Laser eye correction

[jlee]

I'm considering laser eye correction (I'm nearsighted) - has anybody here had it? If so, what do you think? Does it adversly affect your vision in any way (in the dark, etc)? How does it affect the durability of the eye - if something were to hit my eye several weeks after the procedure, would it be more damaging than it would be if I hadn't had surgury?

I'm sure someone will say "talk to the doctor about it", but I'm just curious as to your own personal experience(s)..thanks

 

[amnesiac]

A small percentage of LASIK patients may experience reduced vision (less than 1% if you go to a good doctor). Also a small percentage may get halos at night. It shouldn't affect the durability of your eye...do you expect to get hit in the eye repeatedly or something??

 

[pyonir]

one of my good friends had it done a couple years ago. has NEVER had any problems since. he loves it.

 

[jlee]

<< A small percentage of LASIK patients may experience reduced vision (less than 1% if you go to a good doctor). Also a small percentage may get halos at night. It shouldn't affect the durability of your eye...do you expect to get hit in the eye repeatedly or something?? >>



No - I can only recall one black eye in my lifetime, and that was an accident. Better safe than sorry, though...

 

[Tsaico]

I had a couple of freinds have it done and all three are happy with the procedure.. I am concidering it now also, but am saving money for it. No bargain hunters though. All three spent over 1k an eye and went to experienced reputable doctors. I would question those sub $500 doctors for now, let other be the guinea pigs and practice eyes. Two says night vison not affected, one does, but had it when she wore glasses too, so probably her eye not the surgery. As far as durability, I would imagine that it is the same since when it is healed it is healed like any other part of your body, but am not sure.

 

[jlee]

There is a local doctor who will do it for about $800 (both eyes), and he has a lifetime guarantee - if it ever has to be repeated, they will do it for free. Then again, if there is a big difference if you pay a lot more, it's worth it. You only have two eyes..

 

[Oyeve]

Just ask yourself this one question: Is it really worth the risk, even though a small risk, to permenately damage your eyesight?

I personally like wearing glasses. They are fashionable, easily replaced if broken and protect my eyes! Once I was doing dishes and there was this BIGASS butcher knife sticking up with the blade pointing up and as I reached to get a dish the blade hit my glasses! If I hadnt had glasses on I would have definately lost an eye.

 

[jlee]

<< Just ask yourself this one question: Is it really worth the risk, even though a small risk, to permenately damage your eyesight?

I personally like wearing glasses. They are fashionable, easily replaced if broken and protect my eyes! Once I was doing dishes and there was this BIGASS butcher knife sticking up with the blade pointing up and as I reached to get a dish the blade hit my glasses! If I hadnt had glasses on I would have definately lost an eye. >>



I'm considering a career in the Air Force, or law enforcement (FBI, CIA - not local police)...my vision makes that a bit difficult.

 

[blahblah99]

One of my friends just had it done. Its been about 3 weeks now since she got it and she says her eyesight is very sharp. She was a -11 left eye and -14 right eye. Now she's like 20/20 left and something like 20/60 right side, but it is still healing. I wanted to get lasik myself, but since I heard about CORNEAPLASTY, which seems like a safer alternative, I've been waiting on on it.

 

[Ameesh]

<< Just ask yourself this one question: Is it really worth the risk, even though a small risk, to permenately damage your eyesight?

I personally like wearing glasses. They are fashionable, easily replaced if broken and protect my eyes! Once I was doing dishes and there was this BIGASS butcher knife sticking up with the blade pointing up and as I reached to get a dish the blade hit my glasses! If I hadnt had glasses on I would have definately lost an eye. >>




ive been asking myself that same question, but in the end i think having great eyesite without glasses would awsome, walking up in the morning or watching tv in bed, or going to the movies, all nice changes.

 

[PlatinumGold]

i've had it done, and my wife had it done.

couple things to watch for. the traditional lasik procedure uses a knife to cut the flap. then a laser is used to make the reduction and the flap is then put back where it was.

1. one of the new laser machines out now, uses 2 lasers instead of a knife and a laser. it tries to use a laser to cut the initial flap, biggest problem w/ this is lasers cauterize as they cut (you don't want flap cauterized you want it to be a fresh cut because the flap will be replaced w/in 10 minutes, if it isn't cauterized it will heal quicker). the laser flaps are a lot more painful. the laser flaps aren't as consistent.

2. don't go for the cheapest price. this is not something you wanna get a "Bargain" on. make sure you go to a doctor that has experience.

3. don't let a doctor talk you into it. make sure that you are a valid candidate and then make sure u understand the downside. one downside is for those that have lasik surgery, they will need reading glasses earlier in life than if they had not had the surgery.

4. another trick of doctors is to OVERCORRECT, this make it appear that you are getting better vision (initially you do) but it aggravates long term side effects. it is better to be slightly UNDERCORRECTED than to be SLIGHTLY OVERCORRECTED.

5. make sure the doctor has a lot of experience w/ after care. it is extremely important how you take care of your eyes after the surgery. one big potential problem here is that w/in 2 days after the surgery there will be NO PAIN, this is good right? well not necessarily, even tho there is no pain the flap is still not healed. because it isn't completely healed yet you have to be VERY careful not to make contact w/ ur eye at all for at least 6 months.

the worst horror story i'd ever heard regarding lasik is a patient that after having the surgery done got so frustrated w/ not being able to touch his eyes that in his sleep he reached up and ripped the flaps off. afterwards there was absolutely no way to correct his vision.

anyway, be careful when making the choice.

for me, it has been great. i had a -4.5 persription w/ 2 diopters of astigmatism, afterwords i have 20/20 20/40 vision. in other words almost perfect. on days that my eyes are dry, my vision is not as good. but that is true of pretty much everyone.

hope this info helps. if you have any questions feel free to pm me.

 

[desy]

Had it done, love it , I am 20/15 in both eyes two years later
At night with bright light its splits like a canon split focus camera a little. No halos etc
The doctor I had said they hadn't seen anybody heal as fast a I did, maybe cause I doubled how often they recommended putting the drops in, this is not a bad thing to do as all the drops do is keep your eyes moist since your ability to tear is taxed.

 

[VTBigBear]

man... after reading this i am tempted to get this done...

I usually dont wear glasses, but recently my eyesite has been deteriating rapidly. I realized one day at McDs that I was squinting to read the menu....

I guess I should be wearing glasses on a regular basis.. but I never have before.. just for classes and when I program.

think this is a good idea ?

 

[MacBaine]

Beware though.... sometimes it can have terrible effects. While it does only happen to a VERY small number of people, it does happen. A Friend of mine who was a cop had bad vision, and then he got this surgery. When his eyes healed he was permanently damaged. One eye was completely blind, the other had spasms and he could barely control it. I know this is an extreme case, but it does happen.

 

[ttn1]

I have heard of instances of lens detachment after the procedure. This is a very small percentage,
but I decided to wait a few years unitl some decent 5-10 year statistics come out.

As for a career in the air force, I would check with some people who know about the regulations.
I believe surgeries like vision correction can exclude you from being a pilot.

 

[jlee]

<< I have heard of instances of lens detachment after the procedure. This is a very small percentage,
but I decided to wait a few years unitl some decent 5-10 year statistics come out.

As for a career in the air force, I would check with some people who know about the regulations.
I believe surgeries like vision correction can exclude you from being a pilot. >>



Last I heard, they were accepting laser vision correction. Even if I fly only transport aircraft, it's better than the local police I should talk to a recruiter to make sure, though..

As for the 5-10 year statistics, hasn't LASIK been around for about 10 years already?

 

[ttn1]

I'm not exactly sure, but I believe the LASIK procedure is about 5 years into
normal usage. The process before that was the slicing of the lens surgery
which caused starburst vision.

The next generation LASIK is supposed to include more measurement points.
The claims are that this will allow for not only correction of astigmatism and
shperical aberration, but also chromatic aberration. That means higher contrast
which will mean much sharper vision. Mind you, this is still undergoing reduction
to practice experiments.

I haven't seen any decently done statistics about lens detachment and any other
issues that may arise. Mostly hand waving stuff.

I have one friend who has had it done and he loves it. He was practically blind, without
glasses, before the procedure. I think he has about 20/60 vision now.

Edit: The coolest thing I have seen yet, is still experimental. It is a machine which
applies suction to the eye for a little while and shapes the eye for better temporary vision.
Supposedly the effects last for about 24 hours. If they get it working properly it
would be like putting your glasses on in the morning.

 

[PlatinumGold]

cadet

lasik has only been in use for about 6-8 years. all of the different parts of the surgery, however, have been around for 20+ years.

for eg. the knife used to cut the flap, that technique has been used for 20+ years.

the laser used to make the correction, that technique has been used for at least 15 yrs.

in the past, there was 2 ways to do vision corrective surgery, the technique where you take a knife and cut radiating lines around the cornea and hope that it heals back successfully (not high probability and extremely painful).

the 2nd was even more painful, use the laser on w/o creating the flap. basically it burned the top layer of skin.

what lasik does is, first create a flap, you use a knife to cut a small flap of skin and you flip the flap out of the way.

then you take a laser and it atomized particles to shape the lense. the magic is when the put the flap back over. once that flap is back over you feel virtually no pain and you have about 80% of the vision that you will eventually get. it's pretty amazing procedure.

now, as to the horror stories. yes, there are many horror stories most of them occur because of the miscalculation on the part of the doctor. if all calculations are correct, the actual execution is almost guaranteed unless of course there is equipment failure.

as in anything human however, there is a chance of error.

 

[PlatinumGold]

i have a hard time believing that there would be lens detachment. they are probably referring to the flap.

 

[Ultima]

my mom had it done and her vision is near perfect now (or so she says).

 

[ttn1]

Sorry, yeah I meant the flap.

Edit: Of course losing the flap can't be a good thing.

I just read a directive from the department of defense, that
says a medical waiver is required to join the military after
having the surgery. I imagine it would make it very hard to
get into flight school.

 

[Ultima]

<< man... after reading this i am tempted to get this done...

I usually dont wear glasses, but recently my eyesite has been deteriating rapidly. I realized one day at McDs that I was squinting to read the menu....

I guess I should be wearing glasses on a regular basis.. but I never have before.. just for classes and when I program.

think this is a good idea ? >>



Hell no, your vision isn't really that bad. My vision's been like that for about half my life (staying relatively constant though) but I rarely wear glasses or contact lenses, but they're there when I do. Don't mess with your eyes. Someone here mentioned the glasses saving his eye :Q, but I don't like glasses so I wear contact lenses more often, but I don't feel they're 100% safe so I don't wear them all the time

 

[SuperTool]

I am -7 on both eyes, dammit.
I sit in front of my computer all day too :| at work, then at home.
I might get it one of these days, because my eyesight finally stopped freefalling in terms of prescription when i turned 20.
I have been wearing glasses since I was 7. It would feel pretty weird without them.
I'll probably do it, but it's kind of like computers, every year it gets 2x better and 2x cheaper. I'll wait till they finally settle on the best solution. I think right now they are still experimenting with new things. I want to wait till this is a mature procedure.

 

[Schlocemus]

Nice linky

 

[ddjkdg]

http://www.lasik-laser-eye-surgery.com/lasik-surgery-links.html



<<

<< I have heard of instances of lens detachment after the procedure. This is a very small percentage,
but I decided to wait a few years unitl some decent 5-10 year statistics come out.

As for a career in the air force, I would check with some people who know about the regulations.
I believe surgeries like vision correction can exclude you from being a pilot. >>



Last I heard, they were accepting laser vision correction. Even if I fly only transport aircraft, it's better than the local police I should talk to a recruiter to make sure, though..

As for the 5-10 year statistics, hasn't LASIK been around for about 10 years already? >>



About the Air Force. From what I had understood, they currently are not and never have accepted Lasik-corrected people. They have in the past though accepted people with another form of correction, I forget what it is called, but I believe it was the first "old" method that PlatinumGold described (cutting radiating lines from the cornea). However since Lasik is a relatively new procedure they are hesitant about accepting people with Lasik correction because the long-term affects are unknown.

Anyways, if you decide not to get vision correction and still try to join the Air Force certain rules still apply. Your vision has to be above a certain level uncorrected, for ANY position. I think it is around 20/100, I may be wrong on that though. To be a pilot of any kind your vision has to be 20/40 uncorrected and 20/20 corrected, both eyes, and of course no funky night-vision stuff.

Of course I could just be spewing BS as I'm again not 100% sure on any of this. You'll have to talk to a recruiter or go to airforce.com and post a message on the boards, and one of their guys/gals will tell you what you need to know.