About 12 years ago, Dr. Pierre Alfred, founder of The Eye Center in Greenfield, noticed a problem.
“It was really underappreciated for the impact it was having,” the eye surgeon said in his office. “A lot of doctors ignored it. They’d just say, ‘Here’s some tears, go home.'”
The issue was an “epidemic level” of dry eyes, heightened by the explosion of screens, Alfred said.
What can be brushed off as an itchy inconvenience can end in serious problems and pain. When dry eye disease goes untreated, the friction between the eyelids and eyes from blinking wears down the cornea over time, which can lead to scarring and vision loss, according to Alfred.
As a “multifactorial” disease, treating dry eyes requires “a lot of thinking and a lot of time” with the patient to narrow down the cause and the best treatment plan, he added.
“This is an unmet need,” Alfred remembered thinking. “This would be a good place for me to apply some of my energy.”
When The Eye Center purchased the equipment to treat dry eyes, Alfred’s focus splintered into something else.
The IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) xenon lamp treats rosacea, a common cause of dry eyes, by sending out wavelengths of light that target the hemoglobin behind the red tints, but it also targets the melanin in dark spots. Patients came back to The Eye Center gushing about not only the relief from rosacea, but the cosmetic effects, according to Alfred.
“OK, there’s more to this story,” the eye doctor remembered thinking about the technology.
With one foot already in medical cosmetics, he decided to invest in other medical tools in the same realm of cosmetics. Two years ago, nurse aesthetician Mary Phillips joined the team, and on Sept. 24, dozens of community members stopped by an open house at the Riddell Street facility to celebrate the practice’s new “sister service” called “Beautiful Eyes Aesthetics and Wellness.” Instead of the typical chocolate chip or snickerdoodle, visitors snacked on cookies frosted with illustrations of the new equipment.
Besides the IPL xenon lamp, another tool called the Fotona Max tightens patients’ skin with lasers. The heat from the lasers stimulates collagen — “the structural framework for your whole body, but your skin in particular,” Alfred described. The boost in collagen production unfurls wrinkles.
Another room in The Eye Center contains what appears to be an ordinary chair, but beneath the fabric is another medical innovation. Instead of a nap, patients who use the StarFormer chair get a workout. The new chair sends out electromagnetic currents that trigger muscle contractions or target inflamed tissue. At the September open house, visitors packed the waiting room, taking turns trying out the tool.
According to Practice Administrator Tracy Kenniff, patients with issues like core pain and incontinence after giving birth have sat in the chair since it arrived a few months ago. During the day, if Kenniff and the technicians cannot find Alfred, chances are he is sitting in the chair to help relieve his back pain.
“They always say, ‘Where’s Dr. Alfred?’ ‘He’s in the chair!” Alfred said, laughing. “I like to think of it as state-of-the-art science brought to a small-town atmosphere.”
“You can go to different cities and the bigger cities here, and there’s a med spa at every corner,” Kenniff said, “but what’s different here is because [Alfred’s] the ophthalmologist, he’s the medical doctor, he’s understanding what the patient has, whether they have diabetes or some sort of rheumatoid problem or whatnot — he’s listening to that and he’s recommending to them what should happen. … What it comes down to is listening to the patient, understanding what’s crucial to them at that point and [being] honest with them.”
As someone who has spent several decades in a lab coat, Alfred said the technology brought a “fun” new challenge.
Referring to the IPL and laser technology, he added, “Medical aesthetics has both a biological framework as well as an artistic one — you have to be a little bit of an artist because people come in with different canvases and you have to know how to paint.”
The precision of this “painting” partly drew Alfred to eye surgery before he became an ophthalmologist. After serving as a hospital corpsman in the Navy, Alfred worked as an ocular technician partly as a way to return to his home state of California, where the technical school sat. Watching eye surgeons perform cataract surgery with microscopes as he handed them medical instruments, Alfred was fascinated. By medical school, he knew he had to specialize in ophthalmology.
“Then, it became a passion,” Alfred said. “I never feel more alive than when I go to the operating room, because people’s vision’s at stake, and that’s an important responsibility. … Let’s just say you’re alert.”
He called Beautiful Eyes Aesthetics and Wellness a form of “happy medicine.”
“A lot of medicine is dealing with chronic illness, and it’s difficult, let’s not kid ourselves,” Alfred said, “so when you can put a light on somebody and they come back in and they’re wagging their tails and they’re happy, that’s why I call it happy medicine.”
Business hours for The Eye Center, as well as Beautiful Eyes Aesthetics and Wellness, are from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. More information is available at beautifuleyesaesthetics.com and eyecenterma.com/eye-care/eye-doctor-greenfield.
