Eye Surgery

MissTyrios is right, you should wait until your eyes "stabilize". This generally happens in your early to mid-twenties. Your profile says you're 30, so that's later than usual, but still not uncommon. You should consult with an ophthalmologist (not an optometrist) on a yearly basis for advice on when is the right time to consider surgery.

Anything is possible, but if you examine the literature, failures of this sort are almost unheard of. The procedure is almost completely computer driven these days.

You may not want to get it done when if it's only for reasons for convenience. As I mentioned, I'm considering it because my eyesight is prohibiting me from pursuing certain avenues of employment and experiences that I would really like to be a part of my life. If it weren't for that, I'd just stick with contacts, which really aren't that inconvenient.

The other thing to consider is that if your vision was corrected today to 20/20, you would still be subject to presbyopia around the age of 40 just as those who had perfect vision all their lives would be. Presbyopia means you'd have to wear reading glasses. So you'd be trading one condition for another, unless there was another surgical procedure available to correct the presbyopia. This will certainly be possible by that time, but the question is whether the previous laser procedure will interfere with the new correction. Too early to tell, but as I said, LASIK removes corneal material, so it might pose a complication. Any procedure that removes something makes me a tad nervous since well, outside of a reconstruction scenario, you can't get it back.

There are a few things that have been said in the thread that are not actually true. While LASIK surgery is fairly new, laser eye surgery has been around for at least 15 years. There were some people I knew as a kid that had it done. Also, there actually some insurance companies that DO cover LASIK. Right AFTER my mom had it done, her insurance company decided to start covering about half of the cost, typical. I have had it done, my mother has had it done, and two of my best friends have had it done (one the day before yesterday). All of them (including myself) have been pleased as punch.

I have had mine done for about 5 years, so while not long, long term I can share my experience. I have 20/20 in one eye and 20/10 in the other. This fluxuates a bit as does everyones depending on how tired I am or stressed or if I have allergies etc. I absolutely do NOT regret getting it done, I think it is a freakin' miracle to be honest. I am in fact greatful every day that I have had it done. Ok, so here are some of the draw backs.

• I absolutely HAVE to wear sunglasses. If it is really sunny and I don't have them it is like pure torture.


• If it is dark and a bit rainy, I can have a hard time seeing to drive at night. I still manage to do it, but sometimes I loose the lane markers. Good thing I moved to portland.


• I never used to have eye allergies, but I do now. I guess my glasses/contacts provided a barrier from the allergens or something.

Honestly that is it. My mom had to have it done a couple of times, but they under corrected on purpose because she has some really bizarre things going on with her eyes. No really, they had her come in so that the medical students could come observe her because the doctors had only seen a very few cases of what she has going on (I forget the name, but it has to do with blind spots in the perifery.) She does still have to wear glasses to drive.

i once had my eyes lasered, and it was the best thing i've ever spent money on. i'd do it again in a heartneat (if it was possible and i needed it), although it wasn't without its fair share of trauma. i am ultra-squeemish about my eyes, and was, to put it mildly, shitting bricks days before the surgery. contacts were impossible, as i just couldn't handle the stress of putting them in, and even the mere task of putting eyedrops in was a nightmare.

anyway, my eyesight was not so bad that i need the lasik type of surgery, so i had prk epiflap. the essential difference being, they don't slit the membrane over your eye so it heals after a few hours, but they soak your eyeballs in various solutions, which means that the healing process takes days.

so, after going through all the preliminary tests to check my eyesight, the day of surgery arrived. as they used those bulldog-clip things to hold my eyes open (very room 101 - my hands were fists and i was sweating buckets even up to this), the surgeon put all these solutions in my eyes, and started swirling them about. there was a light directly above me, and it dancing left and right as i looked at it, freaking me the fuck out even more. after about five minutes of this preparation, i was instructed to look directly into the light and whatever i did, do not try to blink or look elsewhere. even though i was about as tense as i could be, i stayed there, and the actual lasering process only took about 20 seconds. it stung, but it wasn't too bad. the worse thing about it was that mid-surgery, i suddenly realised that the burning i could smell was my own eyeball. scary stuff!

anyway, i was driven home with plastic covers on my eyes, and was told that i wouldn't see well for the next 24 hours. which turned out to be a bit of an understatement. after about 3 hours i couldnt see a thing because the searing pain in my eyes wouldnt let me open them for more than a fraction of a second, and when i did, they just streamed with tears. this continued for the next three days. i was completely blind, and trying to put eyedrops in twice a day was torture. i couldnt sleep because the searing pain never abated and would wake me up at random times. i just lay on my bed listening to music and trying to ignore the suffering my eyes were putting me through. i also couldnt/wouldnt do the most basic things: i refused to eat anything because i didn't want to have to go for a shit and wipe my bum when i was blind (silly yes, embaressing yes, but i had more pressing things on my mind).

anyway, all this got a bit better over the next few days, and eventually, after a week and a half, the pain was minimal and my sight was almost getting back to 20:20. so now i have no regrets at all, and would go through the whole malarkey again without hesitation, but it was still the single most painful and uncomfortable thing i've ever done.

that said, i'd recommend it to anyone.

that said, after reading woodstock's post, i have never had a single problem or side effect that has occured as a result of my surgery, nor do i need sunglasses.

warnings are good, but its probably best to try not to look at the worst-case scenario, as then you'll be too nervous to get it done.

Acually , in the uk, your first port of call should be your optometrist, preferably the one you go to regularly who will have a good idea from your records how your vision is changing.
Changes to vision happen naturally as we either grow ( hence a 'stabilizing' effect often happening when you reach your twenties) or because of aging changes within the crystalline lens of the eye.
The changes that happen after the eyeball has attained its full length are the ones that will happen whether you have surgery or not.
the only thing that can stop them happening is to have a the natural lens removed and replaced ( as in cataract surgery )

When it comes down to the final decision though, if your vision is bad enough unaided to make your life dificult then even going to 6/9 ( about the legal uk requirement for driving) which is not perfect vision ( 6/6 uk 20/20 us ) can have a massive impact on your life.

I'm only able to see the top letter of the chart without my specs on, but i love the way my specs look, and I'm lucky enough to be able to get really thin lenses and disposeable contacts for those occasions like sports where specs would be inapropriate, so surgery for me has never been a consideration..but if my vision deteriorated a lot more then i would consider it.

At that point, research research research..personal recommendation and knowing exactly who will be doing the surgery and who will be doing the callibration calculations for the machinery involved are absolutely vital.

I think i said in my earlier post that some of the problems we've seen at the opticians that I work for, where we get a lot of refferals from opthalmologists for post lasik and other surgical proceedure management, are caused because the person doing the calibration isnt experienced.

So, I cant stress enough DO YOUR HOMEWORK and you shouldnt have any problems.

edited because i cant spell and type at the same time.



[Edited on Dec 18, 2004 by tobie]

With LASIK, I could see fairly well by the time I got home from the doctors office and was 20/25 when I went in for the check up the next day. So it is a good idea to check out the different surgeries because one might be better than the other in your particular case. And yeah, the proceedure itself is a bit creepy because obviously you can see everything they are doing, but it is over in a flash.