No boilerplate. I’m not selling anything, and I’ve never had lasik. But the same question usually merits the same answer. And I am astonished that every three or four weeks, pretty consistently, somebody posts a question on these boards that basically reads, “I’m going for lasik tomorrow morning. What’s it like?” I’m just suggesting doing some due diligence before you make an appointment.
The web sites I cited speak for themselves. They link to literally hundreds of pages, mostly by patients, some by doctors, some by lawyers, that describe permanent eye injuries resulting from lasik when the surgery was done *the way it’s supposed to be done. * They also describe a whole different set of problems that are the result of doctors treating patients with known medical contraindications, or doctors displaying gross negligence, or doctors engaging in blatantly fraudulent business practices, or complex equipment malfunctioning. Sometimes the microkeratome cutting tool jams, or cuts too deeply into the cornea. One model of FDA-approved laser was recalled because some of the units were emitting energy pulses *at random. * One doctor is facing multiple lawsuits from patients whose eyes were ruined because he was using a laser that he built himself. Apart from immediate aftereffects, there is also some preliminary evidence that people who have been exposed to the extremely intense UV lasers used in prk and lasik are more likely to develop cataracts down the road, and there is also some evidence that glaucoma is less likely to be caught early because the thinner-than-normal corneas that lasik creates interfere with accurate tonometer readings. And all this is just to avoid eyeglasses?
I’m extremely nearsighted. I’ve followed this subject pretty closely, going back to the '80s craze for the heavily promoted and now obsolete radial keratotomy, because I would love to find a magic fix. But so far there isn’t one. I’m just proposing that potential patients should take elective eye surgery a little more seriously than, say, getting their ears pierced. If you know what you’re getting into, more power to you. Like I said, I’m not picking a fight with anybody.
(And the moniker wasn’t intended to identify me as a spokesperson for a cause. I suppose if I was thinking of anything when I registered I was thinking along the lines of favoring direct observation over idle speculation. Of the things I’m really interested in, lasik is actually pretty far down the list.)
If you want to kill the notion that you’re here and posting about LASIK on an agenda, start threads on what else you’re interested in, or participate in threads on other subjects.
Although I do agree that many people did and still do jump into LASIK as if it were, as you put, as serious as ear piercing, I think the message is starting to get out.
There is a gentleman where I work where is thinking of LASIK, but he’s already spent at least a month I’m aware of speaking with other people at work who have had LASIK, some of the doctors at work (we work for medical reaserchers who evaluate new technology for a living), and other places. In other words, he’s going about it the right way. My personal experience has been that this approach is the most common these days, but then given where I work there might be some self-selection going on and of course you mileage may vary.
Actually, the OP does have an agenda, and has been here several times before under different names, which is why he’s now banned. However, since this thread has so many other people interested in it, I’m leaving it open for now.
Thanks for leaving it open, Lynn. Whenever I ask about LASIK, I always hear the success stories, and very rarely do I hear any negatives, so I like having the information for comparison’s sake.
I’ve been told I am an excellent candidate for LASIK and I plan to have it done. My eyeglasses are extremely thick, and I over-wear my contact lenses. (I know, I know… but when you can’t SEE, you’ll take the risks sometimes.) A friend of mine had a bad LASIK experience, the only one I personally know of. She went in three more times for adjustments, had a tearduct infected and basically, it took her almost a year to recover normal vision. However - and I think this is important - she says that even with all the complications she had, she would do it again in a New York minute.
As I am already 40, my doctor has discussed with me the possibility of my needing reading glasses eventually, and I understand why. I’m scared just about spitless of the procedure (I also flinch badly during the glaucoma test) but it’s worth it to me to be able to see. So now all I have to do is save some more money.
Well, I guess in my case (I’m 32) my vision was so bad that it’s a great relief to not have to wear glasses, which I absolutely hated because my peripheral vision was almost non-existant. Contacts offered relief from that but I hated dealing with lugging around the lens case and saline solution all the time. It’s nice, for the first time in 22 years to wake up in the middle of the night and actually see my bedroom. If I need glasses just for reading in 10 or 15 years, so be it.
Regarding what Broomstick said about having one eye “lased” for far sight and one “lased” for near sight. My father was 59 when he had it done. He was given the option for having his eyes done like that or having them done the same. He chose to have them done the same. So, I would be wary of a doctor who told you you had to have the monovision surgery done.
The bottom line about LASIK is that it’s not for everybody, it’s not to be taken lightly, and the onus is on you as a patient and a consumer to investigate the procedure and the surgeon you’ve selected to perform it. For me the risk was worth it. I did research on my surgeon and found out he’s one of the top docs in the States. (He also trained several Canadian surgeons) He had performed over 20,000 LASIK procedures. None of his patients went blind. Yada Yada Yada…
Given that, I would never, ever have any plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons. EVER! That horrifies me. But yep, I was comfortable with having a Laser shot into my eyes. It’s all relative.
I would get lasik to escape from having to wear glasses to shave my legs. If I take off my glasses, I can’t even tell how many toes I have, let alone if I missed a spot shaving.
The first thing I do every morning is put on my glasses. I am utterly dependent on them in a way that people with better vision probably don’t grasp.
True, but for me, 20 years or so of glasses-free life is more than worth the $2500. Hell, I’ve only had one year of it so far, and it’s already worth the $2500 to me. And, yes, someday I’ll probably need reading glasses, but that’s a far cry from being dependent on glasses to see every day.