Everyone I know loves their lasik but this is an excellent point. A little bit of nerves is normal. That much anxiety and you should probably wait. I’ve had glasses for nearly 50 years and I don’t live them but the surgery terrifies me.
Lasik was great for me for 20 years. Now that I’m getting older I need one contact again. There was no pain, but I was being tough and said no to the valium. Take the valium. Take 2.
I had monovision LASIK 15 years ago and do not regret it. With one eye set for near and the other one for far I don’t need glasses at all. I had some dry eye for a few months, but that eventually passed.
The only downside is that I see more flares in night lights, but I’ve gotten used to it.
I would do it over again.
My vision is much better with LASIK than it ever was with either glasses or contacts.
I didn’t have astigmatism, I had… a lumpy cornea. To the point where even with a brand-new pair of glasses, sharp letters on a page would appear with 6-7 faint copies around the central figure.
The LASIK people did a corneal map, which they needed for the wavefront correction technique. The technician looked pleased when I mentioned the words “high-order aberrations” as I was looking at it.
They corrected all of that and initially I had around 20/15 vision, but more importantly none of the multi-imagery that neither glasses nor contacts could correct. Eventually my vision settled down a bit to 20/20. I had to have one eye redone shortly after the initial surgery; they did that for free and didn’t require another corneal cut.
There is a tiny bit of nighttime glare, but no more than I got with a day’s worth of protein buildup on the contacts, or the oil film on glasses.
Oh wow! That’s awesome.
I had PRK in 1997 (LASIK wasn’t available). After the procedure I only thought why didn’t I do this already years ago?
It’s been 26 years since, and I’m still really glad I did it. The expense and hassle of using / maintaining / renewing glasses would’ve been a way worse deal.
I think this is a good way of putting it. These procedures leave you with B+ vision. If you’ve never had vision as good as that, you’re going to be happy with the results. If you remember what it was like to have A+ vision, or even if your current corrected vision is better than B+, you’re going to find the results mediocre at best.
I think the people who leave rave reviews about how it’s like living life in HD now, the people in the testimonial videos who sit up on the table when the procedure is done and immediately begin sobbing tears of joy as they look around, are people who never had good vision to begin with. They can actually read the sign on the wall on the opposite side of the room now, and they never even knew that was possible. Me, I’m going “when I was twenty, the clarity and sharpness of the lettering on that sign would have been A+. Right before the procedure, it was a C without glasses, and an A- with glasses. Now, it’s a B+ without glasses, and an A- with glasses. So what good was the procedure?” Yeah, I guess it’s kind of nice that B+ is legal for driving while C wasn’t, but I’d like to be able to read street signs at the same distance I could with glasses before the procedure.
Yeah, i do like that way of describing it. Of course there’s some variation around the outcomes, but there’s not a lot of upside beyond b+.
When i was a kid i had a+ vision. It’s since deteriorated to maybe c- uncorrected, but my corrected vision is still a-. I complained to my ophthalmologist that i thought i was developing cataracts, and she said i was, but they are minor, and given the quality of my vision, she thought it would be malpractice to operate on my eyes to address the cataracts.
Honestly, I’m hoping the tech improves before i need cataract surgery. It’s gotten a lot better in the last few years, and I’m hopeful for my prospects.
I got corrected to 20:15, which to me is at least A. Too bad age related degeneration is a thing. OP, have you made your choice?
I had it done about 15 years ago. My vision pre-LASIK was awful, requiring about 9 diopters of correction in each eye. The first day or 2 there was some dryness and discomfort but the drops help. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Just don’t be too worried when they turn the laser on and you can smell your cornea burning. It smells like burnt hair. I wish they’d have told me about that ahead of time. In the end, it was too bothersome. The Xanax helped.