions/cognitive-behaviou...es/introduction.aspx

The therapist told me that we’d have two one hour sessions to assess my problems, enabling him to plan a course of therapy.

By this time I had already launched My Beautiful Eyes Campaign and I explained that I didn’t think therapy would help me: I wouldn’t be able to divorce my problems with my eyes from my campaign activities.

After the second session the therapist admitted that he couldn’t help me, and I tried (unsuccessfully) to resist saying, “I told you so!”

However, I hope that I helped the therapist and that he learned something from me, because, in my opinion, PTSD is not specific enough for what I suffer. Refractive Surgery Shock Syndrome (RSSS) is a more accurate diagnosis, a term coined by clinical psychologist Roger Davis.

Roger wrote, "Interestingly, the single complication most strongly associated with suicidal ideation was dry eye syndrome, considered a side effect or symptom.”

At this moment I am suffering the worst dry eyes I’ve had since surgery. I woke up in pain this morning and am cutting my working day short because I simply cannot look at my computer screen without severe discomfort.

Coincidentally, I had an eye test at Specsavers yesterday (more on that later) when the optom told me I now have blepharitis, in addition to MGD!!

So, a detached retina and kerataconus excepted, I’ve now suffered every "possible" side effect listed on the (not fully informed) ‘consent form’ I signed. Not forgetting the unlisted side effects!

As with the majority of studies in the US, Roger Davis focuses on Lasik, but I’m sure he will agree that refractive surgery includes ALL (misnomered) ‘corrective’ eye surgery, and most of its content is relevant to ALL patients damaged by elective eye surgery.

I recommend that family and friends of victims read this too, as it will help you better understand the devastating effects so many are unable to put into words:
www.lasikcomplications.com/RSSS.pdf
www.lasikfda.com/index.php?option=com_co...icle&id=56&Itemid=65

I am regularly asked by other victims how I cope, and my answer remains constant; I am fuelled by anger and I am fighting back. And please understand that I use ‘victim’ to describe someone who has been harmed, not someone who is helpless!

Every single person damaged by this corrupt industry has a right to be angry, because it was NOT your fault - someone did this to you! A doctor you trusted to do you no harm!

I encourage everyone to fight back - simple things like contacting your MP, standing outside the responsible clinic handing out flyers, wearing a ‘Ruined My Life’ T-shirt, telling as many people as you can what happened to you, all of these things are cathartic, and they empower you!

And if you are suffering with depression, PLEASE go to your GP and ask for help! Once you fall into that big black hole it's almost impossible to climb out on your own.

There are tens of thousands of victims out there and I don’t want anyone to feel they're alone, so if you want advice, or just to communicate with others who have similar problems, please email:
info@opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk