Vision Correction/Lasik surgery

My aunt had it done, and there were some issues at first, but they corrected them.

Like Schneed and Matty, I am fine with my glasses and contacts. I would love to be without them, but I don't think the price and risk is worth it.

A family friend is one of the first eye doctors to preform it. He went around teaching students at colleges how to do it many years ago. He did it for a few members of my family, but like schneed said it isn't worth it for me.

A guy I played little league baseball with just ended up killing himself. His tale was in the local paper. He had lasik and it gave him double vision and he had bad halo effects around lights at night. He couldn't drive at night because the halo effects were too confusing. Docs couldn't do anything to correct it. He was getting constant headaches, he became depressed, and apparently decided to end it all.

I know the chances of this happening are very low, but man, I'll take my glasses and contacts any day of the week. I wouldn't go near it with a 10-foot pole. Not worth it to me at all. But that's just me.

Weigh the risk/reward for yourself. Very very large chance of everything working fine, with the benefit of being able to see without glasses. Very very small chance of your life being COMPLETELY RUINED.

Good grief! See, it's stories like this that make me say HELL NO! Something about laser beams on the eyeballs ... I just don't know. For all intents and purposes, if something happens on that sort of scale, you've essentially gone blind when all you had to do was put on your glasses. Scary.

Then again, the advances they've made seem to be far and away what they were 5-10 years ago. It'll be awhile before I make the plunge.

I know about 5 or 6 people who have had it done and all of them love it. I would not go to one of those pay for one eye and get the second eye free or should I say don't go to doctor cheap.

I got it done a little over a month ago. I can probably answer most questions you might have. So far, it's been amazing. My eyes were also really bad to begin with.

Ok, did they pin your eyelids back? That's another thing that will bother me. And what procedure was it? Interlace? Did they say anything about having to come back for adjustments?

What about your healing time?

They pin your eyelids open so you can't blink. It really isn't that uncomfortable. There were times where I felt like I was blinking but I actually wasn't. It was custom Lasik; I don't know what interlace is. The worse your eyes are, the more cornea they have to burn through. Therefore, if your eyes are bad, you need to have a thick cornea. In my case, I'll probably only be able to get one or two adjustments. My doctor said only one of my eyes might need one down the line.

As far as healing time, I'm still in the process and it's going to take several months for a full recovery. The only time my eyes hurt was for about an hour after the actual surgery. I've been pain-free since. The poor vision at night is true but it's another one of those things that improves over time. I'm already noticing improvement there, and I'm able to drive at night. To me, months of healing is worth a lifetime of being able to see.

They pin your eyelids open so you can't blink. It really isn't that uncomfortable. There were times where I felt like I was blinking but I actually wasn't. It was custom Lasik; I don't know what interlace is. The worse your eyes are, the more cornea they have to burn through. Therefore, if your eyes are bad, you need to have a thick cornea. In my case, I'll probably only be able to get one or two adjustments. My doctor said only one of my eyes might need one down the line.

What do you mean by this? That you'll only have one or two adjustments then you'll have to go back to glasses again? I don't know how "bad" by eyes are comparitively, but I do have an astigmatism.

To me, glasses at this point are just a nuisance. Not being able to watch TV at night in bed, not being able to see the clock, dealing with the inevitable scratches and scuffs on my lenses, having to get prescription sunglasses which have to be of a certain curvature -- I can't get the kind that wrap around and cover the sides of my eyes the way some other shades can.

Thanks for the info. The horror stories like Schneed wrote of are enough to keep me from doing it so far.

Anybody had this done? I've worn eye glasses since I was 4 years old, and I'm sick of them. Plus I can't do contacts. Then there's the sunglasses problem -- I can't get the wrap-around kind... it goes on and on.

But I'm worried about the horror stories -- permanent double vision, dry eyes, blah, blah blah.


my ex boss had it done, and she RAVED about it. It corrected her to slightly better than 20/20. Then over time her vision decreased a little again, and they corrected it for free.
The horror stories I have heard (never seen) come from those who try to do it the cheap and easy way.
In this case, you get what you pay for.

What is the going rate for Lasik now-a-days? I have been considering it myself. Tired of the contacts.

What is the going rate for Lasik now-a-days? I have been considering it myself. Tired of the contacts.

My eye doctor tried to sell me on it. At the place he was trying to send me to, he said the cost is roughly $5000.

Supposedly that was one of the very highly skilled places in our area. I'm sure you can do it for much cheaper, but like you said, you get what you pay for.