Lasik. I can see! If you did it and it was good speak up...hate to censor but ...

Last Visible Canary said:
http://www.2020eyesite.com/



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The core issue I have post surgery that I did not have pre-surgery is light smearing and ghost images. This is caused by the LASIK surgery area being smaller then the pupil during full dilation. They dilate your eyes, measure them, and then work the entire corneal area above the pupil. If they fail to reach the edges, you will essentially see your old perscription out of the edge that wasn't worked on, you see a smearing of light or a ghost image. For me this isn't normally a do-or-die issue, but it can get kind of bad when every single source of light on the road is ghost imaged up and down making it appear 3x as long as it should be (this only happens when it's dark and my eyes are dry). I still have 20/20 with my mild glasses rx, but it it can get pretty annoying when it's raining, it's gusty, and there are a lot of semi's about kicking up mist clouds.

And eye dryness. Because the nerves that connect the surface of the cornea to the rest of the eye are severed during the procedure your body can no longer tell whether your eyes are dry or not. As a result your body doesn't really know when to produce tears to keep your eyes moist. Mine get bad late at night, but it's not so bad that I'm unhappy with having gotten the surgery. I can drive without glasses now, that is very, very important to me.

A lot of the horror stories you'll hear about LASIK patients going essentailly blind after the procedure comes from doctors performing the surgery on patients who are not good candidates or not doing it correctly (like using too small of a surgery area so that when their pupils dilate they have a large amount of the pre-surgery cornea in their feild of vision). If you go to a reputable long standing doctor and do A LOT of research both into the procedure, the particular lasers and programs used to guide them, and patient stories from the doctor your researching (both good and bad stories) you have a very high chance of having an excellent experience.
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Respectfully disagree you on some of your points.
There are side effects due to LASIK, such as dryness, starburst effect at night,...But as far as I know, there were no "blind" (lost of eye due to LASIK) cases reported, but I might be wrong, or they didn't reported.
Ideally, the cut on your cornea is usually around 8mm to 9mm max. You can't cut any larger (due to anatomically and equipment limitation), or smaller (can cause glare at night due to pupil dilation).
And ideally, a good candidate (thick enough cornea, no dry eye problem, steeper curvature, not too high of RX) should not have any problem for surgery---of course, the surgeon has to do his part also.
Really, LASIK operation is not that hard to do. So why are some problems post-op? Problems stemming from unethical doc who decides to perform surgery on every single patient walking into his/her office, ignoring the guidelines, and pushing the envelop...so it's obvious there will be problems post-op....Such as fluctuation of vision (too thin of a cornea post-op), severe dryness, severe starburst effect @ night...But not to the point of blindness. If so, I would like to see the case because I have been looking for one for a while.
I do agree with you about finding a good doc, though. A good doc with a good patient care--pre and post op---will make a big different in the world.
 
I know some people who have had some really good results, and others who had bad results - one lady I know had it done and she is now nearly blind in one eye; which she attributes to the surgery (well, more the doctor who did the surgery).
I haven’t had my eyes checked in a couple years but the last time they were checked, 20/15 (my whole life, thus far). Hearing, on the other hand, was not so great. Not bad, but not great either.
Glad to hear things worked out for you. :thumbup:
 
I had it done when I was 24; I am now 35 and still have 20/20 vision. My eyes get dry but I think it is due for the most part to my allergies. I had a pair of glasses made for driving at night that improve my vision beyond 20/20 so that shadows and dark areas are crystal clear and sharp.
 
Congrats, Trevor! I look forward to seeing you (or rather you seeing me) sometime soon.
Best Wishes,
John AKA w.t. "Bloody Bill" anderson
 
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I had it done I think somewhere around 12 to 14 years ago. It was great. Very quick and painless. I was somewhere around 20/450 and, I'm not exaggerating, about 60 seconds after I sat up from the surgery I could see well enough to drive. I had the procedure done in my 40's and the only negative for me was that often if one is severely near-sighted, ones close up vision stays good. I was warned that my close up vision may go and it did. Within six months I needed reading glasses. But for me the trade off was a no brainer. I'm fairly active outside so not having to wear contacts or glasses in the water or in dusty conditions has been great. My vision has stayed fairly stable. Diminished a bit, but I still see plenty well enough to drive without lenses. And these days the procedure is even more advanced than before.
 
I need to get mine done- always helpful to hear the experience of a few others- great thread Trevor
 
Hi Trevor,

When I went into the Army I was 20-20 but due to hours and hours ( sometimes days on end ) of looking through Binos and Scopes working in a sniper role I must have developed eye strain. I started to become short sighted ... I was operated on by a top South African surgeon and my eyesight became 20-15 ... but then I was careful and my right dominant eye I left for shooting and used a spotting scope with my left eye for visual long term work ... this caused after a number of years my left eye to become slightly short sighted again ... I was offered a top up operation and went for it ... my left eye then went worse than it was prior to the second Op ... did'nt use the top guy in S.A. but went back to see him after the vision went worse in that eye ... he said only have "one op" for each eye ... more than that and he said the eye when healing has a tendancy to go back to where it originally was ... speaking in layman's terms he said that the first time it was done it "fooled" the brain but second time around it was harder to do ... so the moral of my story is only have what you have done the once.

My overall eyesight is still good due to the right eye being dominant but to avoid eye strain I use a soft contact in the left ...

Now at 47 my left eye has actually improved but I also need reading spec's for both eye's when reading ... my long sight is fine though and I can still shoot to world championship level ... but make sure you take the steroid eye drops they prescribe after the Op regularly when told to and once done go easy on computer screen use or any use which creates focus eye strain ... and I am sure you will be fine. Once the eyes settle then they usually settle for good ... but eye strain can still play a part in reducing your eye sight.

My operational role would tax even the very best of eyes ... so what happened to me might be a "one off" compared to the average eye use ... but bear in mind what I say about top up operations ... IMO they are best not done.

Good luck mate that all goes well!
 
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resinguy said:
Congratulations, T, glad it went well for you.

I'm at least 20/400, wear a -8.0 diopter, and I'll admit to being too scared of the risk to even seriously consider any keratotomy
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I'm with Guy: Squeamish nancy-boy when it comes to my eyes (-7.5 in both). OTOH, I figure if I ever need cataract surgery, we'll do it in one step.
 
10 years and counting. They gave me useless pills to calm me down. VERY freaky. I was 20/20 seconds afterwards. Been that way ever since. Hope to never have to do it again, tho. LOL
 
I had it done 14 years ago when it was relatively new. I went from 20/220 in both eyes to 20/15 and today I'm probably 20/30 or 40. I can still se better than I ever could with contacts or glasses. I had dry eyes to begin with after the surgery, starbursts and some difficulty seeing in low light conditions. The starburst lasted a few years before they went away completely only returning if I get REALLY tired. The dryness was really bad for about 6 months but now I have zero problems and the low light thing, well I see well when it's dark (normally well anyway) I see well when it's light but there's a small window right around dusk where it seems like I struggle to focus entirely. NOt enough to be dangerous or to even hamper me from doing ANYTHING at all but it's barely perceptible lack of clarity and I'm not sure if that's not normal. When I first had it done if I was in a basement without adequate lighting (my home at the time) I couldn't see if there was dirt on the floor to sweep it up! It was disturbing but went away almost immediately. I was actually a part of the test run of the first so many thousand in the US to have it done and I had to do all sorts of surveys and whatnot. I hear it's a lot better surgery now than then and I am a huge proponent of what I had done! It cost me 2 grand (my insurance covered the other 2 g's if you can imagine) out of my pocket but I always said if it had cost Ten I would have paid it. NOthing better than never having to search for glasses or a dropped contact nor suffering eye infections cause you didn't take them out! Congrats, it's a whole new world when you can see clearly without help! You'll find yourself stunned at times that you aren't wearing anything corrective and you can still see!
 
Mojo2010 said:
Respectfully disagree you on some of your points.
There are side effects due to LASIK, such as dryness, starburst effect at night,...But as far as I know, there were no "blind" (lost of eye due to LASIK) cases reported, but I might be wrong, or they didn't reported.
Ideally, the cut on your cornea is usually around 8mm to 9mm max. You can't cut any larger (due to anatomically and equipment limitation), or smaller (can cause glare at night due to pupil dilation).
And ideally, a good candidate (thick enough cornea, no dry eye problem, steeper curvature, not too high of RX) should not have any problem for surgery---of course, the surgeon has to do his part also.
Really, LASIK operation is not that hard to do. So why are some problems post-op? Problems stemming from unethical doc who decides to perform surgery on every single patient walking into his/her office, ignoring the guidelines, and pushing the envelop...so it's obvious there will be problems post-op....Such as fluctuation of vision (too thin of a cornea post-op), severe dryness, severe starburst effect @ night...But not to the point of blindness. If so, I would like to see the case because I have been looking for one for a while.
I do agree with you about finding a good doc, though. A good doc with a good patient care--pre and post op---will make a big different in the world.
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"essentially blind" was probably too wide of a statement. I would not in any way discount the possibility that someone had complications from lasik that resulted in legal blindness in one or both eyes, as any major eye surgery has the potential of major complications. I meant someone who had a combination of major myopic creap (-1.50 or higher), severe dry eyes and severe abberations. The combined effect is pretty brutal, but not 'technically legally blind', which is (I think) 20/400 with best correction. I have personally working as an ABO certified optician helped two customers who underwent 2 post surgery corrections to bring their perscriptions back into line only to have a -1.75 sp -1.00 cyl or worse with a combination of negative aberrations and severe dry eyes. With best correction they have trouble driving at night and have to have eye drops on hand throughout the day. After 3 surgeries neither were candidates for further surgery. This is from a local doctor using new lasik equipment. I don't mean that to be a horror story - I had a good surgery myself and hear few such stories. But they certainly are out there.

Surgery is surgery. Complications involving improper machine settings or post surgery infections are always a possibility.

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In regards to what I said about night vision, I did incorrectly imply that it is pupillary size that determines likelihood of night time aberrations. Pupil diameter size is unlikely to be the primary cause of such vision problems, instead I should have said 'functional optical zone'. After lasik this zone, even when it's done as widely as possible, decreases in size depending on the level of correction. The higher the correction, the more decrease is likely. This is true of all eyes, it is in the nature of the surgery and how the eye heals.

The dryness is caused by a separation of the nerves connecting the cornea to the rest of the body, if the eye can't feel whether it's surface is dry it can't tell when it needs to produce tears. this too is in the nature of the surgery. While many patients may only experience mild dryness, it is inherent.


This is taken from Primary Care Optometry, 5th edition by Theodore Grosvenor ISBN 0-7506-7575-6
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First off, congrats brother!!!

I had my surgery done about 7 years ago and still have 20/15 vision to this day. IMO, it was the best money I have ever spent on myself. Mine was scary too though. I remember they gave me some Valium before (about 1/2 a pill is all she would give me, which for a guy weighing in at 260 lbs and 6-8 tall it might as well have been a piece of candy) and I asked her what this was for. Yeah, I went in a little ignorant about what it would really be like. As soon as they put the suction on my eye ball and my vision faded to black I started to shake like a little baby. Then the doctor gave me a little stuffed bunny to hold which I pretty much crushed. To this day my wife says that was one of the funniest things she has ever seen. A grown man hugging his bunny . . . :D

I'd do it again though knowing the end result.:thumbup:
 
I was looking into LASIK, but I found CRT contacts instead. I think they are made by Paragon.
First off they only work for nearsighted people. Anyway you wear them at night, take them out in the morning and you can see all day. 20/15 currently
No more contacts popping out or steel dust getting behind contacts while working. Or sweat dripping onto your glasses.

Since they have a prescription built in they are covered by my insurance. (My insurance won't cover LASIK) I'm on my second set- the first set lasted me over 2 years, but I still use them when traveling.
 
Got it done like 8 years ago or so. Kind of scary to sign the disclosure about losing my eyeballs but well, did it anyway.
Does change your life, it really does, and at least in my opinon the esthetic and in many was emotional change that comes form not having to worry about glasses again is even greater tan the logistic advantage.
FerFAL
 
got mine done at 21..im 25 now..still 20/15 all day. i just recommend some quality sunglasses the first year. eyes become sensitive to light. it seems to have subsided but i still prefer some maui jims to cover my 5 thousand dollar eyes now.

and to anyone that can score some xanax or valiums, do so! most doctors give you a single 5mg valium or less than a mg of xanax. basically enough to take the slight edge off. but for me i could have been way more relaxed as they shot laserbeams into my eyeballs. would have been more comfortable with double the dose.
 
I appreciate all the kind words and support. THank you.:)

I am also very happy to see that many have been happy with the procedure as well. :cool:


Its better everyday, and I only wished I could have done it when I was in my early twenties. THe problem then was that it wasnt accepted for flight training:(

Again, thanks and best to all of you:)
 
went in and had my eyes dilated and had my yearly eye exam today. A little more myopia creep in the left eye (now -.75 -.25) but still plenty good enough to drive without glasses. I asked the doctor if my secondary and tertiary aberrations (light smearing and double images) might have been caused by the corneal swelling I had post surgery, and he said it was possible.

Another thing he mentioned which is good knowledge for anyone who has had the surgery - LASIK will tend to drop your eye pressure. Where I was probably normally 15 mmHg I am now between 8 and 10. This is because there is less surface tension at the front of the eye, so it's able to expand a little, like taking the tread off a tire lowering it's air pressure. It's important for those who may be developing glocoma since it will give a bit of a false reading if your doctor doesn't know you've had LASIK surgery, you will appear to be 22 but would actually be 28 with an unaltered cornea.

http://www.ophthobook.com/questions/question-whats-a-normal-eye-pressure
 
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Last Visible Canary said:
went in and had my eyes dilated and had my yearly eye exam today. A little more myopia creep in the left eye (now -.75 -.25) but still plenty good enough to drive without glasses. I asked the doctor if my secondary and tertiary aberrations (light smearing and double images) might have been caused by the corneal swelling I had post surgery, and he said it was possible.

Another thing he mentioned which is good knowledge for anyone who has had the surgery - LASIK will tend to drop your eye pressure. Where I was probably normally 15 mmHg I am not between 8 and 10. This is because there is less surface tension at the front of the eye, so it's able to expand a little, like taking the tread off a tire lowering it's air pressure. It's important for those who may be developing glocoma since it will give a bit of a false reading if your doctor doesn't know you've had LASIK surgery, you will appear to be 22 but would actually be 28 with an unaltered cornea.

http://www.ophthobook.com/questions/question-whats-a-normal-eye-pressure
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I am glad you received a good report on your exam:cool:

Also, appreciate the information and the time you took to share it. Thank you.

:)
 
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