Getting Laser Eye Surgery?

I had a coworker who had lasik. About a year later, she got a paper cut on her cornea, (for real, she took a piece of paper off of a copy machine and it nicked her eyeball) across the lasik flap. It was extremely painful, messed up her vision for maybe a month, had to have eye surgery to fix it. It sounded horrific, but I asked her later and she has no regrets on getting lasik.

I have a cousin who is an opthamologist and he is totally against any laser surgery or even contacts, and the same with other opthamologists as well. He says to just wear glasses.

Been thinking about the same for a few years. I don't think the technology is there yet: I need an almost 99.99999999999% assurance that nothing will go wrong.

From https://americanrefractivesurgerycouncil.org/lasik-complicat...

> But LASIK complication rate statistics are extremely low. Less than one percent of LASIK patients experience these surgical complications. That’s one percent, as opposed to 30 percent that report transient side effects. In other words, LASIK complications are very rare events.

Less than 1% is still a lot for me when it comes to "messing around with my eyes".

I suggest you get one eye done, and give it a month to compare before getting the other done. I did this and the difference between Lasik and contact lens was glaringly obvious (contact lens is wayyy better vision, especially at night).

The surgeon will push to get them both done at once. However if you do that you simply don’t have anything to compare against, so you can’t know the pluses and minuses. Most people you hear from that have done it will be unrealistically positive about a choice they can’t change (psychology). I never got the other eye done, so I can truely say what the benefits and downsides are, whereas most people will give you extremely biased points of view.

LASIK benefit: no hassle with contacts and risks of irritation, better for water sports, no ongoing costs.

LASIK downside: much worse night vision (stellation due to irregularities in uniformity of surface - not correctable). Need reading glasses as you age.

Contact benefit: I was short sighted and if I need to do fine work, I just remove the contact and suddenly I have superb good close up vision in one eye. Macro mode!

I would recommend laser surgery if you find contacts troublesome or you are not a careful person about maintaining them, or I would recommend if you do sports where contact lenses are a problem.

Hey, I'm in the same boat as you, that is I am about to schedule my consultation with a LASIK provider. I was really anxious about it, but I've been talking with my regular optometrist about it for the last three years and he has finally convinced me.

What made me feel better was finding out that no one has ever gone blind from the surgery. Those kind of serious complications are a function of people not following the post-operation protocols which leads to an infection.

My optometrist also told me that the main source of complications are from folks that seek out cheap providers and that the three offices he recommends are very very good. I realize that doesn't help you, but my recommendation would be to trust your regular optometrist and ask them for where they see the best outcomes.

> For lasik, has anyone known someone who was misfortunate enough for the flap to dislodge and what were the consequences?

No but a relative of a friend went blind in one eye. There used to be a big Facebook group where people shared their negative stories like this, I'm sure you can find similar subreddits/FB groups/whatever. Not everyone goes blind obviously, but some side effects are really, really bad and you can't fix them by simply wearing something like glasses so they're going to stay around forever if you get them. After all, the eyes are probably the most delicate part of the human body.

I'd say it's too risky, possible side effects are much worse than having to wear glasses when you're reading etc. Glasses are just fine.

I've had lasik about 10 years ago, best decision of my life, no side effects. It only took 10 minutes, and I can only assume that the technology advanced further the last decade.

I know 2 people who had it around the same time as me, and only one has -1 in one eye after another 7 years. The other person is still glass-free.

My advice is to not go cheap. Don't choose a doctor that "also does eye surgery" (there are a few like that), go to someone who specialises in it and only does that.

Unfortunately I don't have anyone to recommend in the UK as I've done mine in Greece, but I've had -5 on both eyes and lasik did wonders.

I got it done. Life changing, in a good way. Know 2 close friends who did it as well. Good results.

I had it, everything went fine. Very unpleasant though. If I were doing that again, I'd take 1 or 2 months between eyes in case something go wrong. All in all, I'm very happy with the surgery.

Don’t do it.

If you do, get PRK not lasik.

Don’t do it. Your vision and ability to stare at a computer is the only thing standing between you and being homeless. It’s not worth it.

And it only lasts about 10 years then you need glasses anyway.