Transcript

Knock, knock. Hi,

knock, knock. Hi. Hello, and welcome to Knock, knock High with. Dr. Glock, I’m by myself. I’m flying solo on this one. Uh, and, and it’s, it’s mainly because I’m, I’m talking about ophthalmology. It’s my favorite topic, which no one else really cares too much about, but they do right now because ophthalmology is in the news.

It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s like it’s hit the, the mainstream. It’s, it’s, uh, people are talking about, uh, this Mr. Beast video, and I’m gonna give my thoughts on it here in a second, but I just don’t get this opportunity very often. Ophthalmology is somewhat of a black box. I care, people don’t know a lot about it.

And so anytime I get an opportunity to talk about ophthalmology, where people actually might maybe be listening, I gotta, I gotta take advantage of it. And it usually, when ophthalmology is, is in the news, it’s for really bad things. Like somebody decided to tattoo their eyeball and went blind from it. Or there is a group on Facebook that’s recommending aged urine eye drop.

Because fresh urine doesn’t cut it anymore. Everybody. These are all real things, by the way. Uh, or somebody decided to murder their spouse using Visine eyedrops. Again, the terrible things. Right? And so, and this fortunately is a good thing. This is, this is really good. Kind of like, uh, uh, back in 2017, uh, we had the, the, the total solar eclipse.

Everybody was all of a sudden talking about solar retinopathy. What happens if you look at a solar eclipse and you had ophthalmologists coming out of the woodwork. Everybody was, was like, this is my moment. This is it. I’ve been waiting forever for this, which is really sad, but it’s true Like, like we get excited about these things.

All of a sudden people are listening to us, teaching them about how to take care of their eyeballs. Yeah. You don’t look directly outta solar eclipse. You will go blind. You’ll burn a hole in your retina. Use these glasses and. Stead and I, I tell you, dozens of ophthalmologists were putting content out left and right, all of it, and dozens that, that’s about how many ophthalmologists there are out there.

Uh, and I was one of them. And it was just a very exciting time. So fast forward to this week, Mr. Beast put out a video, uh, where he paid for cataract surgery for a thousand. And very well made video. Uh, it, uh, within two days, I think it had 50 million views. It was, uh, just a massive video. It was trending on, on Twitter and on other, uh, you know, it is all over, uh, you know, social media because it’s Mr.

Beast. And those of you not familiar with Mr. Beast, he is. The internet. He is, he is like the influencer. The he has, he has a, an enormous following. Uh, and, uh, and so anything he puts out there is gonna be talked about. And so with this video, he took a thousand people who needed cataract surgery and he paid for it.

And they, they could not pay for this surgery. So just to give you a little bit of background, cataract is something that everybody gets. Eventually. Cataract is, um, uh, if you live long enough, you will end up getting cataracts and ultimately having surgery. In fact, everybody over the age of 60 has cataracts.

I, I’m so sorry for all you people listening over 60, but it’s true. You do have cataracts, but it’s okay because cataract. Easily treatable. Alright? That’s what we do. That’s what I do. I am a comprehensive ophthalmologist. I do cat, I did today. I’m recording this late at night. Uh, and, uh, today I did 11 cataract surgeries this morning.

And, and, um, the, uh, you know, I’ll do about 700 of them over the course of a year. And because everybody gets cataracts, right? And so it’s the most common cause of blindness world. It’s the most common surgery performed in the US and probably in most countries. Uh, and um, and it’s, it’s a reversible cause of blindness.

It is imminently treatable and, um, That brings me to my first point about this video in which, uh, you know, all these, all these people were able to, you know, have the surgery paid for when they couldn’t afford it. And that is, um, uh, one of my big takeaways from this is that, man, our healthcare system really lets people down so many times over for so many different things that we have to have.

Wealthy social media influencer come in and pay for their surgeries and. And it’s, uh, the, the cataract surgery. You know, I think there’s a, the numbers about, about 4 million are done every year in the us Uh, and it’s an also an eight minute surgery. Eight minutes. That’s how long it takes. It’s quick. You just go in there, make a little incision.

You don’t put the patient to sleep, just numbing, eyedrops. You go, you break up the cataract into a bunch of pieces and you pull it out and you put an artificial lens inside the eye. J within six minutes you’re taking people from, you know, maybe sometimes they can’t see their hand in front of their face, and all of a sudden they can see 2020.

Perfect. That’s why it’s such, it’s such a fun procedure to do. I love it so much because it makes an enormous difference in people’s lives and there are thousands and tens of thousands of people in this country who can’t afford it. That’s. That’s not the way society should be. And it’s like that all over the world.

It’s worse out there. But in our own home here, we have so many people who can’t afford it. And by Mr. Beast, putting that video, almost called him Dr. Beast Doc, Dr. Mr. Beast. Um, By putting this video out there, really, to me it showed that it showed that point. Yeah, this is great. It really is a good thing that he’s doing.

Uh, and it also simultaneously, in addition to showing all these people having this profound moment in their life where all of a sudden they can see again, they can drive again, they can cataract. They can range, right? There’s mild cataracts where you, it’s things are a little bit blurry and there’s really severe cataracts where you can barely see light.

That’s how bad cataracts can get. And uh, and all of these people that he was helping, most of them had those severe cataracts that they’ve had for, for years. Um, and, and he was able to show that in addition to helping these people, That we’re in a system that makes it to. The only way for them to have this done is by somebody with a lot of money coming in, paying of paying, paying for the surgery for them.

Another thing I found really interesting though was, um, some of the backlash that Mr. B got for making this video. Uh, people were labeling it as you know, performative philanthropy. Philanthropy, philanthropy. It’s a hard word to say, Phil. Philanthropy. Basically just calling it performative. Like does he really care about helping these people because he is making money off of this video?

To, to that, I say, well, yeah, yeah, he is making money off of this. That’s how he, that’s how he does this, right? That’s he, he makes the video. Wherever he is giving away a lot of money, and then he posts a video that makes him more money that allows him to help more people out. It’s this cycle and, and I, I don’t understand people saying, yeah.

I mean, yes, it is performative, but it’s also, it’s, I think it’s okay. It’s, it’s not, it’s not a wrong thing that he’s doing. He’s, he’s still, he’s helping. And, uh, and so I, I really appreciate that he’s doing it in the space that I really care about as well, and, and teaching people about the, the shortcomings of our healthcare system.

Also, just teaching people that cataracts are a thing, like that’s the other, like how awesome is that? Like. Mr. Beast is saying, Hey, this is what a cat, he explains what a cataract is in the video. 50 million people saw it in two. Like he’s doing more for cataracts than, uh, any comedian, ophthalmologist ever could.

That’s all, that’s all I’m saying. So, uh, I, I appreciated it and, um, and I think it’s a, a wonderful thing. I hope he keeps doing stuff like this because, uh, it, and it, it’s just, it’s going beyond. Helping a thousand people get surgery. Right. It’s starting all these conversations too. People are talking about the healthcare system.

People are debating whether or not this is a good video, that he should, should, or should do this. But in the end, it’s, he, he’s helped people and educated people about their eyes, uh, and um, uh, about, uh, what we need to change with. So I’d say net good. Like easily, and so well done. I think it’s great. Um, and, uh, and so the other thing I wanted to do, uh, is since, since now, you know, I have like, people are kind of paying attention to eye stuff and now I don’t wanna push it because like the minute I start throwing out crazy words that have like 18 syllables in them, lots of h’s.

That’s the way we roll. Uh, people is your brain’s gonna shut off and you’re never gonna learn anything about eyeballs ever again. So what I did was I went on YouTube and I asked for questions and uh, and I got a lot of good ones. So I thought I’d just run through a few of these. I’m gonna try to keep it brief cuz I, I understand attention span, especially when it comes to ophthalmology, uh, is.

I was gonna say, not what it used to be, but it’s never been good. Uh, and so here we go. I’m gonna go through some of these first question from, uh, Michael Dehaven on YouTube as we age, which eye conditions are preventable and which ones are inevitable. I really like that question. And preventable versus inevitable.

So let’s start with preventable, preventable eye conditions, corneal, metallic, foreign bodies. Okay. You know why people get those? Because they’re grinding metal or doing woodworking or metalworking or whatever it is, and they’re not wearing safety glasses. Can you please wear safety glasses? Just, just come on.

You’re, you’re, you’re, there are pieces of metal flying at high speed around your head. You need to protect your eyeballs. You only have two of them. That’s the, that’s so preventable. Please wear safety glasses when you’re doing dangerous things. All right? I’m not gonna try to keep you fr from doing dangerous things, but just, just, just protect your eyes, okay?

The rest of the body, whatever. I don’t care. All right. The eyes though, that’s, that’s the only, that’s the most important thing. Um, uh, uh, corneal ulcers. Sorry. Stop sleeping in your contacts. I’m talking to you. I don’t know who you. Or, or why you’re doing it? Is it just laziness? Do you do, have you ever seen a contact lens holder it?

The, the case, the solution, the lens goes in it when you go to sleep, and then you can put it back in in the morning. All right? That’s the way it’s supposed to work. If it doesn’t work that way, then you get up with corneal ulcers and they get gross. All right? They’re bad. They scar your cornea and they can cause vision loss.

Please. Don’t sleep in your contacts. All right. That those are the really, the two big, preventable eye conditions. All right. Inevitable. All right. These are, these are, there’s a couple big ones for this one presbyopia. I’m sorry to let you know, but reading glasses will come for us all. There’s no escaping it.

It’s as certain as death. All right? When you hit your forties, your, your eye, you start losing the ability to focus up close and you end up in bifocals. Progressives take a deep breath. It’s okay. All right. It’s coming. You know what, it’s coming for me sooner cuz I’m hyperopic. And so, uh, it’s, it hasn’t hit me yet, but I’ll, I’ll be getting it sooner than all of you and it’s going to be a very difficult time in my life, almost as difficult.

Having a cardiac arrest. Not quite, but on the, on the spectrum, maybe. I don’t know. Anyway, it sucks. It’s terrible, but we all get presbyopic eventually. Cataract. We already talked about that. If you live long enough, you will get cataracts. Everybody over 60 has cataracts. Posterior vitreous detachment. The vitreous is the jelly that fills the back of your.

Uh, and uh, um, eventually over time that jelly starts to degrade and kind of pull off of the retina and just float around, give you a bunch of floaters and some flashes and all that. That’s going to happen eventually. Everybody gets that. And the last thing, uh, using a flashlight to read a menu in a dimly lit apartment, that, that’s inevitable.

Like we we’re all gonna do that and, and somebody’s gonna make fun of us for it. So, yeah, that’s it. All right. Second question, which precaution should I take? If my job and hobby involves sitting in front of a monitor for the whole day, that probably. Describes many of us, right? I, I do it, uh, you know, it’s, it’s hard to escape the screens.

And that’s from, um, FLS eight, uh, user. Uh, thank you for that. Um, the precautions you should take 2020. 20. That’s the rule. Every 20 minutes, you should be taking 20 seconds and looking 20 feet away. All right? That will allow your eyes to relax. So, looking out a window for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes. Your eyes can relax or you’re not focusing so hard, you’re not gonna get brow, ae or headaches from eye strain as often.

It also reminds you to blink because studies have shown when we’re looking at a screen we don’t, or that something, or we’re doing anything that really holds our attention. We don’t blink as much as we normally do, and so by looking away from the screen, You know, blink, uh cetera. Setta an alarm if you have to.

It’s, that’s the way society works. Now you gotta set an alarm to remind you not to look at your screen for 20 seconds, but that’s the way it’s gotta be. So you can blink and relax your eyes. Those that’s gonna take you so far, you that do that, do that. Um, okay. And then the last question, uh, just for this time, uh, we can do this again though, uh, the last question I’m gonna address here.

Uh, question number three are blue light glasses legit? From David King Media, our blue light I about, actually about like a hundred of you gave me this question. And it’s a really good question because that’s a, like the, they’re being marketed everywhere. Every place that sells glasses is trying to sell you blue light blocking glasses.

Now, the. The data for this is the best data for Blue light blocked. By the way, blue light isn’t everything. Sunlight lights at the grocery store everywhere. Everywhere has, it’s like just a blue wavelength of light. It’s in all light everywhere. So, um, the, the, the best data for, for in favor of blue light blocking technology or glasses is with regard to cer uh, regulating circadian.

So there is some data that suggests that if you block blue light right before you go to bed, it can help you sleep better. I think there’s a reasonable, I mean, God forbid we just not look at a screen right before bed, right? I mean, that, that’s out the window and I’m, I’m not, I’m, I’m not just being facetious here, like legit.

I don’t know if I could possibly do that. Uh, and so, Try out blue light blocking. Let’s see if it helps be, it helps you sleep better. Um, but a lot of the, of the marketing around blue light blocking technology is with eye strain and just like general eye health, like preventing macular degeneration and all these wild claims that have no basis in the literature, there’s nothing to suggest that it helps with ice.

All right. What helps More like looking away from the screen? Yeah. As opposed to just blocking blue light and continuing to look at the screen continuously. Now I have come to the point though, where people are very, feel very strongly about blue light blocking technology. So I tell people, you know what?

There’s no data for this that suggests that blue light blocking will help with ice strain, but it’s not gonna hurt you. So if you wanna try it, you wanna spend the 150 bucks, whatever it is to get a blue light blocking glasses. Do it. Yeah, just try it. Why not? I mean, it’s not gonna hurt you. It’s, it is just, you know, a, a cost of something that, but is there like a, because I have patients that swear by, they say, yeah, it helps with ice strain.

Maybe it’s placebo effect. Maybe there is an effect. We just haven’t discovered it yet through research. But, um, it’s not gonna hurt you. So check it out, try it, see if it works for you. Um, Okay, I’m gonna leave it at that. I, I promised myself I wouldn’t let make this video last longer than like 20 minutes.

So, uh, if you like this, if you like this format, you want me to answer some more I questions, uh, or like general medical questions that I can’t promise will be accurate answers. Uh, let me know. You know, that normally I just do skits, so it’s, it’s really weird to, to talk this long and show myself. And, uh, for those of you watching on YouTube, Uh, for, uh, without wearing a costume or something.

But, uh, anyway, uh, so I hope you enjoyed it. All right. And check out the Mr. Beast video. It’s, it’s really well done, and good job by him to, to make a difference in people’s lives. So I wish you all the best. See you later.