 So, if you need to stop watching this video in order to continue your optical life and ignorance, please do so, but if not... The real deal with poly, I asked this on a group forum the other day and I feel as if I'd started a civil war. Well, really there's two problems here. One, the whole poly thing and two, the forums that are the most popular in our industry, but first, let's address the poly thing. I will never pretend to know it all or have even reached a measurable amount of brilliance that some in our industry have. But what I will tell you is that I know that we're in this industry to provide the very clearest vision and I know that we are never going to compromise your patient's prescription, right? You would never do that. You would never intentionally have the wrong Rx made. Even if it were just a degree or so in the axis, you would never actually do it. You would never purposefully enter in the wrong measurements for the fitting heights. You would never choose a material that would compromise the clarity of that perfect prescription or would you? So many opticians do. They would never knowingly mess with the prescription or the measurements, yet they will go straight for polyism material choice. But why? Why would they compromise the clarity of the patient's vision by choosing an inferior material? Here's the thing, they're not doing it intentionally. They've been taught otherwise and as human beings, once we're taught something it is hard to grasp that we have been practicing for even a moment, let alone years, the wrong thing. Now, the most polarizing part of this topic is not to use poly or not to use poly. The largest divide that you witness during this whole Civil War bantering is the division of those who are open to listen and learn against those who are too stubborn to listen. You see, admitting that a material that they have been using for years as inferior would be admitting that they were wrong and some stubbornness just won't allow for that to happen. So I would like to address this great divide first and say to all of my optical colleagues that our industry, like many others, is tainted by the money and those in control. And we're taught to think and act and practice and prescribe largely by those companies that are in control. So when you were taught and what you have been using it's not your fault, but from this moment on you can make your patient's vision clear knowing what you know. But if you choose poly going forward you will be knowingly compromising your patient's prescription. So if you need to stop watching this video in order to continue your optical life and ignorance please do so. But if not, now that we've got that out of the way let's talk what's the real deal with poly. The undeniable fact is the lack of clarity. Polycarbonate simply has the worst optical quality of all of your material options when it comes to lenses. Of all of them this is the very worst. So that fact alone with an abbey value of 30 should make any other option a better option above poly because we are in the business of offering the clearest vision. That's it, that's done. That should be reason enough, right? But I'll give you plenty more. So, but really what other reasons could you possibly need? It's so silly. But let's cover a few. Okay, on the topic of safety it's the biggest must be yes thing because there are plenty of safe material options that have better lens clarity. And depending on the prescription even CR-39 is safer than poly. Plus I will always tell my opticians that they have absolutely no right even talking about the safety rating of a lens unless you're putting that safety lens into a safety frame. Because the safety lens would serve no purpose for safety if not also being held into a safety frame. Another point is that poly in a rimless or drill mount is ridiculous because of the fact that it has a low tensile strength you are going to get spidering and chipping like crazy. So these fancy and likely expensive lenses that you've sold them are going to look like complete shit in six months. Another thing that I hear all the time when it comes to poly is it's the law. Well, my response to this has always been and will always be look it up because it's likely not the law for adults or for children. And just because Medicaid covers it does not make it the law either. But I will encourage you to look up your state laws and see if it actually is the law. I'm not gonna go through all 50 fricking states and do all the work for you, but look yours up. I will go in and look up a state when I'm doing an in-office consultation so I can tell you that I have yet to do an in-office consult in a state that requires polycarbonate. Because my source told me at one point in time that there were only a handful of states and so I decided well every time I'm going to go to a new one I'm gonna look it up. But recently I've read that there's actually only one state that requires it so look it up. So if this is the case with poly the fact that it has the least amount of clarity out there the fact that talking about safety is really more of a liability to you if you're going to dispense this safety type lens without a safety frame in it is ridiculous. The fact that it has a low tensile strength and the fact that in a vast majority of states it's not actually the law then why have we been taught to fit it? Remember the other fact that I talked about with our industry being tainted is the reason why we have been taught to fit poly. It's money. It's way, way cheaper for manufacturers to manufacture poly than it is any other material. The cheap cost is the reason why the big manufacturers push it. The margins are better. And who is doing most of your trainings? Your lunch trainings, your CE events on and on, right? Your sales reps for these manufacturers. And it's not their fault. The sales reps are mostly just repeating what they were taught by the manufacturer. The cheap cost is also the reason why Medicaid covers it. You think that Medicaid is gonna go cheap on the frames and cheap on the lack of necessary add-ons for clear vision and just randomly upgrade material? Okay, sure. Of course they won't, that's ridiculous. It's because it's cheap. There are plenty of other reasons why poly should not be chosen but what I'll do is I will route you to some forums of pages that are managed by people who really know their stuff in Optical. I'll re-route you to two actually. So there's one called Optical Independence and another called Nobody Ask the Lab Guy. These two forums are packed and managed by people who know their stuff when it comes to Optical. And some people get a little intimidated when you get around people who really know like the technical background but gosh, these forums are a great spot to ask some really awesome questions. Really great opportunity to stay connected with forums who aren't going to give you number one BS opinions and number two that all of the posts on there aren't sponsored. So you need to pay attention to where you're getting your information. But the total takeaway from this video is that you would never intentionally compromise the clarity of your patient's vision. So knowing what you know now when it comes to polycarbonate, I encourage you to stick to the clearest options possible.