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Experiences with Laser Eye Surgery?
Posted by
Cliff
on Fri Jul 23, 2004 06:59 PM
from the is-it-worth-the-risk-to-your-retinas dept.
from the is-it-worth-the-risk-to-your-retinas dept.
GodLessOne asks: "I am about to get my hands on a reasonable lump of cash and I am working on my list of ways to make it an ex-lump of cash. All of the normal geek things appear on the list, but one item that I keep considering is corrective laser eye surgery. Would anyone care to share their real world experiences? I worry that the people selling it are the only ones saying how wonderful it is, and what percentage of people show a marked improvement afterward. Are there any stories out there relating how bad it can be if it goes wrong?"
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And the short answer is... (Score:5, Funny)
I would, but I'm a hunt-and-peck typist, and my keyboard is pretty much just a blur.
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Re:And the short answer is... (Score:5, Informative)
May vision was bad before. And I mean BAD. I was almost legally blind. Anything beyond about 6 inches in front of my face was a complete blur. And you can't imagine the feeling you have when you crush your coke bottle glasses and toss them in the trash.
My onyly negative was that for some reason, Some of the anesthetic drops missed my cornea in my left eye. So when that blade cut, it was kinda painful. But I can't complain with the results.
Keep in mind though, it is not a miracle cure all. When you have bad vision (like me) you may still have to wear glasses (most likely ata reduced perscription.
But like I said, it was well worth the money to be freed from having to put on glasses just to get out of bed.
~X~
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Re:And the short answer is... (Score:5, Informative)
I can "see" fine without glasses to get around and such, but I can't read comfortably without them.
The tradeoff is that I work in the film and television industry - eyes are pretty important (read: vital) for my job, and the risk is outweighed by the potential problems if something "went wrong".
I'm reasonably comfortable with the technology now - I know that a local company doing the laser correction does a "no touch" technique where they use the laser exclusively without the microkeratome so no foreign objects touch the optical surface of your eye - apparently it provides a smoother finished surface with less chance of issues at night.
But it's not an urgent "fix" for me. Add to that at least a couple times where glasses have saved my eyes from being injured (once by flying debris, and once by an accidental spray of cleaning solvent) and I'm not all that unhappy wearing glasses...
N.
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Re:And the short answer is... (Score:5, Interesting)
This being said, it was the best investment that I ever made and I would gladly do it again. When I had mine corrected, I purchased what amounts to a life time warranty. If my eyes get too bad again, I can go back in for another "flap-n-zap" and it won't cost me a cent. Cost a bit upfront (I think I paid about $2k/eye, but Its good being able to see without glasses and knowing that I can have them fix it again in 10 years if needed.
I have recommended this to everyone I know who wears glasses, especially those who, like me, wre nealry in the realm of legal blindness. I have 20/20 and 20/25 vision right now, and I would pay another $4k if need be (but thankfully I won't have to)
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Re:And the short answer is... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:And the short answer is... (Score:5, Informative)
The laser PRK actually uses the laser to remove the cells above the cornea rather than cutting a flap.
The old-style PRK method of this that got a really bad name is when they used to abrade (read: sand off) the top surface of the eye using a q-tip of some sort. Apparently this was highly uncomfortable and was prone to problems healing (ick).
The laser version basically does the same thing, but it just vaporizes the top layer of cells then uses the laser to reshape the cornea underneath and is much less traumatic to the eye as nothing is physically touching the optical surface of the eye.
That said, the technology you mentioned is also very intriguing. Using a laser to cut a flap, then reshape makes good sense as well. Apparently each method has it's tradeoffs:
-The flap-cut method heals faster and causes less discomfort, however there's the issue of the flap itself and the size of flap they can cut to work on the cornea underneath. Apparently "flap problems" are the biggest cause of after-surgery complications
-The laser PRK method is a bit more uncomfortable afterwards as the membrane on the eye needs to regrow (a few days). But there's no flap, and they can work on a larger area to reduce night-effects. This method is apparently not approved in the US (although the reference for that was a few years ago) so you might need to go to another country to do it (ie: Canada).
The only reason I know about it is that I went for one of their free evaluations a few years ago because I was curious what they could do. I opted not to do anything at the time, but I felt comfortable with the staff and it seemed like an easy-enough procedure.
There were a few people in the lobby that were getting after-procedure checkups, but they didn't speak english, so I couldn't ask them about it
N.
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Re:And the short answer is... (Score:5, Funny)
In early 2000 the chief software engineer at LASIK came to give a talk before a Software Engineering course I was taking at Sonoma State (worthless CS program, but nevermind). He talked for most of an hour about various parts of the development process, hardware interlocks, millisecond-cutoff crash-detector watchdogs and so forth. Moderately interesting. At the end of a Q&A period, one student asked him what platform LASIK ran on -- since it had been explained that the machines had to be deployed to eye doctors' offices and be easy to use correctly and difficult to use wrongly, etc., etc. The answer, and I swear I'm not making this up, was "Windows 3.1." There was a pause while everyone in the room absorbed this, then he added "But we're considering porting it to Win95."
Hooray for hardware interlocks.
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Re:If you're already 20/20 .... (Score:5, Funny)
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My experience (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:My experience (Score:5, Funny)
plus, if there's a nuclear war that kills everyone but you, and you want to spend the rest of your days reading all the books you never had a chance to read, you don't have to worry that an ironic accident will put the kibosh on your plans.
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Re:My experience (Score:5, Funny)
Let me get this straight. Are you suggesting I not go to a lousy doctor?
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One man's experience (Score:5, Informative)
In retrospect, I would never, ever recommend it to anyone. I started off at -5.5 (which is pretty bad). I had no astigmatism, and no other problems. I had been wearing contacts for years without any problems and didn't really mind them that much, but just thought that it'd be nice not to need them.
The surgery went well. I walked out of the office, went to sleep, and woke up 3 hours later. I looked outside and could see perfectly - and I do mean PERFECTLY. I was ecstatic. For the first time in my life, I could see without those lenses. This was as good as my vision would get.
For 3 months after this, I had massive fluctuations in my vision. Some days I'd wake up seeing fine, other days I'd have weird problems including double vision, halos, astigmatism, etc (and that's not even including the night vision problems). After those 3 months, my vision finally settled down to being under corrected at -1 with astigmatism (which changed every time they measured it). At this point, I basically figured that I had no choice but to go ahead and have the touch-up (since it was much harder to correct my vision with lenses now).
After 6 months, I had a touch-up. Following this operation, I had the same weird after effects for months, until my vision finally stabilized - into 20/20 vision. During the day. In good sunlight. When I'm not tired. All of a sudden I have dry eye problems which cause me huge problems at night, or when I'm tired. Problems I never had before. I have weird problems with blue lights. At night, I can focus on most things, but am unable to focus on blue LEDs or lights. Apparently this is a normal side effect of the surgery.
I would recommend that you visit http://www.lasikdisaster.com/ [lasikdisaster.com] If you want some more information. The major problem that they don't tell you is this: 20/20 vision is NOT the same as perfect vision. You can have double vision, ghosting, night vision problems but still have 20/20 vision. As long as you can read that little line on the eye chart, you have 20/20 and are considered a success story of the surgery. You could have a double image and not be able to drive, or function properly and STILL BE A SUCCESS.
In addition to this, you can end up with eyes that are miscorrected (so you still have blurry vision) that are UNCORRECTABLE. If you have multi-axial astigmatism, or other weird issues you may NEVER be correctable to 20/20 with glasses, contacts or ANYTHING ELSE. Think about that. No matter how bad your eyes are now, at least they're correctable.
In short, I would never, ever, ever have the surgery knowing what I know now. I would also never ever recommend it to anyone. The risks are not worth the rewards. Notice they say that 95% or 98% or whatever reach 20/20 - but they never say how many have these weird complications - and outside studies estimate them as high as 25%. Doesn't sound so good now, does it?
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Re:One man's experience (Score:5, Interesting)
That reminds me of when I was in high school and had 20/15 vision. I had a part time job that involved working with some pretty scary chemicals, and one day when I left work I realized that my vision was "foggy." It looked just like when I used to keep my eyes open in the swimming pool as a kid, and things looked all blurry afterward. Well, I went to a doctor and told him what was wrong, but I was able to read the 20/15 line on the chart. Of course, he said that everything was OK. I had a hell of a time convincing him that everything was NOT OK! It went away after a day though, with no help from him. Sorry for your troubles.
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Re:One man's experience (Score:5, Informative)
You probably didn't notice that effect when your correction was -5.5, but now that it's 0, it's obvious.
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A few thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, do you really need it? If you don't really need it, then waiting may be your best option. Medical technology changes so fast that a new, better procedure could be out within a few years. Sometimes, having one of these surgeries disqualifies you from a future surgery.
It basically comes down to how much you're risking. If I had only minor vision problems, I wouldn't have it done. If my vision is already pretty bad, I might be willing to risk more for an improvement.
BTW, you can always invest money rather than spending it. It's a wacky idea, but might be worth your consideration.
Re:A few thoughts (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:A few thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
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Start off with Google... (Score:5, Informative)
If I had money to spend... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If I had money to spend... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Don't do it. (Score:5, Informative)
I, personally, wouldn't do it unless my vision was so bad I needed coke-bottle bottoms to see.
Re:Don't do it. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Don't do it. (Score:5, Informative)
I had 20/50 vision before hand, with an astigmatism that added an equal amount of distortion as the 20/50, and I'm now around 20/15 with both eyes, and 20/20 with each eye by itself.
The key was a good doctor. At one point worked with someone that went to a place that was only $1000 for both eyes, but if you paid cash - $800!! Wow! Her technician had aparently performed around 10 surgeries. Uhhh...no thanks, these are my freakin EYES here.
Now, she did this right after I quit that job, so I have no idea how her eyes are (This was 4 years ago), but I instead talked to my opthamologist. He recommended two doctors, Dr. Steel & Doctor Maloney. Dr Maloney was one of the inventors at UCLA, and had done 15K proceedures at the time, and and Doctor Steel had done about 10K proceedures, and was in my old hometown, and was $300 cheaper.
So, I put away the max $3k in my cafeteria plan, and used that for the surgery, so that I actually got about 33% back in taxes.
I also called around where I live now, and the local guy was bragging about his 4K surgeries, and was $1200 more.
It was an easy choice.
It took about an hour and a half at the doctor's office, plus some pre & post op appointments...and was awesome. The next day I went with my girlfriend & hung out on the wharf here in town & thought "WOW! THAT SEAGULL IS SOOO CLEAR!!! WOW!!! THE WATER IS SHIIIINYYY!!!!!" (Make sure you buy new sunglasses....my eyes were dialated for about 3 days...)
It's awesome. I'm really glad I did it. And I didn't even have "horrible" vision to start.
ObPlug: http://www.steelvisioncenters.com/ [steelvisioncenters.com]
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Staar Surgical (Score:5, Informative)
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bleh (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is an idea, find some scientific studies and figure the odds. NO procedure is 100% safe.
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Re:Don't do it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry...
you are wrong.
Lasik is not approved for military use, but PRK is. All it takes is a waiver and 6-12months postsurgery stability before you join. The only thing they really care about is pilots...even those are being studied for suitability...
I don't know about the police thing, Id imagine there are waivers too just like the military.
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Re:Don't do it. (Score:4, Interesting)
1) I'm a big wuss and I'm rwally not sure I can lie there while someone slices my eye open and burns the stuff underneath, while I'm thinking " mm.. bacon"
They use a "cold laser", no heating. Can't help you with the first part though
2) with most normal procedures, if it goes wrong, then you're back where you used to be, with lasik, you could be horribly worse off
With any surgery there is a risk of complications. I doubt lasik and prk are any different. However this is cosmetic/conveience surgery so your risk threshold may be lower.
3) I beleive that a massive percentage lose alot of night vision, you might not be able to legally drive at night for example
I have not encountered a percentage over 5 any studies I have seen referenced. Is that what you mean by massive? Reportedly it disappears by about 6 months after in most cases.
4) the eye is much more prone to infection Temporary and common to any surgery, be careful and you should not have any problems.
5) the army and police won't let you join if you've had it, rather tellling I think
Well the other replies in this thread provide proof to counter this claim with the possible exception of pilots who traditionally require vision beyond that of anyone who would consider laser eye surgery.
But to add to your list:
6) It is cosmetic surgery. Money and risk is better saved for surgery you need. I think this is the best reason not to get laser eye surgery but each person has to evaluate it for themselves, just do so with facts and not rumor.
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Jessica Simpson had it done (Score:5, Funny)
A horrible disappointment (Score:5, Funny)
Check the Expert. (Score:5, Funny)
"I wasn't sure, every surgeon I met who would perform it was wearing glasses..."
Be careful (Score:5, Informative)
Understand the risks, ans assume much worse odds than you are told. If you're still up for it, go on. If you aren't sure, wait. It keeps getting better and safer, you know.
Good luck!
FDA comments (Score:5, Informative)
The FDA offers this article: Laser Eye Surgery: Is It Worth Looking Into? [fda.gov]
Those with whom it went wrong... (Score:5, Funny)
long term consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:long term consequences (Score:4, Informative)
It is not yet probably known what the odds are of higher risk for long term complications, but certainly people have been having laser surgeries for a long time. Lasik is a bit different too, though, and much newer. It is possible that it will lead to a variety of long term complications that would not arise with P/RK.
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Corneal Refractive Therapy (Score:5, Interesting)
Hard/Gas Perm Contact Caution (Score:5, Informative)
Another warning -- always get a second opinion (from a competent opthamologist) as to whether the thickness of your cornea is great enough to successfully do the surgery. In a story a while ago (cnn?) one of the major problems was that a doctor would attempt to do the surgery with a cornea that was too thin to work with.
An even better Idea for than Eye Surgery. (Score:5, Funny)
did it 4 years ago (Score:5, Informative)
1) This isn't like buying toothpaste (to borrow a quote). This is surgery. It is worth it to pay the extra money for someone good, rather than skimp and regret it later.
2) If your correction is still changing year-to-year, don't do it. It's only really worth it if your vision has stabilized for a few years.
3) Be prepared for side effects. Personally, my eyes are much drier than they were before, and small, point light sources have little halos around them...especially visible at night.
4) They may say that you can function normally the next day...don't even bother trying. Personally, the day after I could look out my window and watch the building across the way shift into and out of focus as my eyes dealt with their new shape. It was like tripping, only without the mood to go along with it. Kinda freaky, actually, now that I think about it.
With all that said, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I was about -6 or -6.5 diopter, and about a -3 or 4 astigmatism. That's well beyond the range measureable by the 20/20 scale. I don't need glasses now, for anything. I spent a good deal more than the average person, but it was absolutely worth it.
friends say that it is OK... (Score:5, Funny)
supposedly it weakens some parts of your eye (dunno exaclty which) and if your head receives big hits (eg you do motocross, martial arts or just get beaten up frequently) there is a chance that your eye just pops out and pours out
a friend who is a kempo teacher told me that, it worths a research...
i think it also depends how bad your eye is
DON'T DO IT! (Score:5, Informative)
I got Lasik eye surgery in both my eyes from one of the most respected (and expensive) surgeons on the west coast. I did my homework, at the time 4 years ago, he had already done 10,000+ procedures. He has impeccable credentials (Harvard M.D.) and I believe he was one of the people who actually developed the technology. He is the founder of a very fancy institute and did numerous tests both before and after the procedure.
Anyway the reason why I mention this is because although things went perfectly, there was one bad consequence. I HAVE BLURRY VISION IN LOW LIGHT! I understand this is because, when you have as bad eyesight as I did, when the pupil expands in low light it goes beyond the area where the laser ablation took place. The consequence of having light going into your eye from the central focused region and the outer unfocused region is blurriness typically as halos or rings.
During the day/bright light my vision is absolutely perfect, I have better than 20/20 whereas before I had something like 600/20. Unfortunately my work takes me into lots of dark rooms looking at relatively dimly lit images and judging them for image quality/artifacts. So it was BAD!
As a consequence I am keeping up with technological developments waiting for a fix. Now they are using something called wavefront technology, I guess they are able to ablate away your cornea in fractions of a wavelength of visible light (the laser is UV to prevent heating which would kill underlying cells). Unfortunately I think this does not help me because I need the laser to be able to get a larger region of my cornea so that my expanded pupils don't reach the boundary of the ablated area.
I am not sure if my problems were due to my extremely nearsighted vision or other factors. In any case, I am posting this warning that even the best doctor may leave you with BAD results. (I have my complaints that this part of the industry seems to be poorly regulated, while I was given disclosures on the procedures, I do not think the odds of poor results were clearly explained to me. So if this doctor thinks I'm defaming him, I'll be happy to take him to court.).
Good luck.
Hanging up the red and blue tights? (Score:5, Funny)
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ok for me (Score:5, Funny)
Worked great for me, but know your risks first! (Score:5, Informative)
But, it's not without risks. For example, my night vision is somewhat degraded because uncorrected light on the edges of the cornea (when I had the surgery done the current technology only corrected out to about 8mm) creates 'starbursts'. I'm still happy with the procedure, but it's not always perfect. There are chances (low, but statistics don't mean anything when you're only talking about one set of eyes) that much worse things can happen.
Any good doctor will clearly present your options and risks. Ask around for a referral from friends as to who to see... and don't just take the lowest cost vendor!
My experience with laser eye surgery (Score:5, Informative)
my sister-in-law freaked (Score:4, Informative)
Her vision was something along the lines of 20/800, and everybody chipped in (over $5,000) to get her corrective eye surgery for college graduation. She completely freaked out during the surgery. They have to cut a flap into your eye, while you're awake, and with little-to-no anesthesia. She had a complete panic attack at this point, although continued through the end.
After healing, her eyes were something like 20/25 in one and 20/35 in the other. Terrific improvement, and she stopped wearing glasses. After a few months though, she was back to 20/60 in one eye, and 20/80 in the other. She doesn't wear glasses all the time, but is required to for driving. This kind of relapse is fairly common I believe, but not this severe.
Like every other deal I've heard of, she can go back any time she wants to get corrected the rest of the way, "with no extra charge." (yeah, right) She's not planning on doing so, mostly because of the fear of the surgery, but also because of cost. The 'deal' was for surgery with the same laser they had previously used, and they didn't use that one any more. The one they had now was 'better', but came with more expensive licensing. So in order to finish the correction, she would now have to pay something like an extra $500 per eye.
So, your mileage may vary, but it didn't work very well for her. And whatever you do, watch out for those 'deals' with fine print.
A good choice, but make sure to minimize risks! (Score:5, Informative)
OK, now I'll tell you my personal experience (that's what GodLessOne is looking for, isn't it?). I got LASIK performed on my eyes back in December, 2001. At that time I lived in Colombia.
It turns out that, to the surprise of many of you, Colombian ophthalmologists are actually leaders in their field. Keratomileusis, the first refractive-correction surgery procedure was developed by Dr José Barraquer, and ALK (automated lamellar keratoplasty) by one of his students, Dr Luis Antonio Ruiz. ALK was very similar to LASIK, but the actual molding of the cornea was done mechanically. A Greek ophthalmologist was apparently the first one to use an excimer laser to do the molding, although I have read references that it was also Dr Ruiz's team who developed the automatic tracking mechanism that warranties that the laser will always burn the correct part of the cornea even if the eye moves. (The eye is not completely inmovilized. They ask you to look up, where there used to be a red light moments before, but if you do move your eyes it's OK.)
I barely knew about Barraquer back in 2001, and nothing else. Some friend of my family strongly recommended some Dr. Luis Ruiz when they found out I was interested in LASIK. Only a year later, when I was researching LASIK on the web for a friend who also wanted to get her eyes treated, did I find out that I had been operated by one of the inventors of the damned thing. By the way, my friend also lives in the USA and got her eyes operated by Dr. Ruiz during a holiday vacation trip. I recently talked to her and she told me that she went for a control appointment a few weeks back and she's still 20/20 (she went to Colombia for an unrelated reason).
Back to my story:
So my recommendations are:
Re:Get some nice glasses instead (Score:5, Insightful)
I am now 41 years old, and am starting to feel if ever so slightly, the niggling annoyances of age. And I've had surgery of various forms, so I know exactly what that means: If it's one thing I've learned, it's that no surgery comes without a long-term cost.
So as for eyes, even if you don't touch them whatsoever you are still at rist of eventual macular degeneration, cataracts, and all sorts of other nastyness. Given that, sizzling the corneas with lasers in middle age doesn't exactly seem like a smart long term plan.
And so, like my opthamologist, I am wearing $400 glasses in titanium frames and I love it. They're so light I can't feel them, they have stunning clarity, my eyeballs love it, and my odds of getting nasty blinding problems in twenty years plummet.
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Re:WONDERFULL!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Then one day she was talking to one of her friends who had undergone laser surgery. He was thrilled with the results and claimed that he "walked out of the clinic with better eyesight than he had ever had with glasses or contacts" -- a rather unbelievable story detail but his raving reviews convinced her to try it out.
She had one eye done at a time, to reduce the credit card bill and also to ensure that if the first eye didn't go well then at least she would have one working eye!
It went great so a few months later she had the other eye done and has not regretted it. Now she notices a little bit of extra hazziness on bright lights at night, and is still a bit hooked on eye drops after about two years (but then, she used a lot of eye drop stuff when she had contacts).
I know about five or six people who have had the proceedure done and they all had positive results.
Finally, if you are having it done in the SF Bay Area, my wife would strongly recommend the UCSF eye center. That is where she had the second eye done and she found them MUCH more professional than the private eye doctor (trained at UCSF) that did her first eye.
Good luck.
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safety glasses (Score:5, Insightful)
Now THAT'S an advantage of glasses that people often forget. It's nice to always have a layer of tough polycarbonate (or whatever glasses are made from now) protecting your squishy, delicate visual system at all times.
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