Laser Eye Surgery, Revisited 10 Years Later

gunner_von_diamond (3461783) happened upon Ask Slashdot: Experiences with Laser Eye Surgery from ten years ago, and asks: I was just reading a story on /. from 10 years ago about Lasik Eye Surgery. Personally, I've had Lasik done and loved every single part of the surgery. I went from wearing contacts/glasses every day to having 20/15 vision! In the older post, everyone seemed to be cautious about it, waiting for technical advances before having the surgery. Today, the surgery is fairly inexpensive [even for a programmer :) ], takes about 10-15 minutes, and I recovered from the surgery that same day. So my question is: what is holding everyone else back from freeing themselves from contacts and glasses?

Comments

Astronomy, and general poor night-time results.

[popoutman]

Given that I have a few telescopes and I have been stargazing for ~30 years, I really value my night sight. Knowing that the majority of the laser surgeries have a significant proportion of post-operation aberrations that would directly affect my stargazing abilities is a real hindrance to my taking up the eye surgery.
Halos and diffraction spikes around bright objects, increased glare at night, are all relatively common issues to be dealt with afterwards. Most people aren't bothered by this as they rarely come across the situations where these aberrations would show up (exception being night-time driving).
If the surgeries were able to correct higher-order aberrations and a proper wavefront restoration across a portion of the eye that would be larger than the relaxed iris, then it might be a possibility for me. However, the tech is not yet mature for this, for my use cases.

Re:Astronomy, and general poor night-time results.

[BStroms]

Also the fact that it won't prevent future changes to vision. I'm thirty now, and my vision still continues to slowly get worse. I fear I'd be paying for a 5 year reprieve from glasses and then be back to wearing them with side effects I also have to live with for the rest of my life.

Re:Astronomy, and general poor night-time results.

[swillden]

One common technique for people who are close to or have age-induced presbyopia is to perform the surgery on only one eye, or, depending on the prescription, to apply it in different amounts. The idea is to get one eye which is good for near vision and one that is good for far vision. Sort of the same notion as bifocals, but applied directly to the eyes. Apparently the brain adjusts quickly and effectively to this and you end up feeling as though you have good vision at all ranges as long as both eyes are open.

I'm considering doing that. I'm 45 and my eyes have just begun to change. I'm still generally myopic, but so far the change just requires me to take my glasses off when doing close work. I'm going to give it a couple more years to be sure my eyes have more or less settled, then get surgery on one or both, in whatever degrees will give me the best overall visual acuity and flexibility.

If your eyes haven't actually changed yet, then it's something of a crapshoot. The idea is to adjust your vision based on guesses as to how they're going to change. That said, my optometrist says that they can make very good guesses. The only reason he's recommended that I wait is because I'm not far from the point where guessing won't be required, based on my history of general visual stability and current rate of change.

Re:Astronomy, and general poor night-time results.

[David_Hart]

I'm considering doing that. I'm 45 and my eyes have just begun to change. I'm still generally myopic, but so far the change just requires me to take my glasses off when doing close work.

I'm also 45 and I'm experiencing the same thing. I am overdue for a new set of glasses anyway, but I've noticed my new farsightedness the most when doing work on the test bench. I've had to start using a set of head-mounted magnifying lenses regularly for close-up work. If I was to consider some sort of corrective procedure, I'd need something that's compatible with close-up hands-on work, staring at a computer screen most of the time, and shooting which requires both close-up vision (to see the signs) and long range vision (to see the target). I haven't researched yet whether any of the existing procedures would be a good option for a person of my age with my vision and range of activities.

I'm 45 too, am near-sighted, and have the same concerns (reminds me that I also need to get my annual checkup). I make my living off of my eye sight (network engineer), drive a lot for both work and play in all kinds of conditions, am a bit of a armature photographer, like downhill skiing, and one of my passions is movies. All of which could be screwed up if things went badly. When I am at work I wear glasses and when I play I wear contacts. Both of these are easy and cheap to fix and replace, unlike my eyes.

Re:Astronomy, and general poor night-time results.

[__aajfby9338]

Yes, my thinking has been the same. Wearing eyeglasses is annoying, but I'm risk-averse, and I only get one pair of eyes per life barring some really cool future technical advancement.

Uncertainty/fear?

[robinsonne]

Maybe it's just silly, but I'm really scared of someone shooting a laser into my eye. I don't want to be that 0.01% of cases that has something horrible happen.

Cost

[Nimey]

I can get glasses that last for 5+ years for a couple hundred dollars, vs. lots more for surgery with its inherent risks. My glasses are generally only annoying when I work outside & get sweaty.

Re:Cost

[Austerity Empowers]

Also, having worn glasses for so long I've gotten used to the built in "objects flying at my eye" protection they offer. My glasses have caught more than a few flying objects and/or children's fingers.

Then there's reality:
1) Something might go wrong
2) My eyes are unbelievably important to what i do for a living and how I entertain myself, I'm not sure I'd want to live without them
3) I don't like the idea of being concious while someone/thing is cutting on me, especially my eyes

Fear

[Tempest_2084]

Plain old fear and nothing more. My contacts are rarely a hassle and I've been told that I look really good in my glasses, so I'm loathe to do anything to my eye that could harm it in any way. I still wonder what the long term (30 years+) consequences are and if a better procedure will eventually be developed. Until I can't wear my contacts anymore, I'm inclined to wait.

Re:Fear

[Rakarra]

This. I want to know what the 20+, 30+ year outlook is like. I'd be fine with the laser surgery if I knew that there would be no complications from it when I'm 60 or 70.

Two grand is not inexpensive

[Oligonicella]

My contacts cost me $70 for a one year supply. That's about thirty years in comparison. If my contacts become micro-scratched, I throw them away. If lasik gives me halos, I'm screwed. No contest.