The U.S. Navy's Doctrine of Laser Eye Surgery

The New York Times reports that laser eye surgery — now performed on nearly a third of every new class of midshipmen — is transforming Naval careers. Navy doctors are performing these operations with "assembly-line efficiency," allowing older pilots to continue flying, and those who might otherwise have been disqualified to pursue flight school. The number of procedures has reportedly climbed from 50 to 349 over the past five years. The Navy uses a different procedure than that used on civilians — grinding the cornea rather than cutting a flap — out of fears that the flap could come loose in supersonic combat.

Comments

Grinding your eyeball?

[OverlordQ]

I've had glasses since I was 11 months old, and as much as I'd like to get rid of them, getting flaps cut or 'ground down' just dont sound very appealing to me.

Re:Grinding your eyeball?

[no_pets]

I agree. I mainly dislike wearing glasses when it's raining or if I begin to sweat. I clean my glasses nearly every day and it's a pain. But at the end of the day I know that I can see - with my glasses.

Sure, eye surgery can solve these problems and it's not very likely that the surgery will "backfire". But that just is not a risk I would like to take with my eyesight.

Re:Grinding your eyeball?

[planetmn]

I agree. I mainly dislike wearing glasses when it's raining or if I begin to sweat. I clean my glasses nearly every day and it's a pain. But at the end of the day I know that I can see - with my glasses. Sure, eye surgery can solve these problems and it's not very likely that the surgery will "backfire". But that just is not a risk I would like to take with my eyesight.

Can't the same be said about every medical condition/procedure?

Sure, the remedies aren't going to be 100%, but if we waited for them to be perfect, we'd still have extremely short life expectancies.

-dave

Re:Grinding your eyeball?

[no_pets]

True. Nothing is 100%. Each person just has to weigh the pros/cons of each procedure. IMHO eye surgery in most cases is more like plastic surgery than a real medical procedure. It doesn't have to be done to correct eyesight.

Re:Grinding your eyeball?

[spicyjeff]

Sure, but some risks are bigger thatn others. And like the granparent post said, I too would rather keep wearing corrective lens (contacts in my case) rather than risk loosing site for life. Even if that risk is small. The potential loss is huge. If given such a horrible choice I would much rather loose appendages or other sensory organs/sensations than my vision.

Re:Grinding your eyeball?

[Greyfox]

Oddly, when I was wearing contacts I'd wear 'em all day every day (Taking them out at night to sleep.) Then during one eye exam my doctor told me that my eyes weren't getting enough oxygen and that was causing an overabundance of blood vessels to grow in my eyes. He told me to cut back on my contact-lens wearing or bad things would happen. He was kind of vague on what kind of bad things, I assume my eyeballs would fall out of my head or something like that.

I had lasik a couple of years ago. Now here's the thing I can't understand about people who get lasik... You're taking a risk with your eyesight. You would think that you would take care to make sure you get a good surgeon. I did a lot of research on the internet, found a surgeon with an eyeball tracking laser and made sure he was doing the right tests and executing due dilligence prior to the surgery. I also dropped 2 grand an eyeball to have it done. Now the thing is, when you're doing something like this, why would anyone even consider "Bob's Discount Lasik -- Buy one Eye, Get one Free!" Or going to Thailand to have lasik done? Sure you might shop around on a car or a sofa, but when your body's involved the first point of consideration should NOT be the price of the procedure.

Anyway I did the research and decided the risk was worth it and now have perfect vision in one eye and better than perfect vision in the other. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was hardly uncomfortable at all, too -- I just had to take tylenol for a slight headache. I hear PRK is rather less comfortable and has a longer recovery period but I think I'd still have gone that route if I hadn't been able to have lasik for any reason.

Re:Grinding your eyeball?

[GigG]

It doesn't have to be done to correct eyesight.

It does if you want to fly fighters which is what TFA is talking about.

Re:Grinding your eyeball?

[Anonymous Coward]

Partly because they generally don't provide correction to peripheral vision, partly because air masks would have to be designed to seal around them, mostly because extreme G-forces easily dislodge them (no matter how tight a strap you have).

How many eye doctors do this do themselves?

[Clueless Moron]

I have been to two different opthalmologists over the past few years, and both of them wear regular glasses. They don't even use contact lenses.

Their explanation in both cases was the same: we really don't know the long-term effects of PRK/LASIK/LASEK. It could have side effects (triggering glaucoma, etc) that would render you near blind in 30 years. Is it really worth that risk?

So I'm sticking with glasses. For one thing, I'm over 40 and while I'm still nearsighted, normal age-related presbyopia is setting in. I can deal with it by simply removing my glasses to look at things that are up close. If I had LASIK, I'd need to carry reading glasses with me all the time, so there's not much of a win.

Re:Let a military doc operate on my eye?

[Brooklynoid]

I'm not qualified to comment on the skills of Navy docs in general, but if I were going to get laser eye surgery, I'd feel pretty comfortable knowing that the doc who's going to be doing it has done literally thousands of that same procedure before, and has turned out results good enough for their patients to qualify as fighter pilots.

Just my $0.02