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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.
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.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
the flap could come loose in supersonic combat.
there's a circumsicion joke there somewhere
"Plenty to see here. Cleared for takeoff."
I thought this article was about laser-eye surgery, as opposed to laser eye surgery. Meaning I could FINALLY get surgery allowing me to shoot lasers out of my eyes. Like Superman. I've never been so disappointed in my life.
I have known people who were suicidal after having Lasik because they had it done at a "399.00 per eye" where the point is to get people in and out as fast as possible.
The problem with Lasik is that the burn area is only so big and some people's pupils dilate past that point resulting in all kinds of weird effects on the vision. Grinding would seem to allow much more control over the treatment area.
If you're going to get conventional Lasik here are some things to remember....
1. It IS surgery contrary to how "routine" Lasik places try to pass it off
2. Research your doctor doing the procedure
3. If you're lucky your doc possesses a cornea fellowship from Emory University
I think the phrase 'ground down' used in the summary is a little misleading. It's not an abrasive process which is used to reshape the cornea; rather a laser is used to ablate it.
Not that the word 'ablate' is any more paletable than 'grind' when it's coupled with the word 'cornea.'
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
BETHESDA, Md., June 17 -- Almost every Thursday during the academic year, a bus carrying a dozen or so Naval Academy midshipmen leaves Annapolis for the 45-minute drive to Bethesda, where Navy doctors perform laser eye surgery on them, one after another, with assembly-line efficiency.
Nearly a third of every 1,000-member Naval Academy class now undergoes the procedure, part of a booming trend among military personnel with poor vision. Unlike in the civilian world, where eye surgery is still largely done for convenience or vanity, the procedure's popularity in the armed forces is transforming career choices and daily life in subtle but far-reaching ways.
Aging fighter pilots can now remain in the cockpit longer, reducing annual recruiting needs. And recruits whose bad vision once would have disqualified them from the special forces are now eligible, making the competition for these coveted slots even tougher.
But the surgery is also causing the military some unexpected difficulties. By shrinking the pool of people who used to be routinely available for jobs that do not require perfect eyesight, it has made it harder to fill some of those assignments with top-notch personnel, officers say.
When Ensign Michael Shaughnessy had the surgery in his junior year at the Naval Academy, his new 20-20 vision qualified him for flight school. And that is where he decided to go after graduating last month ranked in the top 10 percent of his class, rather than pursuing a career as a submarine officer.
"The cramped environment in submarines is something that turned me off," Ensign Shaughnessy, 22, said.
For generations, Academy graduates with high grades and bad eyes were funneled into the submarine service. But in the five years since the Naval Academy began offering free eye surgery to all midshipmen, it has missed its annual quota for supplying the Navy with submarine officers every year.
Officers involved say the failure to meet the quota is due to many factors, including the perception that submarines no longer play as vital a national security role as they once did. But the availability of eye surgery to any midshipman who wants it is also routinely cited.
"Some of the guys with glasses who would have gone to submarines or become navigators are getting the chance to do something they'd rather do, and the communities that are losing the people are not as happy about it as the aviation community, which is gaining better candidates," said Cmdr. Joseph Pasternak, the ophthalmologist who oversees the program at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.
In the Naval Academy's class of 2006, 349 of the 993 midshipmen had the surgery, up from 50 five years ago, according to Naval Academy records. Fewer than 30 percent of the academy students whose eyes qualify for the surgery choose not to get it, and the number of holdouts is dropping every year, Commander Pasternak said.
Last week, a little after 10:40 a.m., Colin Carroll, a 21-year-old midshipman from Olney, Md., put anesthetic drops in his eyes and lay down under the laser as Capt. Kerry Hunt, a Navy doctor, and two assistants prepared to begin. "We're locking the laser on now," Captain Hunt told him.
Midshipman Carroll had originally hoped to enter flight school but discovered not only that his eyes were not good enough, but also that he was prone to kidney stones, ruling him out of aviation entirely. He said he was "resigned" to entering the Marine Corps or becoming an officer on a surface ship, neither an assignment requiring perfect vision.
But he decided to get the surgery anyway.
By 10:49, both eyes were done, though extremely bloodshot, and Mr. Carroll walked out wearing sunglasses, declaring he could already see better.
The procedure used by the Navy, photorefractive keratectomy, or PRK, is different from the one used on most civilians. That approach, known as laser-in situ keratomileusis, or Lasik, requires cutting a flap in the surfa
The method the Navy uses has been available to civilians for years now. I should know - I had it. In LASIK SURGERY the potential for the flap to come apart exists because only the outer edge of where the cut is made heals. You recover in 3 - 5 days instead of 5 - 8 with PRK. But with PRK you don't have the heebie geebie factor of eye flaps busting loose. In fact most eye doctors will recommend PRK to those under 30 with any kind of an active lifestyle for sports, scuba diving, etc.
While taking a week or more off work is tough for some - YOU'RE PUTTING FRIKKIN' LASERS IN YOUR EYES in either way. Why not take the more permanent / durable approach? Don't chose 'Hi Dr. Nick' budget solution either. That's just stupid.
I had heard that the Naval Academy was a grind...
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Uh, I don't think so.
*checks*
At least mine doesn't have a flap.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I got out quite a few years ago, before this was possible. My cousin however is still in, and he got the surgery done, for free. They offer it to everyone, and encourage you to do it. It makes all aspects of being a soldier - particularly an infantryman, much easier. Now you can wear off the shelf eye protection, no longer are gas masks a pain in the ass to put on, nightvision goggle, scopes, sights in a tank, are all easier to use.
I think it's a great idea, myself.
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Well it's not "grinding," unless the meaning of the word "grind" has changed recently, but there is at least one laser procedure available to civilians that doesn't cut a flap.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
Love of country. Desire to help the armed forces. Free ticket out of Havana. Instant citizenship. Etc.
And the number one reason that doctors enter the military... That fine butch asshair on all the female cadets.
I had PRK done in Jan-05, and have been extrodinarily happy with the results.
t -of-my-eyes" pain, and 3 days of "damn my eyes itch" iritation. Not for the faint of heart.
The only drawback was the day of "oh-my-god-what-have-I-done-get-these-icepicks-ou
Best money I ever spent, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
I'm sure there's a joke in here somewhere...
Join The Navy, See The World, etc
I never understood, why is it that the US have such a concentration of pilots in the Navy rather than the air force?
Because we rarely attack Canada and Mexico. Everyplace else is easier to reach by aircraft carrier.
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Well, considering how expensive medical school is, one option is to have the military pay for it. You come out without all of the debt, you do your 5 years (I think it's 5) of service, and when you are discharged you have your education, no debt, and 5 years of experience as a doctor. Looks pretty good to me (if I were interested in becoming a doctor).
Also, the doctors who treat the President are from the Navy, and Bethesda Naval and Walter Reed are known to be very good medical centers. So I think your post is basically quoting people who have some slant against the military.
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
the Navy grinds instead of cutting a flap.
(carrier landing).
Altitude?
- 1500 feet, sir.
Gear?
-Yes, sir.
Flaps?
- Open, Sir. What the hell? Everything's gone blurry and dark!!!
Not those flaps, Lieutenant!
(Crash... Blammm... splash splash of bits falling into the ocean).
You see, there's a reason they grind instead of do anything involving flaps, and there's also a reason I'm not employed writing comedy dialogue.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
When I was in, 10 years ago, the actual doctors (officers) were top-notch. A lot of them were reservists that had a private practice and were spending their two weeks helping out as a way to help cut the costs of college. Now...the enlisted people that you have to shuffle through to get to talk to a real doctor were another story. I had bronchitis in a bad way for three weeks before they decided the standard "cold pack" wasn't cutting it and maybe I should get to see a real physician.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
There is suing for malpractice. Claims JAGs handle these all the time. Many military bases have JAG dedicated to medmal stuff.
I've had it done myself after some extensive shopping around and research. If the doctor suggested there was a high (10%) possibility of halos or other effects, I did not do it. Finally I found one who was getting some new equipment in half a year which would increase the treatment area and he felt would produce good results. I have had no trouble with my eyesight since then and that was 4 years ago.
But to respond to your worries, they do give you drugs to calm you down if you want them (I would recommend it) although they do not put you under you have to stare at a light while the laser goes to work on your eye. The actual worst part is when they cut the flap - they had to wait a few minutes while my eyes dialated, so for a little while had a flap cut in my eye and was just sitting in a chair in a dark room. But altogether it took only half an hour and it was time extremely well spent.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
They must have, if your opinion was ever valid in the first place. I was an operating room tech (Surgeon: "Scalpel." Me: Passes scalpel) at Naval Hospital San Diego in the mid '90s, and the surgery they were doing was absolutely first class. We had lots of famous visitors - a friend of mine got to scrub in on a chest case with Dr. DeBakey - and we performed a lot of routine operations that you're only now seeing in the civilian world.
I won't say that there aren't any bad doctors in the military, but there are plenty of brilliant ones to bring up the average. I wouldn't have thought twice about getting medical care for me or my family from the Navy.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
There are less side effects and the results are almost always better with PRK. It also is easier to do touch ups as needed. The reason why it isn't as popular in the states is that it requires people to take a few days off so their eyes recover. I could afford a week off in countries where you can get more than 2 weeks of vacation. ;-P
Brought to you by the Vacation for everyone lobby.
no longer are gas masks a pain in the ass to put on
They're supposed to go on the other end!
I have actually had this (civillian) type of surgery.
The "flap" is a thin, transparent layer over the cornea which is peeled back to allow the laser to shape the cornea, then it is placed back over the cornea and it heals. Older surgeries used to discard the flap entirely, but a crescent heals faster and with less discomfort.
In my case the flap was discarded, it grew back with no problem. There was discomfort for the first week or so.
I was awake during the entire process. They gave me a mild sedative but I don't really think it was necessary - there was nothing particularly exciting about it. The eye was anesthetized, of course, and this was tested before the procedure began. I was using the eye up to and during the surgery, at which point it was bandaged over.
The actual laser part involved looking at a particular spot while the doc counted up some numbers like he was zeroing in on some chosen value. That's all there was: just look at some spot for about a minuts and it's done. No laser (visibly), no sound, no feeling, no buzzing or cutting or anything like that.
The anesthesia wears off a couple of hours later, and the eye hurts like it has a bad foreign object in it, but it the pain was periodic and not excruciating. It didn't prevent me from working on the computer.
There's nothing particularly exciting or scary about the procedure, and when it's all over you get to see clearly without glasses.
Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK) is available to consumers and is actually a better procedure than LASIK, but is more expensive, requires a longer healing period and fewer physicians are trained to perform it (takes longer to get certified, LASIK certs can be obtained via short, vendor classes).
In PRK, the outer surface of the cornea is ablated by the laser (on an lower power) and then reshaped at a higher power. A protective contact lens is applied to patient and remains on for about 5 days, then is removed by the doctor. The patient applies drops to the eye several times a day for about a month while the outer cornea heals.
The benefits of PRK are the lack of any "flap" problems (incorrect cut, complete cut [ouch], misalignment, dislodgment, halo effects, etc...) and ability to correct some visioin situations not correctable via LASIK.
While my wife wasn't a good candidate for the procedure and didn't have it performed, I highly recommend the physician who evaluated her, Dr. Bruce Bodner Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at EVMS.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Because the Navy has its own mobile air fleet? One major reason is that flying/landing on an aircraft carrier is completely different from flying/landing on a normal runway.
The Army has planes, too. The Air Force doesn't have exclusive rights to flight. The branches all serve different purposes, but do have some overlapping capabilities.
My sister is part of an AWACS crew with the Air Force. My understanding is that both the Air Force and Navy have their own AWACS.
My parents are both MDs, so I always go to them with medical questions before paying anyone for advice.
Last time I asked (I'm around -4.5 in both eyes), they were worried about the long terms of removing part of the lens in either eye. Apparently, part of the lens is also removed as a treatment for cataracts, and they had some worry that
a) Laser eye surgery could remove enough of the lens to make cataract treatment later in life difficult or impossible, and, also
b) There weren't any large scale long term (20+ yrs) studies on the rusults of the surgery.
As I said, this is secondhand... perhaps if there's a MD or a Optometrist on these boards they could comfirm/deny/just explain better?
I started wearing glasses when i was 2 years old, at the age of 35 I decided that the coke bottles that had burned a bump in my nose had to go. $5000, 3 surgeries (one had to be done twice) later i can see 21/23 (Was about 39/46). It was the best money spent, 7 years later my eyes are just starting to get weaker again. I hope that in 5 or so more years i still wont need glasses, which will mean a good 12 years seeing my alarm clock in the morning.
One note, on second surgery of first eye (They werent close enough the first time) they had to draw a line on my eye where the old cut had been made so they could cut in the same place again. I hope nobody ever has to have some draw on there eye, it was not at all pleasant and truely blew out my blood pressure for the day.
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.
I've got to agree with the others posting here. I've known and worked with many MD's who were going to the military after finishing med school to help pay off those huge Med School bills. And this is from top-tier med schools (with top-tier med school bills). The military gets a lot of top-notch MD's right out of med school/internships. Some of them might like the military and decide to stay. By no means are all the military docs bottom of the barrel.
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
The commonly held belief back then was these docs (and dentists... don't get me going on this one...) were only in the military because they couldn't hack private practice.
More like because they couldn't afford medical school another way.
My experience with military docs is that they're reasonably good physicians, but that the health care system in the military lacks continuity, and that causes problems. Also, because most of the doctors leave the military after they complete their obligation, the active duty doctors all tend to be young and somewhat inexperienced. The best thing to do, if you can, is to get one of the doctors who is a reservist.
My anecdote: The Army doctors at Fort Hood nearly killed my younger sister because she had condition (pyloric stenosis) that is rare in girls, so each doctor wanted to exhaust all other possibilities first, and didn't really trust that the other doctors had done their job. In desperation because my baby sister was dying of dehydration and malnutrition, my parents eventually took her to a nearby civilian hospital, where they operated and corrected the problem within a few hours. To the Army's credit, they admitted their error and the correctness of my parents' actions, and covered the civilian medical bills.
In contrast, my parents now get all of their medical care through the nearby Air Force base hospital, which is generally staffed by a rotating group of reserve physicians who seem to be uniformly excellent doctors. The docs recognize the need for continuity of care and make heavy use of referral to local civilian docs for any condition that requires the sort of continuity they can't provide. They also try to arrange so that each patient sees the same doctor for routine physicals, etc.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I realize this is going to be off topic, but this information needed to be stated.
A CVBG (carrier battle group) is mobile. The fact that the carrier itself carries multiple platforms which each excell at different types of missions helps.
Also, in a CVBG you also have (usually) two guided missile cruisers, two to three guided missile destroyers, a frigate or two, two attack submarines, and a supply ship (refueling/resupply of ammo). With this combined platform, you have the following:
-Air superiority, covered by the carrier.
-Long range missile strike capability, from the guided missile cruisers.
-Multi mission surface combat, mostly the destroyers
-ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare) provided by the Destroyers, multiple platforms from the carrier, the frigate, and the attack submarine
-AAW (Anti-Air Warfare) provided by the carrier and the destroyers.
The reason the US Navy places emphasis on the role of the carrier is due to its versatility. One carrier alone (though this would never happen) has the capability to take care of AAW, ASW, and Surface Warfare, along with the ability to strike inland targets.
The reason for the emphasis on the training of Navy pilots is the fact that landing a plane is much (on the range of ten times harder) than landing on an airstrip.
If you were wondering about the source of my knowledge, it comes from my NROTC experience and my family. (Navy family, though my uncle's a Marine...close enough...)
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Military pay is also better than what a medical resident makes. So you graduate med school with no debt, AND you get paid better for the next 3-5 years while you train. Then go find a nice job when you get out.
My friend is a Army dentist in Germany. The army picked up his 3 years of dental school, which cost around $200,000. He owes them 3 years now. He gets paid less than the average dentist, but he's stationed in Germany and since he left he's travled to the Olympics and the World Cup, not to mention all around Europe.
Also, the Army eye surgery isn't LASIK. It's PRK, which is a different procedure. They don't cut a flap in your eye for this one. My brother, a LT in the army, had it done. He had to use eye drops to treat dry eyes about 6 months.
After reading about the experience of Beck Weathers on Mount Everest (he had radial keratotomy surgery, and during the climb experienced blindness that cost him both hands and part of his face to frostbite), I've decided that maybe glasses aren't so bad after all.
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.
I wonder if this means that people who have had eye surgery in the civilian sector are also ineligible for flight school, or if the military has even considered asking people if they have had the procedure before admitting them.
out of fears that the flap could come loose in supersonic combat.
Actually, LASIK concerns relate to high-g combat which is mostly subsonic. That's where pilots experience the highest inertial forces which could (theoretically) tear open a LASIK-cut cornea and eyeball. For every aircraft the optimum (quickest turn rate) turning speed is subsonic, and the ability to change the aircraft's attitude is paramount in tactical engagements.
My boss at my previous job had his wisdom teeth removed while he was in the army. After he came to from the anaesthetic, the end of his tongue felt funny. Turns out it was getting in the dentist's way, so he put a suture through it and tied it to the chair while he was working. To this day, my boss says it feels funny when he drinks something cold.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Either you were in many, many moons ago, or you've fallen for the propaganda. I was a USAF medic 1989-1997, then worked as a civilian EMT and ER tech for a couple of years after getting out, and I feel very confident in saying that the standard of care in the military (at least the AF) is as good as or better than the standard on the civilian side. Doctors, nurses, medics, specialty technicians (e.g. lab and x-ray tech) all got away with sloppiness in the civilian medical world that I found shocking, and which would never have been tolerated in the service.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Doctors should heal, not make better killing machines.
I have been thinking about getting the Lasik for a long time. It seem to me that the risk versus reward is low in the short term. But we don't know what the long term effects of the surgery are... By long term I mean the possibility of being more suseptible to eye disease and disorders that are more common in later life.
My mother had radial keritotomy (sp?) 15-20 years ago. My understanding of the procedure is that it is the equivalant of Lasik but using a blade to make the incisions instead of laser. My point is that she is in her mid sixties now and has developed glaucoma and will be forced to take eye drops every few hours and have regular checkups to keep it under control for the rest of her life. She has been told that her eye surgery may have put her in an elevated risk group for glaucoma, but not until now.
Until I hear of more long term studies on the effects of Lasik... I think I'll wait.
(end of post)
That would be 349 procedures on Naval Academy students - a much smaller universe.
But at the end of the day I know that I can see - with my glasses.
At the end of the day, people with laser surgery can basically see. Some have problems with glare, and some develop vision problems that can't be corrected even with glasses, but the procedure basically works for most people despite the risks.
That's at the end of the day. How about at the end of the decade, or of your lifetime, though? This thing has only been done for a short while now, and the longitudinal studies aren't in, by definition.
Military organizations, again, have done studies over shorter periods. Eighteen months is not the measure of this surgery, though. It's performed on a sensitive organ that already has problems with deterioration with age. Given that, I'm not exactly jumping to get it done because of the deals on those special ads that come with the Sunday funnies in my paper.
Are contact lenses such a problem? I can see it for jet pilots, okay, maybe. But for everyday people, what -- you absolutely can't wear goggles when you swim?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Small sample I realize, but I know two different people whose ability to do optical astronomy has been severely impacted by
eye surgery. Combined with an increased risk of glaucoma (and no end in sight to the prohibition of the one medication that is effectively indicated for glaucoma), I believe I will continue to make myself be satisfied with the highest quality glasses I can get.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Your point about the med school funding -- I'm considering med school, so I know whereof you speak -- is well taken.
I did have a friend in the Navy, though, who underwent a nightmarish wisdom tooth extraction. The Navy dentist gave him conscious sedation (a narcotic) instead of a general anesthetic, and then proceeded to perform an extraction that would have given any Civil War surgeon pause. My friend described the fear very effectively. Said he never slept on his back after that, because it reminded him of the surgery chair somehow.
In general the reputation of the military's medical services was that of a poor-to-middling staff model HMO, based on my friend's description of the general situation. Maybe that reflected all the young doctors doing their five years and gaining experience, maybe not.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
How many moons are we talking? Because my experience differs.
I worked at Walter Reed Army Medical for years on a software project for the chief of neurosurgery. I came to find that he was considered one of the best neurosurgeons in the world. Why? Because the military sees a lot of spinal injuries of course. Walter Reed is the same place that works on the President of the US, congressman, etc. Is the president going to get a hack for a doctor?
I also was in the Army and worked with the doctors at Ft Knox for my asthma. I have yet to see an asthma expert that knew as much as these guys.
The Navy is doing PRK. This was the first procedure done widely on civilians. Lasik was introduced later. The primary Lasik advantage is the patients have usable vision sooner and are pain free sooner. PRK is the better treatment, but in our quick fix society, Lasik is more popular. It is also pushed by many docs as there is less negative feedback from customers, less followups during the shorter initial healing cycle.
Lasik, cuts a flap into the stroma, this is not the same flap that is removed for PRK as some folks have been characterizing. Alarmingly this flap never full seems to heal. It has been lifted YEARS after the original surgery. Lasik permanently weakens the cornea.
PRK is essentially moving or removing the epithelium. A thin surface layer that will grow back, not the deeper flap cut in the above. Variant (LASEK or epi-Lasik) attempt to preseve the epithelial layer and use it as a sort of bandage during healing. This helps speed the healing and lower pain, but it is still not as good as traditional Lasik.
Bottom Line:
PRK and variants, better/slower/more painful. Laskik has more issues/complications, but is more comfortable/faster.
The navy is making the right choice here.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I was hoping the Navy was using sharks with lasers...
Not...
I had it a couple years ago. I reposted my blog entry afterwards here in my slashdot journal.
Excerpt:She took her time. A swipe swipe here, a swipe swipe there, here a swipe, there a swipe... After she satisfactorily buffed away the covering of my eyeball, she used an actual broom to sweep away the leftover shit in my eye. I know this because I heard her say the word "broom" before she used it. There were other tools used. Again I express my thanks to the inventors of those magical eyedrops. She continues to remove the last remnants of the covering of my eye like one might remove a proof of purchase from a can of Jif to win the $300,000 grand prize, gently now, don't want to ruin the serial number.
"I can be self-referential if I want to," said Tom, swiftly.
They're usually called autorefractors.
h tm
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-autorefractor.
End of Line.
welcome our new sharp-sighted American naval overlords!
Considering I'm "overseas" from the US, I sort of wish this were more of a joke than it is.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
They're supposed to go on the other end!
You've clearly never been in a barracks.
May the Maths Be with you!
Due to thin cornea's, I opted to have PRK done on my earlier this year (rather than LASIK). I have no plans on doing supersonic flight thought, and am VERY VERY happy with the results.
The quick pro/con list of PRK vs. LASIK:
pro PRK:
no cutting of the cornea
con PRK:
can be more painful
longer healing time
The results of both procedures are exactly the same.
I got an ulcerated cornea from (hard) contact lens several years ago. It was quite painful, debilitating really, but my doctor said he'd never had anyone go blind from it. If you are in good health otherwise and get prompt treatment it isn't a very high risk.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I got a halo effect from my PRK procedure, so it's not perfect.
The U.S. Army also offers free laser eye surgery to soldiers. Preference is given to combat troops. "The bottom line is that if you're in the middle of a fight and you can't see the enemy before they see you, you're dead". The Army has been doing this since 2001. Combat troops with glasses are now considered obsolete.
Earlier than that. Almost Vietnam Era, but not quite. I still have a scar from where a doc at Keesler AFB decided to treat a rather angry boil with antibiotics rather than lancing it. It burst on its own the next day. What fun!
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Wrong thing. It burst while I was sleeping, so it was open for several hours without disinfectant, etc... I would like to think that if it were done in a medical setting that the scarring, if any, would have been reduced.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
It took me 3 months to heal from my PRK procedure (wow, those first 3 days were hell). For the first 2 months I had a pretty bad halo. I did read that it is very important to make sure that the laser they use is capable of creating a blend zone that is within 0.5mm of your dilated pupil width or a halo problem could could occur as light enters the pupil through both the corrected and uncorrected portions of the eye. Maybe it would be possible to have a wider ablation done to correct the halo?
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
Yes, I understand that this can happen depending on the amount of correction required and (probably more important) the size of your pupils -- the larger, the more possible the effect. You shouldn't get the extreme form possible with LASIK that't due to the hard edge of the flap cut though. Most mild to moderate effects from PRK usually diminish over time. The sibling poster to your message (kasparov) had some good info.
All the best.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .