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Welcome to 1800MyEyeDoc.com,  the website of Dr. John W. Elman, Optometrist. Dr. Elman has been serving Santa Monica and the greater Los Angeles community since 1972. By clicking on the navigation bar on the left, you can acquaint yourself with Dr. Elman and the services and products available in his Santa Monica office, including the latest contact lens manufacturers' rebate offers. Certain items can be ordered through e-commerce links in the products section. You can also learn general concepts about the eyes and vision , eye conditions and diseases, as well as eye and general health resources that Dr. Elman would like to share with you, so you can discover more about the many options for better eye health. If your questions are not answered on this site or the dozens of links this site directs you to, Dr Elman encourages you to call, e-mail, or fill out the form in the Contact Us section of this site. Information about the location, office hours, parking and a link to a secure site (NoMoreClipBoard.com) that allows creation of an online Personal Health Record (PHR) for office preregistration is also located on the Contact Us page. You can search this website for a specific word or topic using the MSN Search Tool at the bottom of this page. You can translate this website into another language by using the Google Translator Tool. We hope you enjoy 1800MyEyeDoc.com and check back frequently--it will be updated as optical news, discoveries and available products change, which is practically daily. We appreciate your comments about our website and our office.
WHATS NEW IN CONTACT LENSES?
New contact lens materials seem to be launched monthly. Various brands using silicone hydrogel polymers released in 2005 became available in expanded parameters in 2006, and new contact lens materials and parameters continue to be released in 2007 and 2008. These include Johnson & Johnson Vistakon ACUVUE® ADVANCE™ for ASTIGMATISM, ACUVUE® OASYS™, ACUVUE® OASYS™ for Astigmatism, Bausch & Lomb's PureVision™ , PureVision™ Toric, Purevision™ Multifocal and various new materials by CibaVision. After Ciba's Night and Day™ material, the company launched O2Optix™, and in July 2008, AirOptix Aqua, a Siilcone Hydrogel with special moisture releasing characteristics similar to Acuvue® Oasys. Coopervision launched its first silicone hydrogel contact lens material in 2008 Avaira™, a 2 week disposable lens which has special wetting properties..Ciba launched a toric version of its O2Optix™ contact lens April 14, 2008, calling it AirOptix for Astigmatism. ACUVUE® OASYS™, which were available in only an 8.4 base curve originally, became available in an additional flatter 8.8 base curve in 2008. ACUVUE® OASYS™ for Astigmatism was launched June 16, 2008. Most initial launches of contact lenses for astigmatism have only limited paramaters but the inital launch of the this ACUVUE® OASYS™ for Astigmatism includes a tremendous range of powers: 4 cyl powers, sphere powers from +6.00 to -9.00 Diopters, and a wide range of axes, all with stabilizaton system the company first introduced with ACUVUE® ADVANCE™ for ASTIGMATISM. The diagnostic sets that the company has made available to those who fit this lens is one of the the most comprehensive we have seen, so we often have the exact power match for patient's that previously would require a special order.
Only B & L's PureVision™ and Ciba's Night and Day™ Contact lenses have been approved by the FDA for up to 30 days of continuous wear and we have found that each lens material seems to work differently when we have tried them on patients--some preferring PureVision™ and others preferring Night and Day™. PureVision™Toric contact lenses for astigmatism were officially launched in the United States in 2006. It was the first contact lens for astigmatism approved for 30 day continous wear. AirOptix for Astigmatism and ACUVUE® OASYS™ for Astigmatism are approved by the FDA for 1 week of continous wear but not everyone can where lenses in this manner and risks for infection and other problems increase when wearing contact lenses overnight. Early in 2007 Bausch and Lomb started making the PureVision™ contact lens in a new softer polymer. Even the company has a hard time identifying which PureVision contact lenses are of the original material and which are of the new material, but apparently the contact lenses that DO NOT have "B&L" engraving and have expiration date after 01/01/2009 are of the new material. All of the current contact lenses have generous manufacturers' rebates available on annual quantity orders. Read Dr. Elman's explanation of silicone hydrogel contact lenses and current rebates available. Even more than with traditional soft hydrogel contact lens materials, it seems to matter more with silicone hydrogels what solutions patients used with these contact lens (See Dr. Elman's All About Contact Lens Care Products.).
In addition to the silicone hydrogels there are new 1-day (single use) disposaable contact lenses that have been released by CIBA and Vistakon with special wetting agents to alleviate dry eye complaints of soft contact lens wearers. Ciba's Focus™ Dailies All Day Comfort Contact Lenses with AquaRelease™ are made with a wetting agent that releases moisture throughout the day. In July, 2008 Ciba launched another one day disposable, DAILIES® Aqua Comfort PLUS, which releases twice as much water as the original DAILIES® with AquaRelease™. Johnson and Johnson Vistakon 1-Day Acuvue™ Moist with Lacreon™ , which became available January, 2007, embeds a wetting agent within the lens matrix. Vistakon claims their process lasts longer than Ciba's, because the Ciba process diminishes throughout the day, but all the new materials should increase lens comfort, compared to earlier single use disposables with no wetting agents. The 1-Day Acuvue™ are only available in spherical powers to correct myopia and hyperopia in two base curves, and the Ciba Focus® DAILIES® are available in only 1 curve, but are available in limited powers for astigmatism (Focus® DAILIES® Toric) and presbyopia (Focus® DAILIES® Progressives). When Ciba launched the DAILIES® Aqua Comfort PLUS lenses (available in packs of 30 and 90) they lowered the price on the original DAILIES® with AquaRelease™, making 90 packs of the orginal DAILIES® more affordable than ever. With the manufacture's rebate a year's supply of 720 of these lenses costs only $329.00--90 cents per day a pair!
| AMO ANNOUNCES VOLUNTARY RECALL OF COMPLETE(R) MOISTUREPLUS(TM) MULTIPURPOSE SOLUTION |
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SANTA ANA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 25, 2007--In response to information received today from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding eye infections from Acanthamoeba, a naturally occurring water-borne organism which can contribute to serious corneal infections, Advanced Medical Optics (AMO) (NYSE:EYE) is immediately and voluntarily recalling its Complete(R) MoisturePlus(TM) contact lens solutions. CDC data was made available to AMO today showing that it had completed interviews with 46 patients who had developed Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) since January 2005. A total of 39 of these patients were soft contact lens wearers, 21 of whom reported using Complete(R) MoisturePlus(TM) products. The CDC estimates a risk of at least seven times greater for those who used Complete(R) MoisturePLUS(TM) solution versus those who did not. In the general population, the risk of developing Acanthamoba kerititis is less than 2 in 1 million. By October, 2007 AMO had reformulated its multipurpose contact lens product and it is now available as COMPLETE ® MPS Easy Rub™, essentially the original formual without the moisturizing agent. For FDA Preliminary Health Notification Click here. For entire story and response from AMO click here.
This follows by about one year the recall of Bausch and Lomb's ReNu® with MoistureLoc for implications of causing Fusarium keratitis (a type of fungal corneal infection) and it follows by one week AMO's offer to buy the Bausch and Lomb company. See Dr. Elman's All About Contact Lens Care Products. |
WHATS NEW ABOUT GETTING OLD?
We all can expect that as we get older we will develop the symptoms of a condition called Presbyopia. Read about how this condition develops in the section of this website called How the eye focuses on near objects and read about some of the newer treatment options in the section called Presbyopia.
WHATS NEW IN EYE DROPS?
Over the years among the mostly widely prescribed eye drops for people suffering from the red, itching eyes of ocular allergies were several drops containing combinationi anti-histamine-mast cell stabilizers. These drops include Patanol (Alcon), Zaditor(Novartis), Optivar (Bausch & Lomb), and Elestat (Allergan). These prescription drops were pretty expensive and the good news is that Zaditor has now gone OTC (over the counter) making it more affordable for the uninsured ocular allergy sufferers.
BIRDZ Eyewear
Dr Elman's office is now offering a new line of sports goggles by BIRDZ Eyewear, some of which can be ordered with spectacle lens Rx insert.
PRADA eyewear
Dr Elman's office is proud to announce the 2008 collection of PRADA eyewear is now in his Santa Monica office.
GOOGLE HEALTH and NoMoreClipboard.com
Google Health was launched in 2008 to allow Google's expertise in information technology to be utilized to allow users to create personal health records (PHRs) on a secure online server. Patient's can create a log-in account at either www.google.com/health or NoMoreClipboard.com for information and account creation.
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