What is the real rate of Lasik failures?

[Balthisar]

@Subway Prophet

The funny thing is, the one guy I knew who flew to Mexico to have radial keratotomy done in the mid 90s, made no complaints. (Though whether this is because he was pleased with the results, or because of buyer’s remorse, I don’t know.)

I had my LASIK done in Mexico – not for any special reason other than being there at the time. American-degreed doctora, modern equipment, and only 600 bucks complete, including at least two follow-up exams.

When I’m beat and probably shouldn’t be driving anyway, I sometimes have odd night driving problems. Not sure if it’s related to the LASIK, at I only notice it recently and had the procedure two years ago. I can see fine, I just feel like what a senior citizen must feel when they’re not comfortable driving at night. Not disorientation, not bad vision. Just, I find myself being more cautious than normal for some odd reason.

[brewha]

I’ve got an appt to get my eyes zapped in a month. I’ve done lots of research and talked to everyone I could.

Here’s the deal with bad night vision. Older laser systems would only correct a circle with a diameter of 6mm - then abruptly stop. If your pupil dialates larger than the corrected circle, you get halos and/or blurry vision.

The new system(the one I’m using) corrects a circle that is 8mm, then tapers off the correction.

From what I’ve read, the only real risk comes from the patient not the doctor. All the stories I’ve heard where the patient has permanent eye damage was caused by poor post operative care. Either the patient got an eye infection or they damaged their eye by rubbing it or not taking all the precautions.

Everyone that I personally know( 4 of them) loves the results of the surgery.

Yes there are risks, but with a 98% success rate, I’m willing to take those odds. I’ve been wearing corrective lenses since I was 5 yrs old - I’m ready to be done with them.

[What_Exit]

@Sam Stone

I had LASIK done about a year and a half ago. I’m pretty happy with the result. The side effects I was worried about were poor night vision, halos, and sub-standard corrected vision. But I came out seeing better than I ever have in my life - 20/20 in one eye, 20/15 in the other, 20/15 both. My night vision seems as good as ever - actually better because my old thick glasses caused reflections and absorbed something like 5% of the light.

However, I’ve had one main persistent side effect: dry eyes. It doesn’t bother me through the day at all, but at night and in the morning I have to put drops in my eyes. Sometimes when I wake up my eyes are painfully dry and I have to put drops in them right away. Then they’re fine.

I also had to get reading glasses. I had awesome near vision before. I could see extremely fine details up close. After the LASIK, my near vision was worse - not horrible, but I was getting eyestrain trying to read fine print, and tiny labels were hard to read. A pair of $20 reading glasses over the counter fixed that problem, and I only wear them very occasionally.

When they talk about LASIK successes, notice that it’s always in terms of whether you achieved good uncorrected vision. That’s important, but it’s not the only measure of failure. Some people see halos around light sources forever. Some have markedly worse night vision. Some may have dry eyes or other unpleasant side-effects. All would be scored a ‘success’ if judged only by their best visual acuity.
…snip…

It was **Sam’s ** op after his surgery that convince me to finally have Lasik done this year. Thank you Sam Stone.
He also provided the best advise I have seen so far in response to an ignorant question of mine:

@What Exit?

Sounds very expensive even with the discounts. I looked into it a little it sounded like it should run around $1200 for both eyes in the NJ/NY area. Maybe someone else from this area could chime it. …

You can get LASIK around here for as little as $350/eye. But the Gimbel is the gold standard for LASIK. They’ve been around longer than anyone, they have pioneered many of the techniques, and I know they’ll be around for a long time if there are complications. My doctor in particular is one of the best LASIK surgeons in the country. She’s done thousands of them, written several books on the subject, and is the editor of one of the major peer-reviewed journals in the field.

I didn’t want to skimp when it came to my eyes.

I shopped for the best local Doctor, I checked reviews, I asked Doctors and Nurses who they used and I looked into who Pro-Athletes used. It cost $4800 but I gave myself a discount on this by going through a Medical savings plan that resulted in the $4800 being Pre-Tax.

My eyes were corrected to 20/20 overall and 20/15 in my left with 20/20 in the right. I had bad night vision and it actually improved. I believe what **Sam ** said about losing the glare from the glasses is the main reason. Less than two month post surgery and I have no problem with dry eyes anymore.
I did have a loss of reading vision. I went from better than normal to less than normal but I still have no need for reading glasses or extra long arms. I do need more light to read than I use to, but I use to be able to read in the light of a full moon.

Everyone I know that has had the surgery in the last 5 years has liked it, eight people including myself. I love it; I love waking up and not searching for my glasses. I love falling asleep and not having to worry about my glasses. I get a kick out of going to sleep when I am very tired and reaching up to take my glasses off as I had been doing that for 24 years. I love **Sam’s ** statement about seeing a Hi-Def world.

Jim {my bolding in Sam’s second quote}

[casdave]

A work colleague went to a presentation by a company that was promoting lasik.

Lots of very learned looking medical people about, he only asked one question,

“If laser treatment is so good, then why have none of you had it ?”

Yup, it was true, he noticed that these promoters were all wearing glasses, he was hastily invited to leave.

[DanBlather]

My wife had it done 3 years ago and is still having bad probems with dry eyes. Her doctor did not do the test before hand to see if her eyes were dryer than normal despite the fact that being post menaposal is a risk factor.