Laser Vision Surgery for Developers?

cyclops asks: "I have been contemplating about going for LASIK surgery for a couple of years. I want to get rid of my dependency on glasses or lenses because I really find them cumbersome. The main thing that is stopping me now is that like you, programming is my livelihood and thus I spent a major part of my day staring into the monitor. I have readthat there is always a certain percentage of patients not regaining 20/20 vision but it's OK for them since most of them don't need that sharp vision during work. I am about to consult with a LASIK surgeon but I would love to hear anecdotal evidence about your experiences, to hear if it works out for you eventually. (I have stable myopia of -5.50 and astimagtism of -1.00 for 3 years already)." Ask Slashdot has handled this issue in the past in two previous articles: this one from 1999, and a related article from 2000. With at least 2 years since the last time this question was posed, how has medical technology improved in this aspect? For those unwilling or unable to take advantage of Laser Surgery, have other viable alternatives arisen in the past two years?

Comments

Don't - just don't

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine is a senior uni researcher in optometry. She's told me that the flap of cornea that they open up in order to do the surgery never heals properly and that even mild trauma is able to re-open the cut. This can result in infection, scarring and permanent damage. She wears glasses and preaches openly against this technology.

Dangerous

[SandSpider]

Cal Simone, who is very famous in the Applescript world, had laser vision surgery done recently. Unfortunately, now he can't look at a computer screen for any period of time without getting a headache. He can't do any coding, and is very limited by how much computer work he can do at any given time.

I don't know what the odds are that such a thing would happen for a given laser eye surgery. Personally, I think that if there is any chance at all that a cosmetic surgery will prevent me from doing serious computer work, then the cosmetic surgery is not worth it.

=Brian

Long term risks unknown

[kindofblue]

I just went to my eye doctor last week and asked about Lasik. HE wouldn't even recommend because he thought there was not enough case work on long term effects of Lasik. He was concerned about possible long-term corneal degeneration risks, since Lasik cuts away part of your cornea.

OTOH, I had previously thought that the biggest problem would be that some patients experience "halo" effects, especially at night. He said that was mainly due to other techniques based on RK, but not so much with Lasik.

BTW, as an optometrist, he was offered Lasiks for free, for himself, but didn't take it for these reasons.

I'm doing research in this area-- don't do surgery

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with Brian Barsky's OPTICAL group at UC Berkeley. (http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/optical/ )
We are currently doing research on how to better describe the damage caused by laser surgery.
You see why laser surgery repairs correctable damage (damage that can be otherwise corrected with lenses)
it also causes uncorrectable damage... more or less a "corner" where the laser stops hitting the eye.
this "corner" gets more profound after the eye begins to heal from the surgery and tissue regenerates.
It eventually causes people to have intense glare from light sources on the side of their faces (i.e. headlights when you drive at night)
I would recommend NOT getting this surgery.
Unfortunately not too terribly much progress has been made in consistently describing this damage (reports cite perhaps 30th order zernike polynomials for approximation of these problems...which is not helpful at all in describing the shape of the corner)
We are hoping to better describe quantitatively the damage caused by this surgery.

Anyhow I suggest you use a reversible method for correcting your vision (eg glasses/contacts)
--Daniel
Vega Strike Lead Developer
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/

Behavioral Optometry

[tmark]

There is a school of thought that says that vision can be improved by stretching the eye muscles. This is advocated by behavioral optometrists. The idea is that when you spend time focused at a certain distance, as so many of us do, our eye muscles tighten chronically. When this happens, the cornea and lens distort and vision problems arise. The problem is not helped in the long run by corrective lenses.

I believe some other behavioral optometrists have some other theories about "learning to see", etc.

I know this all sounds crazy, but my vision got worse every time I go in for a few months of really intensive coding. A few months ago, I was certain my prescription had gotten worse - I can usually tell because on top of not seeing distances clearly, I have headaches and feel sick a lot.

On a lark I bought a book (really, an ~80 page pamphlet) on eye exercises, and also a bigger one on behavioral optometry. I did the eye exercises they prescribed, and within a week or so I was seeing noticeably better.

Now, I believe behavioral optometrists would prescribe a regimen of steadily weaker corrective lenses, to exercise your eyes. I haven't gone that far yet, but I do have to say I was stunned by the marked improvement in my vision a few weeks of exercises got me. I've dealt with steadily worsening vision for the last 20 years, so I KNOW I am not imagining it.

Re:Behavioral Optometry

[kbonin]

I'd second this. I stare at a monitor 10-15 hours a day. My eyesight finally degenerated to the point where I got tested, and my vision sucked. Astigmatism in both eyes, I forget the scores, but I got perscribed reasonably thick glasses. Everybody else in my family wears them, I figured it was unavoidable...

I hated them. I did more research, and found out about eye exercises. I adopted new habits, most notably staring out window at horizon for a few seconds every 10 mins.

About a year later I tossed the glasses in a drawer. That was >10 years ago, and I currently test at 20:20 again. The astigmatism is still there, but its managable, brain processing seems to remove wierd smear/blur if I use both eyes, which I tend to do most of the time anyway...

Re:Better than contacts but sometimes "normal" is

[einTier]

I have 20/200 vision in one eye and 20/15 in the other. By having two such extremes, I can verify this story.

With my left eye, I have very fine "microscope" vision. I can get very close to something, like a monitor, and easily make out very fine details, like individual pixels on a very high resolution display. While I can sort of do this with my right eye, I cannot get as close to things without loosing focus, and while I can still make out 90% of the detail I can make out with my left eye, it's an order of magnitude more difficult. It's also very hard to explain without the unique perspective that I have. The best way I can describe it is to imagine wearing a very low power microscope on one eye -- you can see great detail, but you lose a bit of distance vision in the process.

All that said, I'm thinking seriously of Lasik. My wife had it done on both eyes, and she's never had one complaint about the procedure. I can't wear glasses because of the extreme differences between the prescriptions for each eye, and I have never done well with contacts. I figure my risk is much less than normal, because it's only one eye, and if I have a less than perfect result, my brain is already used to ignoring most of the faulty data from that eye anyway (I see 20/20 using both eyes). While I enjoy my microscope vision, it seriously interferes with my depth perception, and I find myself wanting good depth perception more than I want super-detailed vision.

My advice to those seeking Lasik, is to definately shop around, and get several recommendations. Take the time to find a competent doctor, and don't cheapen out on the cost of the surgery. The doctor who did my wife's surgery owned his own machine (many are simply rented and shared among many doctors), and never reused blades. He'd also been performing Lasik since it was an experimental surgery, and was very honest about the risks, bad experiences, and eligibility. It was quite a bit more expensive than anywhere else in town, and even the preliminary exam wasn't free -- but in retrospect, it was worth every penny.