optometrist reccomendation requests

[jadelennox]

I'm looking for optometrist (and, possibly, ophthalmologist recs), specifically from people who:

• have a very strong prescription and/or otherwise fairly problematic vision
• wear glasses, not exclusively contacts
• and have been unhappy with previous optometrists but are happy now

Obviously I'm hoping to find someone T-accessible from the greater Davis neighborhood (Somerville, Cambridge, Arlington).

Specifically I want someone who will not urge me to squint and strain during the eye tests to recognize letters, and then tell me I can see them fine because I recognized them, and someone who will straight up tell me if certain problems are uncorrectable, instead of gaslighting me that everything is fine.

I'm currently at Parelli, where (with Dr. Seligman) I'm the least unhappy I've ever been with optometrists, but I feel like I should aim for better than "least unhappy." And my opthalmology is at Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston where I am profoundly underwhelmed.

(For what it's worth, the optician at Parelli, Matt, is fantastic.)

Comments

[cassandra_beach]

I used to go to Parelli (with Dr. Seligman). I saw her a few times and was not impressed – particularly when, after a period of unemployment, I had to go on MassHealth for a year or so and she treated me shabbily, like I was a deadbeat.

I go to Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston for treatment of idiopathic macular degeneration by Dr. Torsten Wiegand. He has been great. Based on that experience, I went to a Dr Nisha Patel at OCB for an eye exam in order to get glasses and she was awful. Lots of attitude and she gave me an eyeglass prescription which did not include a pupillary distance measurement – which made it harder for me to order glasses online. Maybe I'm stupid and uninformed but I expected a prescription I could use. I ended up calling Parelli and having to badger them into giving me the pupillary distance measurement they had on file for me.

It's a MA state law: "What your optometrist doesn’t want you to know"
https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2017/03/21/why-your-optometrist-doesn-want-you-know-your/k6FHsubxjTB2oYxeqBFD7L/story.html

Anyway. . . guess I don't have any good suggestions for you 😃

[jadelennox]

What are you saying? Those are terrific suggestions.

First of all, I didn't know any of that about the information you can get from your optometrist. Secondly, it's good to be reassured that there are different experiences with different OCB doctors. I see Dr. Heier, and I spent a year basically feeling seriously gaslit. He would say "it's very important that you call me as as you have problems" and then I would call him and he would say "your eyes are splendid!" It took forever to get out of him that what he meant was "I have corrected everything I can safely correct, and your retina is no longer about to fall off, and so the fact that the vision in your right eye is like looking through a blob of Vaseline is of no concern to me."

also I'm really sorry about that experience with Doctor Seligman. That's not cool at all.

[teko]

Every ophthalmologist I've had has given me a huge hassle or outright refused to give me my pupillary distance.