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Experiences with Laser Eye Surgery?
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?"
I found a ton of info on Google...first hand encounters. Lasik experiences.
Yes. Do a google search on "lasik dangers" and you'll find that when it goes wrong, it can go horribly wrong, up to and including blindness.
I, personally, wouldn't do it unless my vision was so bad I needed coke-bottle bottoms to see.
Avoid frauds and unrealistic expectations.
Understand the risks, ans assume much worse odds than you are told. If you're still up for it, go on. If you aren't sure, wait. It keeps getting better and safer, you know.
Good luck!
everything in moderation
The FDA offers this article: Laser Eye Surgery: Is It Worth Looking Into?
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it? ~ Albert Einstein
You don't list if you currently wear contacts or glasses. A word of warning if you wear Hard or Gas Permeable contacts (rigid type). Since they ARE rigid they reshape your eye. After you've used them for a while your eye starts to reshape a bit. Which is great. Right up until you decide it's time to STOP wearing them. It takes a while for your eye to gradually reshape -- up to a year depending on the doctor you talk to (and since it's your eyes I'd assume you'd want to be cautious...). So if you get the surgery done before your eye has totally relaxed the surgery will be a waste.
Another warning -- always get a second opinion (from a competent opthamologist) as to whether the thickness of your cornea is great enough to successfully do the surgery. In a story a while ago (cnn?) one of the major problems was that a doctor would attempt to do the surgery with a cornea that was too thin to work with.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
A few thoughts:
1) This isn't like buying toothpaste (to borrow a quote). This is surgery. It is worth it to pay the extra money for someone good, rather than skimp and regret it later.
2) If your correction is still changing year-to-year, don't do it. It's only really worth it if your vision has stabilized for a few years.
3) Be prepared for side effects. Personally, my eyes are much drier than they were before, and small, point light sources have little halos around them...especially visible at night.
4) They may say that you can function normally the next day...don't even bother trying. Personally, the day after I could look out my window and watch the building across the way shift into and out of focus as my eyes dealt with their new shape. It was like tripping, only without the mood to go along with it. Kinda freaky, actually, now that I think about it.
With all that said, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I was about -6 or -6.5 diopter, and about a -3 or 4 astigmatism. That's well beyond the range measureable by the 20/20 scale. I don't need glasses now, for anything. I spent a good deal more than the average person, but it was absolutely worth it.
I would never do it again. Among other things it has completely decimated my night vision. Being an amatuer astronomer (among myriad other things) I could always take relief in that my relatively rotten eyesight was not really a hindrance when peering at points of light through a telescope. Now virtually any lighting above ambient in a low-light environment creates tons of hazy starbursts which blast my acuity all to hell. The surgery hasn't helped my vision when I'm the least bit fatigued either. I can't find any satisfactory explanation for this, so it may be an effect of my overall displeasure with the result of the sugery. Be Forewarned. According to my research I am far from being in the minority with respect to most of my complaints. Best of Luck, there are those who have done it and are pleased as punch, but I'd say it's at best a crapshoot.
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds. Robert Nesta Marley
Hi there-
I got Lasik eye surgery in both my eyes from one of the most respected (and expensive) surgeons on the west coast. I did my homework, at the time 4 years ago, he had already done 10,000+ procedures. He has impeccable credentials (Harvard M.D.) and I believe he was one of the people who actually developed the technology. He is the founder of a very fancy institute and did numerous tests both before and after the procedure.
Anyway the reason why I mention this is because although things went perfectly, there was one bad consequence. I HAVE BLURRY VISION IN LOW LIGHT! I understand this is because, when you have as bad eyesight as I did, when the pupil expands in low light it goes beyond the area where the laser ablation took place. The consequence of having light going into your eye from the central focused region and the outer unfocused region is blurriness typically as halos or rings.
During the day/bright light my vision is absolutely perfect, I have better than 20/20 whereas before I had something like 600/20. Unfortunately my work takes me into lots of dark rooms looking at relatively dimly lit images and judging them for image quality/artifacts. So it was BAD!
As a consequence I am keeping up with technological developments waiting for a fix. Now they are using something called wavefront technology, I guess they are able to ablate away your cornea in fractions of a wavelength of visible light (the laser is UV to prevent heating which would kill underlying cells). Unfortunately I think this does not help me because I need the laser to be able to get a larger region of my cornea so that my expanded pupils don't reach the boundary of the ablated area.
I am not sure if my problems were due to my extremely nearsighted vision or other factors. In any case, I am posting this warning that even the best doctor may leave you with BAD results. (I have my complaints that this part of the industry seems to be poorly regulated, while I was given disclosures on the procedures, I do not think the odds of poor results were clearly explained to me. So if this doctor thinks I'm defaming him, I'll be happy to take him to court.).
Good luck.
I had suggested the operation to my wife but she was too afraid of the risks. Her mother had gone blind and eventually died at a relatively young age... not because of laser surgery, but I mention it here because it was a factor in my wife's private fears.
Then one day she was talking to one of her friends who had undergone laser surgery. He was thrilled with the results and claimed that he "walked out of the clinic with better eyesight than he had ever had with glasses or contacts" -- a rather unbelievable story detail but his raving reviews convinced her to try it out.
She had one eye done at a time, to reduce the credit card bill and also to ensure that if the first eye didn't go well then at least she would have one working eye!
It went great so a few months later she had the other eye done and has not regretted it. Now she notices a little bit of extra hazziness on bright lights at night, and is still a bit hooked on eye drops after about two years (but then, she used a lot of eye drop stuff when she had contacts).
I know about five or six people who have had the proceedure done and they all had positive results.
Finally, if you are having it done in the SF Bay Area, my wife would strongly recommend the UCSF eye center. That is where she had the second eye done and she found them MUCH more professional than the private eye doctor (trained at UCSF) that did her first eye.
Good luck.
Religion is poison to rationality, and we lose sight of that at our own peril. -- Lurker2288
Hold out for Staar Surgical and their intraocular lenses. Basically it's an implanted contact lens. Unlike Lasik, it's reversible. You can change your prescription. But it's not quite approved yet.
It definitely works. I went from having a -10 diopter prescription (which, if you're not familiar with such numbers, is really nearsighted, to the point I couldn't read a clock 2 feet away) to having perfect 20/20 vision.
But, it's not without risks. For example, my night vision is somewhat degraded because uncorrected light on the edges of the cornea (when I had the surgery done the current technology only corrected out to about 8mm) creates 'starbursts'. I'm still happy with the procedure, but it's not always perfect. There are chances (low, but statistics don't mean anything when you're only talking about one set of eyes) that much worse things can happen.
Any good doctor will clearly present your options and risks. Ask around for a referral from friends as to who to see... and don't just take the lowest cost vendor!
Incredible coincidence... I got laser eye surgery today. All I can say is, it's amazing. The best investment I've ever made. (I'm actually not supposed to be on the computer right now, but... oh well.) I can already read things at distances that my parents and brother cannot, and my vision hasn't even cleared up yet, the way that it is supposed to. I got Wavefront LASIK. Traditional LASIK had many problems with it: for example, it tended to injure night vision, and its accuracy wasn't incredible. However, Wavefront LASIK actually pinpoints what your individual eyes look like, and works on your eye so well that it has great accuracy, doesn't hurt night vision much, and has fewer problems associated with it. I can already tell you that I highly recommend LASIK Wavefront, even if it leaves you broke. It's that worth it.
Some of the best money I've ever spent. Right now I have 20/15 in one eye and 20/25 in the other (slight residual astigmatism).
:)
May vision was bad before. And I mean BAD. I was almost legally blind. Anything beyond about 6 inches in front of my face was a complete blur. And you can't imagine the feeling you have when you crush your coke bottle glasses and toss them in the trash.
My onyly negative was that for some reason, Some of the anesthetic drops missed my cornea in my left eye. So when that blade cut, it was kinda painful. But I can't complain with the results.
Keep in mind though, it is not a miracle cure all. When you have bad vision (like me) you may still have to wear glasses (most likely ata reduced perscription.
But like I said, it was well worth the money to be freed from having to put on glasses just to get out of bed.
~X~
~X~
I'm curious...how long ago did you have your surgery? My opthamologist claims that the starbursts and halos are preventable by proper screening. Apparently, from what he says, some people's corneas are too large to perform the surgery on and some people's eye tissue (can't remember which tissue) is not thick enough. He claims the screening for these factors is relatively new.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
I had 420/20 vision in both eyes, well beyond legally blind. Through my vision plan at work, I went to TLC for $1800 per eye. In my research I had determined that (generally) cheap != good. The $1800 per eye covered all optometrist visits, the initial surgery, most medications (largely eyedrops), and any needed followup treatments. I had both eyes done at the same time, and they offered me a valium...which relaxed me quite nicely. The surgery went well, but almost everything that could go wrong after that did. The tissue grew back almost completely (which was a new one to them), reverting me to about 380/20 vision. After several weeks I had a second surgery. Two days later I developed the "Sands of the Sahara", which causes serious fogging of the cornea and can cause real problems if not treated quickly...and I woke up with it on a Sunday morning. Now for the good part. I called TLC right after I woke up that morning, and they set me up with a optometrist half an hour later. Some eyedrops were all it took. I had pretty bad glare for three to four months. Bottom line: I'd do it again in a heartbeat. For all the problems, it's hard to overstate the pleasure and practicality of not needed glasses or contacts. TLC stayed on top of the problems...they took care of me. The pleasure of being able to see...always...and not becoming an invalid if my glasses break is priceless. Check up on the people doing the work, and go for it.
Mutant Freaks of Nature: "Frighteningly Addictive"
In retrospect, I would never, ever recommend it to anyone. I started off at -5.5 (which is pretty bad). I had no astigmatism, and no other problems. I had been wearing contacts for years without any problems and didn't really mind them that much, but just thought that it'd be nice not to need them.
The surgery went well. I walked out of the office, went to sleep, and woke up 3 hours later. I looked outside and could see perfectly - and I do mean PERFECTLY. I was ecstatic. For the first time in my life, I could see without those lenses. This was as good as my vision would get.
For 3 months after this, I had massive fluctuations in my vision. Some days I'd wake up seeing fine, other days I'd have weird problems including double vision, halos, astigmatism, etc (and that's not even including the night vision problems). After those 3 months, my vision finally settled down to being under corrected at -1 with astigmatism (which changed every time they measured it). At this point, I basically figured that I had no choice but to go ahead and have the touch-up (since it was much harder to correct my vision with lenses now).
After 6 months, I had a touch-up. Following this operation, I had the same weird after effects for months, until my vision finally stabilized - into 20/20 vision. During the day. In good sunlight. When I'm not tired. All of a sudden I have dry eye problems which cause me huge problems at night, or when I'm tired. Problems I never had before. I have weird problems with blue lights. At night, I can focus on most things, but am unable to focus on blue LEDs or lights. Apparently this is a normal side effect of the surgery.
I would recommend that you visit http://www.lasikdisaster.com/ If you want some more information. The major problem that they don't tell you is this: 20/20 vision is NOT the same as perfect vision. You can have double vision, ghosting, night vision problems but still have 20/20 vision. As long as you can read that little line on the eye chart, you have 20/20 and are considered a success story of the surgery. You could have a double image and not be able to drive, or function properly and STILL BE A SUCCESS.
In addition to this, you can end up with eyes that are miscorrected (so you still have blurry vision) that are UNCORRECTABLE. If you have multi-axial astigmatism, or other weird issues you may NEVER be correctable to 20/20 with glasses, contacts or ANYTHING ELSE. Think about that. No matter how bad your eyes are now, at least they're correctable.
In short, I would never, ever, ever have the surgery knowing what I know now. I would also never ever recommend it to anyone. The risks are not worth the rewards. Notice they say that 95% or 98% or whatever reach 20/20 - but they never say how many have these weird complications - and outside studies estimate them as high as 25%. Doesn't sound so good now, does it?
Cemil.
I think you've hit-upon a key point. If your eyesight is so bad that you're effectively blind without glasses (incapacitated), I would think that it's a fair chance to take. As other posters have said, the main reported side-effect can be poor night-vision (halos on bright objects) - and I found the same issue when I wore contacts.
I can "see" fine without glasses to get around and such, but I can't read comfortably without them.
The tradeoff is that I work in the film and television industry - eyes are pretty important (read: vital) for my job, and the risk is outweighed by the potential problems if something "went wrong".
I'm reasonably comfortable with the technology now - I know that a local company doing the laser correction does a "no touch" technique where they use the laser exclusively without the microkeratome so no foreign objects touch the optical surface of your eye - apparently it provides a smoother finished surface with less chance of issues at night.
But it's not an urgent "fix" for me. Add to that at least a couple times where glasses have saved my eyes from being injured (once by flying debris, and once by an accidental spray of cleaning solvent) and I'm not all that unhappy wearing glasses...
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
This is IMPORTANT, mod parent up! The parent is referring to a laser called intralase which completely eliminates the process of using a microkeratome to cut the flap, the part of the procedure that is by far the most prone to induce complications. The laser cuts the flap for the procedure by using thousands of ultrafast femtosecond pulses of light focused just below the surface of the cornea in a radial pattern. Depth and thickness of the flap can be controlled with exquisite precision and since nothing physically touches the intracorneal tissue, risk of infection is grealty reduced. While you're at it, since you're probable a technical guy, what with posting to slashdot and all, why not check out the laser itself? Manufacturers are all different with respect to the spot size of the laser pulses, the method which they use to track tiny eye movments and compensate for them, and the range of astig. and correction they are intended to treat. Also, see if they do customized ablations to reduce higher order abberations as well. If you're going to check out the doctor before you have the prcedure done WHY NOT CHECK OUT THE TECHNOLOGY TOO?!
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
OK, now I'll tell you my personal experience (that's what GodLessOne is looking for, isn't it?). I got LASIK performed on my eyes back in December, 2001. At that time I lived in Colombia.
It turns out that, to the surprise of many of you, Colombian ophthalmologists are actually leaders in their field. Keratomileusis, the first refractive-correction surgery procedure was developed by Dr José Barraquer, and ALK (automated lamellar keratoplasty) by one of his students, Dr Luis Antonio Ruiz. ALK was very similar to LASIK, but the actual molding of the cornea was done mechanically. A Greek ophthalmologist was apparently the first one to use an excimer laser to do the molding, although I have read references that it was also Dr Ruiz's team who developed the automatic tracking mechanism that warranties that the laser will always burn the correct part of the cornea even if the eye moves. (The eye is not completely inmovilized. They ask you to look up, where there used to be a red light moments before, but if you do move your eyes it's OK.)
I barely knew about Barraquer back in 2001, and nothing else. Some friend of my family strongly recommended some Dr. Luis Ruiz when they found out I was interested in LASIK. Only a year later, when I was researching LASIK on the web for a friend who also wanted to get her eyes treated, did I find out that I had been operated by one of the inventors of the damned thing. By the way, my friend also lives in the USA and got her eyes operated by Dr. Ruiz during a holiday vacation trip. I recently talked to her and she told me that she went for a control appointment a few weeks back and she's still 20/20 (she went to Colombia for an unrelated reason).
Back to my story:
So my recommendations are:
After some further research, it appears the place that's doing it locally is doing a laser PRK as opposed to LASIK.
:P. Apparently this company also gives you "free touchups for life" after the surgery incase your prescription drifts as you age.
The laser PRK actually uses the laser to remove the cells above the cornea rather than cutting a flap.
The old-style PRK method of this that got a really bad name is when they used to abrade (read: sand off) the top surface of the eye using a q-tip of some sort. Apparently this was highly uncomfortable and was prone to problems healing (ick).
The laser version basically does the same thing, but it just vaporizes the top layer of cells then uses the laser to reshape the cornea underneath and is much less traumatic to the eye as nothing is physically touching the optical surface of the eye.
That said, the technology you mentioned is also very intriguing. Using a laser to cut a flap, then reshape makes good sense as well. Apparently each method has it's tradeoffs:
-The flap-cut method heals faster and causes less discomfort, however there's the issue of the flap itself and the size of flap they can cut to work on the cornea underneath. Apparently "flap problems" are the biggest cause of after-surgery complications
-The laser PRK method is a bit more uncomfortable afterwards as the membrane on the eye needs to regrow (a few days). But there's no flap, and they can work on a larger area to reduce night-effects. This method is apparently not approved in the US (although the reference for that was a few years ago) so you might need to go to another country to do it (ie: Canada).
The only reason I know about it is that I went for one of their free evaluations a few years ago because I was curious what they could do. I opted not to do anything at the time, but I felt comfortable with the staff and it seemed like an easy-enough procedure.
There were a few people in the lobby that were getting after-procedure checkups, but they didn't speak english, so I couldn't ask them about it
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle