I am thinking of having laser surgery done to my eyes. I am little wary of the procedure, so please tell me about your experiences. Thanks.
I had mine in March 2005. I don’t think I participated in the earlier threads.
I had pretty bad eyesight, astigmatism, and a thin left cornea. My eye doctor suggested I go to Canada because they’d been doing astigmatism-correcting LASIK there for longer. Also, the doctor he recommended had a reputation for being completely straight with patients and saying “No” if he felt he couldn’t do it successfully.
I went for an evaluation and got the go-ahead, and went back a few weeks later to have both eyes done. It was a bit freaky, as expected, and I had significantly more pain and burning afterwards than is apparently typical. But I have no regrets so far and would do it again.
I don’t see as well as I did with glasses, which has taken awhile to get used to. The first reason is that I had unusually good correction with glasses. The second is that I had a lot of tissue removed so it took a good while for my eyes to completely normalize. Thirdly, my eye doctor believes I should probably have an enhancement as my difficult left eye still isn’t as sharp as it should be. That would mean repeating the procedure in that eye (although it would be far less involved than the first procedure). I’ve been slow to set that up with the surgeon.
Even with those issues, I’m glad I did it. It cost about $3000. The enhancement will be free. I could have shopped for (and got) a lower price but I didn’t want to use any other surgeon.
I’ve posted about it before, but I got PRK because my corneas were on the thin side and my doctor didn’t feel comfortable trying to do a flap, because if he had to go back and do a touch up, there might not be enough tissue. He said I could probably find someone who’d be willing to try it, but I went with his advice. It was the best $2500 I’ve ever spent. The last week or so before I had it done, I was amazed by how annoying my glasses had suddenly become.
My only advice is to find the best doctor you can and pay what they charge. Don’t go shopping for price. You can and should ask any doctor how many surgeries they’ve done, what their customers’ satisfaction rate is, what lasers they use, etc, etc. If they balk at giving you the information or don’t have it available, don’t go there.
Hm, my blow-by-blow account of what the surgery was like for me seems to have been removed from the board. Now I’m all bummed.
Thanks for the older threads.
A couple other questions;
Do any of you have experience with the medical group “LasikMD”?
They seem to be the most affordable, and price is a factor here. I know that when thinking of surgery the price shouldn’t be the deciding factor, but to think the most expensive doctors are the best seems a little silly to me.
I don’t know anything about that group per se, but personally, I’d be wary of any big discount laser surgery chains. I have a hard time believing they’re going to be attracting the best doctors.