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Type 1 diabeties, corrective eye surgery REFUSED? Any of you had it?

S

Serial45

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Ok so i've built myself some savings and was looking at getting some optimax corrective laser eye surgery. I called them today to book a consulation and they outright refused me due to having type 1 insulin diabetes.

I have great diabetes control and have no signs of any diabetic retinopathy. They have in effect said they will not be able to treat me as I have type 1 diabetes.

Kinda fuming right now as I was so looking forward to this.

Have any of you had this with type 1 diabetes?
When I've done research other providers seem to say it's fine if control is good.

Thanks in advance,
Adam
 
I had a similar response but not quite so extreme. The surgeon wanted proof of two years of stable good blood glucose before he would do it.
 
The reason is that poor diabetes control will change the shape of your eyeball.
 
I don't know if you found their FAQs on the subject.
what they say http://www.optimax.co.uk/faq/search.aspx?search=diabetes#ikb_SearchResults
' We will not consider surgery if you are using insulin. Please be aware that this is not an industry wide decision but one we have chosen to make.'
It might be worth asking them why they have made this decision

I had a look at pubmed and there seems to be one study from 2005.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16338557
Quite a high number of eyes seemed to need further treatment and this might in itself be a determining factor
a second earlier study 2002 found that six months after surgery that there was a 47% rate of complications compared with 6.9% in the normal population
http://journals.lww.com/corneajrnl/Abstract/2002/04000/Laser_Assisted_In_Situ_Keratomileusis.2.aspx

It's some time since these trials so procedures may be different but I can't find any evidence (not being that well up on it, I may not be using the right words to search)

One thing worth considering is your diabetes control, ie is your HbA1c a 'good' type 1 HbA1c level of below 7% or at a level that is in the 5%-6% region (ie at the level of the normal population)
There are, as you say, other companies that will consider it. Ask them how many T1s they have done and with what sort of success.
 
phoenix said:
I don't know if you found their FAQs on the subject. what they say http://www.optimax.co.uk/faq/search.aspx?search=diabetes#ikb_SearchResults ' We will not consider surgery if you are using insulin. Please be aware that this is not an industry wide decision but one we have chosen to make.' It might be worth asking them why they have made this decision I had a look at pubmed and there seems to be one study from 2005. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16338557 Quite a high number of eyes seemed to need further treatment and this might in itself be a determining factor a second earlier study 2002 found that six months after surgery that there was a 47% rate of complications compared with 6.9% in the normal population http://journals.lww.com/corneajrnl/Abstract/2002/04000/Laser_Assisted_In_Situ_Keratomileusis.2.aspx It's some time since these trials so procedures may be different but I can't find any evidence (not being that well up on it, I may not be using the right words to search) One thing worth considering is your diabetes control, ie is your HbA1c a 'good' type 1 HbA1c level of below 7% or at a level that is in the 5%-6% region (ie at the level of the normal population) There are, as you say, other companies that will consider it. Ask them how many T1s they have done and with what sort of success.
Click to expand...

Hmm seems quite worrying actually that's highlighted quite a few issues.
I've managed to secure a consultation at vision express I'll go for the lowdown on friday and decide from there.

My HBA1C has never been above 7% my last one was 6.2%. Also no sign of diabetic retinopathy 15 years type 1.

Cheers,
Adam
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Serial45 said:
Did you have longer healing times because of it? any further complications?
Click to expand...
When I had cataract surgery they also insisted on sustained good HBa1c for 6-12 months beforehand with a good (ie small) standard deviation. The main stated reason was to improve healing rates and healing effectiveness and reduce post operative complications. I imagine the same arguments apply to corrective surgery.

As I said this was less strict than the corrective surgery guy who wanted two years of stable good blood sugars. But then he was Swiss.
 
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