Experiences with Laser Eye Surgery? 1104
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?"
Some thoughts and warnings. (Score:3, Interesting)
Corneal Refractive Therapy (Score:5, Interesting)
Special Contacts that reshape eyes (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically the idea is that the contact reshapes your eye while you sleep. In the morning, you take the contacts out and have near perfect vision for close to 24 hours. That's not the beauty of them though. Apparently, if you use these contacts your eyesight does not worsen.
I wasn't able to afford them when my optometrist told me about them. They were around $700 a pair because they were new and specific to your eyes. I have no clue what they are called but it's worth looking into...no pun intended.
Excess cash and surgery can be bad together (Score:3, Interesting)
Before you decide that you are safe from this as you are not taking up mountain climbing, you might want to consider whether you plan on taking any high altitude airplane flights, as for example on a business trip to Denver CO.
Re:A few thoughts (Score:2, Interesting)
that would be terribly mistaken.
even if you had perfect vision without lasik, it would still be highly recommended to check your eyes at least every couple of years.
if you do get lasik, there are plenty of people who do not get a perfect correction. depending upon the humidity during the operation and possibly during the days that you are healing, your correction will vary. the doc tries to adjust so that you do get the right correction.
one of my buddies that got his done years ago, his vision is perfect still. but two friends had theirs done recently had their vision worsen slightly (still better then original) a year later, after initially being nearly perfect.
my vision is nearly 20/20, i don't need glasses...but my vision is precious. you won't catch me going 5 years without an eye exam.
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.
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.
Re:did it 4 years ago - I did it 2.5 years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said, I'm glad I did it overall. My diopters were more like about 7-8, with moderate astigmatism IIRC. Coke bottle glasses for sure.
After I hit 40 and the need for bifocals developed, I found looking at computer screens all day (mandated by my sys/web admin jobs), got to be really uncomfortable. I never could get bifocals that I liked - tried progessive, but they did not have enough reading area for me, and the conventional dual lens types were quite annoying with the obvious dividing line interfreing with my view on many occasions.
At 51, I had enough unspent pre-tax "Health Care Reimbursement Account" money for a substantial down payment on the Lasik surgery, so I checked into some providers in the area. Definitely go with someone with experience and a good track record. They did an assessment, and said I was just above borderline in corneal thickness, so I had to decide.
I did it, and it was rough at times. I had to go back for one adjustment re-burn, and 2 clean-outs of surface epithelial cells trapped under the corneal flap, and which were clouding the vision in that eye as they died off. Also, both eyes regressed somewhat, but the left stablized at about 20/60, and lo, and behold - it is almost perfect for viewing the computer screen, so I said let it be, and let's get the right as close to 20/20 as we can (it had regressed to 20/100). And although it was the one with the cell growth, they got it to around 20/25 or so, and it is my "long-distance" eye.
This mono-vision solution has worked out for me, and is not unusual for over-40 contact lens wearers to deal with the bifocal problem. I have gotten Rx sunglasses that correct both eyes to 20/20 for daytime driving, but often don't bother with them for around-town driving when off-the-shelf sunglasses suffice. I use the Rx shades more for trips, and all-day outdoors activities. I also have glasses with only the left lens (from the regression period shortly after the initial surgery) to help me with night driving, but the lenses are so much thinner and lighter than in my pre-Lasik days, that it's not an issue for me.
And, for the most part, I can do without glasses most of the time if I need, or want to, unlike before when it was positivly dangerous for me to try to cross a clutterd room without glasses. As with the person in the posting this one responds to, dry eyes are more common now, and I find it helpful to keep a supply of Natural Tears vials handy. My night vision is not as bothered with the "stars" effect it seems, although long hours of "computer staring" without enough breaks for the eye drops will leave me with a bit of hazy vision as when swimmers get too much chlorine in their eyes - drops and rest usually clear it up by the next day.
All in all, I enjoy the much greater, if not total, freedom from glasses, especially coke bottle bifocals.
HTH,
ROC
Re:Don't do it. (Score:3, Interesting)
And no reputable lasik surgeon would perform the surgery on you, as that prescription would almost certainly exceed the corneal thickness of your eyes.
You can't wear contacts after getting lasik, and it isn't reccomended for use in conjunction with prescription eyewear.
Lasik is only for people with an adequate corneal thickness to 'carve' the right prescription into thier eye with a laser. oh and btw... the laser in infrared... and they can only minimilaze exposure by using pulses that are too short to permanently burn out your ability to see at night. Cheaper lasik operations might not care if you can see at night, which is probably whey they advertize such low rates...
got it done a year ago (Score:4, Interesting)
The intial night vision problem took a few months, but it disappeared and now my night vision is better than what it was with glasses. The main thing I would recommend is researching the doctors in detail. Don't get it done in a parking lot and don't go for one of these "deals". Your vision is not something that should be trusted to the lowest bidder!
night vision (Score:3, Interesting)
J
Re:My experience (Score:3, Interesting)
I second this entirely. I had mine done in 1999, which was fairly early for this sort of thing, and it was the best money I ever spent. TLC people knew what they were doing, and it was professional and well-done all the way through.
I had none of the problems the parent had, either, and I was more than -10 in both eyes. Had them both done at once, and drove to my follow-up appointment the next day myself. My advice is go to a good doctor, go to an experienced person to perform the procedure (ala TLC), and you'll be very, very happy with the results.
Oh, it was more than a year before I stopped waking up just overflowing with joy that I could see the clock across the room... it was a miracle every day.
Doug
If you're already 20/20 .... (Score:3, Interesting)
I had it done and I'm perfectly happy. I was 20/20, 20/15, Though I think my 20/15 eye has drifted back a little bit. I don't need glasses anymore and thats the point.
You walk in with glasses, you walk out seeing 20/20. All the places "insure" the surgery so they'll do corrections for free if you drift into vision that would require correction.
I do have some of the halo thing. It's really not a big deal. It gets better as you go along. It's better to squint to kill a halo than squint to read a book.
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)
Re:If I had money to spend... (Score:5, Interesting)
A pox on bureaucrats! (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, I don't have any kids, and I guess that leaves me sort of out of the loop with these things, because I had no idea that kids now must be vaccinated for chicken pox before being allowed into public school.
What the hell is wrong with people?! Is chicken pox -- as a child -- really so bad? When I was a kid parents used to hold "chicken pox parties." A kid in the neighborhood would get chicken pox and the other mothers would bring their kids over to catch it, figuring that it is almost inevitable that their kid is going to get it, so why not get it when they're young and the outbreak isn't so bad.
I didn't get chicken pox until I was 15 years old, and when I got it I got it on every square inch of my body, from my scalp to the soles of my feet, to a few inside my throat. It sucked for two weeks, but after that it was no big deal.
For crying out loud, we're not talking about polio! The bureaucrats in the so-called field of "public health policy" ought to learn to just leave everybody the hell alone over little things like this. No doubt some bureaucrat -- looking to justify his job -- put this little piece of policy together so he could strut around proudly at the office Christmas party and retire "with honors" -- a big oil portrait of himself hanging in some government building's lobby.
Sorry for the rant!
Wavefront technology (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe that before wavefront technology, they just looked at your prescription (focal length error in diopters, astigmatism) and take off the corresponding amount of lens across the entire aperture of your eye based on those few numbers.
With wavefront technology, they look at many points of the lens independently to decide how much to take off at each point.
The Google words for how this works are (hartmann shack wavefront).
Re:Don't do it. (Score:2, Interesting)
I had mine done at the Mass Eye and Ear Institute in Boston by Dmitri Azar, who was involved in this particular surgery from the beginning. And I met an eye doc there who'd actually had LASIK. I did the LASEK because of a dream of joining the FBI and because my corneas are a bit thin for the necessary correction.
Here's my big thoughts.
1. Things can go wrong. Know that and expect that it could happen. It probably won't, but you might not end up with what you thought you'd get.
2. Night vision issues are a possibility. Spend the extra cash for the wavefront correction (well worth it, I can clearly see things with the one LASEK corrected eye which I cannot even detect with my contact lens-filled eye).
3. If you're the least bit squeamish, be sure you know what you're up against. Remember, you actually have to WATCH what's happening in this surgery. A good doc takes care to not bring a knife straight in at your eye, but rather slips it around the edge of your field of vision. Nonetheless, it's pretty freaky to watch, even on a Valium or two.
4. Interview your docs. Find out how many problems they've had. Especially infections, which can pretty quickly and permanently damage your vision.
5. Know that, if things go wrong, you might not even be able to correct your vision to what you had before with contacts or glasses. Be sure you're ready for that possibility.
6. Don't travel too far for a doc. If there are any issues or problems you want to be able to waltz right in there and kick your doc's ass. Or bitch him out a bit. Basically, get the best guy you can afford within an hour of your home or work.
On the whole, I like it. With my wavefront-laser-corrected eye, I can clearly read things in dim light, like scores on a TV 30 feet across a bar. I can't even see the score BOX on the TV with my contact-lens eye. It's a little confusing to have one LASEK and one contact lens, but you get used to it. I'm just afraid to do the other eye... the LASEK surgery is a lot of mechanical work on your eye that you have to watch.
One other possibility - gas permeable lenses which slowly reshape your eye. You wear the rigid lens sometimes, maybe every night, and it reshapes your eye like a retainer does for your teeth. This is known as either "ortho keratatomy" (Ortho-K) or "Corneal Reshaping Therapy" (CRT). A site which talks about CRT is at http://www.paragoncrt.com/. I'm thinking about doing that for my other eye.
Good luck with your decision.
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.
not for stargazers (Score:2, Interesting)
I had side effects (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:If you're already 20/20 .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If you're already 20/20 .... (Score:3, Interesting)
references (Score:3, Interesting)
I found a couple of references:
A comparison between PRK, LASIK, and LASEK [intelihealth.com].
A discussion of Bowman's layer [youreyesite.com]
so no foreign objects touch the optical surface of your eye
That sounds like marketing speak. Think about it: a laser erodes the surface of your cornea ("eye"), resulting in what amounts to a massive wound, left to heal while exposed to the dust and dirt of the outside world.
apparently it provides a smoother finished surface with less chance of issues at night.
Apart from any concerns over the long-term effects, larger risk of complications with non-flap techniques is apparently why the flap techniques were introduced.
i'm happy with the results (Score:2, Interesting)
first, there are several kinds of ops, as you probably know. the ones i know of i'll list here:
PRK you shouldn't do, the risk of anything going wrong is comparatively high.
LASIK is the one i did, i'm and i'm pretty happy with the results.
LASEK is a moderately new one, it sounds like it's the same as LASIK with the flap that's being taken off much thinner, so they remove tissue from the same layer as in PRK, but it's about as safe as LASIK - more painful, takes longer to heal. it's recommended for those that can do it, but some skin layer might be too thin, so then you'd have to do LASIK.
anyway, i'm sure you can use google to read up more about those, in case you haven't.
the real problem with LASIK and LASEK is, that there's only about 5ish years 'long-term' experience with it. noone knows what'll happen 20 years after the op.
with PRK the long-term experience is a lot better, and for most people things stay just fine. so since both LASIK and LASEK are safer in principle, it's reasonable to assume that you'd be fine, too.
i took the risk because i couldn't stand my glasses any longer. i kept misplacing them, and was nearsighted enough to not find them again once i misplaced them - funny in a way, but not when it happens to you. my eyes are smallish, and pretty dry, so even using contacts that let a lot of oxygen through i couldn't stand them for more than about 6 hours at a stretch, which sucks when you consider a normal workday.
anyway. the op was quick, painless, but terrifying because your vision goes (first completely, then blurry), while you're otherwise fully conscious, and you can't help thinking 'oh god i'll never be able to see again'. heh.
apparently my eyes were a bit sensitive to light, so right after the op i was blinded - i was given some sunglasses for my way home, and everything i saw had a glowing halo. for about a week lights had a halo, then everything was back to normal. i see better at night now than i used to, because my glasses also reflected light badly (good glasses, but some things you just can't do properly, it seems) - whether i see better or worse than with contacts i can't say. the pain for that day was a bit like when you've been cutting onions... annoying, but bearable.
after the op my vision changed from -6/-3.5 diopter (?) to +0.25/0, which is pretty much a perfect result. (+/- 0.5 after the op is considered normal).
which reminds me of something i don't think about often anymore: my eyes being so different, my brain just shut out information from my worse eye most of the time, so i didn't see in 3d. afterwards i kept being completely fascinated and deliriously happy about how plastic things looked.
so, while i'm not sure how things'll be in the future, i'm completely happy with the op.
one other thing to note is that of course your eyes will get worse again with age, just like any other persons. so in a way, the younger you are when you do the op, the more you get from it.
hope this helped!
Same long 'short answer' here. (Score:3, Interesting)
Upside: I did just one eye, and got 0 sphere, .25 cyl (in Euro terms - basically slight astigmatism left behind, but legally good enough to drive). I still wear my specs (with new, weaker lenses) when I have to concentrate really hard (like a push for a deadline), but the rest of the time they are gone. It makes such a difference! No more risk of conjunctivitis. I love diving and swimming, and those are simpler to enjoy now. Roller-skating without getting the bridge of my nose sweaty. Not having to stop and remove specs when kissing the g/f! It's marvellous.
I recommend it to everyone young enough to take advantage of it.
Downside: I appear to have got a slight halo effect at night. Obviously having only had one eye done, if I get sun-dazzled from the good side, then everything goes out of focus. However I will not need reading glasses later, as the untreated eye will take over for reading when the muscles in the other can't do it any more.
I still recommend it to everyone.
Anyone got any specific questions, I'll answer.
Justin.
Better than wearing glasses during sex (Score:2, Interesting)