Lasik eye surgery

iostream212

Active Member
Got my eyes lasik'ed about a week ago. I'd like to offer my experience to those who are on the fence about the procedure.
 
If you are willing to put up with the pain and poor vision for 10 to 14 days, you should have PRK (not to be confused with RK which is totally different). PRK is LASIK but without cutting the flap (the laser is applied to the surface of the cornea, not in the middle of the cornea after the surface is shaved 90% off and flipped out of the way). The flap is where complications occur. PRK is more accurate and avoids most of the complications of LASIK. The flap can get screwed up or even dislodged years after the procedure. Also, the surface of your eye is numb after LASIK for years or maybe forever leaving you at risk of not having pain if the surface of your eye is injured (for whatever reason) later on masking a problem that you should be getting treated. The loss of nerves on the surface disrupts your eye's ability to know how much tears to produce and commonly causes dry eye after LASIK.

The downside, you have the equivalent of a corneal abrasion after PRK. It takes about 10 days to heal and is pretty uncomfortable plus your vision stinks (like looking through waxed paper). I picked PRK becuase my eyesight is critical to my livelyhood. It worked perfectly, but it was a tough week.

LASIK is typically painless with no real recovery to speak of. Lots and lots of people have LASIK without complication, but I have 2 friends who have had serious problems, one is a physician (fortunately not a surgeon).
 
Today I still would hesitate to correct my vision. Years ago I wore contacts. In the 1990's went back to glasses. I still am not needing bifocals; so I am OK.

My wife had to have surgery on her cornea due to historical corneal abrasions. The byproduct was corrective vision.

It was fast and I enjoyed watching the surgery on a 55" LCD TV adjacent to the surgical suit. Even this still did not convince me.
 
My experience was positive, though I opted for Lasiks vs PRK. Got the custom wavefront and am very satisfied with the results. I am due for a follow-up in a few weeks for the official 'weigh-in' but am currently at 20/20 (this was the day after). Surgery took about 15 minutes in all, no pain or discomfort to speak of. Healing took a day and a half for both eyes to feel good again. Cost $3100. Surgery came with degradable plugs that go into the tear ducts to help keep moisture on the eye. They dissolve in about 3 months and have been very helpful keeping me comfortable during the healing process.
 
I have nothing but positive things to say about LASIK-Wavefront. I had the procedure done about 4 years ago and my eyesight is still great, and no issues to date. For the first 6 months after the procedure I was experienced "starbursts" around lights at night, but I really think this was more due to moisture levels in my eyes rather than anything else. I no longer have problems with that (and it wasn't even a big deal to begin with, just a minor annoyance). I paid for most of the procedure through my FLEX plan as well, so saved some money on income taxes!
 
I had LASIK eight years ago and it's still fine. The only problem I had is we were going for monovision (that's where they undercorrect one eye so you can stall the need for reading glasses as you age.) One of my eyes absorbed energy faster than anticipated and overcorrected, so no monovision. Now, like most over the age of 50, I usually need reading glasses to read. Other than that, no complications and I'm very pleased, since I wore glasses/contacts since the age of 10.

I did go back to the doctor four years ago to see about correcting the overcorrection. He discouraged it, since the risk is still the same but the benefit is small. Before the initial surgery, I was -4.50, so the benefit potential was great. He said other than the overcorrection (slightly far-sighted) in one eye, my vision is great and I don't have any problems with halos, startbursts, etc. I decided not to do the correction, especially since I'm now older and I would likely still need the reading glasses.

Good luck with your new eyes, iostream212.

Kevin
 
As lucrative as the whole ophthalmology field is today; sometime in the near future you'll be able to go to your local big box pharmacy run your debit or credit card on an ATM machine like Lasix like box, rest your chin on the chin rest; do your corrective surgery in about 3 minutes painlessly and for the price of a set of contacts or glasses or even less.
 
It's just one of those probability things. The vast vast majority of people who get LASIK are thrilled, have no or mild problems (dry eye/starbursts), and practically no down time. PRK just drops that risk down lower, both near and long term. If you want to be especially cautious, PRK is better. When I asked my ophtho friends what they would pick for their own eyes assuming they had my vision, they said PRK. PRK doesn't market very well becuase of the one or two week recovery.

Curious thing, if you look at a cornea under s slit lamp, once healed from PRK, there is no evidence that the surgery was ever done. LASIK will always be visible since the edge of the slice where the flap is lifted never fully heals. Guys who wanted to be fighter pilots would have PRK before applying since there was no evidence of the surgery. LASIK originally disqualified you from entering military flight school.
 
As lucrative as the whole ophthalmology field is today; sometime in the near future you'll be able to go to your local big box pharmacy run your debit or credit card on an ATM machine like Lasix like box, rest your chin on the chin rest; do your corrective surgery in about 3 minutes painlessly and for the price of a set of contacts or glasses or even less.
I wonder what the rules would be in ELK to program this Lasik vending machine... :D
 
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