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Lasik - Anyone had it done?
Paladin:
It's been about a year since I've had it done. I work for a health care company - and they don't cover any of the cost. I went to a local place that has one of the best doctors in the country, and paid $3700. I figured that if I was going to get it done I'd damn well go to the highest quality place I could. I have a friend who doesn't own a car, so we set all of our pre/surgery/post op days the same so we could carpool and have my wife drive us on our surgery day.
He ended up with great results, and is very happy. I'm pretty much on the fence. I love not having to wear glasses, but ended up with some night time halo/blur that pretty much can't be corrected even though I got the usual free lifetime correction deal. It's got to do with the shape of the eye and when my pupils open up as it gets dark. I can still drive at night, but see blurs around car head/tail lights, stoplights, streetlights, etc.. I just got a prescription for some drops that might help by shrinking my pupils, but I haven't tried them yet. I can get glasses for driving at night, but the prescription I was shown didn't make much difference with the blur.
You have to remember that the "official" line is that the goal of Lasik is to reduce a persons dependence on glasses, not completely eliminate the need. As far as the surgury goes, I'm still considered a "success". I seem to be bouncing between 20/20 and 20/30 without glasses, and can function fine. Whenever I start to feel unhappy that my vision isn't as sharp as it was with glasses I just remind myself of how great it is not having to put those damn things on every day, keep them clean, etc...
One other thing to remember is that your getting your prescription burned onto your eyes, so if your eyes change from year to year it may not be the best thing for you. I waited until now because of that, for the past 3 years or so my prescription finally settled down.
Am I glad I did it - yes. Do I wish I had better results - yes. Would I do it again - yes.
Grasshopper:
I had Photo Refractive Keratectomy done on both eyes a few years ago before Lasik was widely available. I've been extremely happy with the end result. I went from being very shortsighted (-10 diopters) to having almost perfect vision.
Lasik is a more recent development and from what I've heard it produces more reliable results than PRK (although it actually sounds more dangerous to me).
FrizzleFried:
PBJ sure seems to know his stuff considering he never has needed glasses nor has he had or needed any type of sight correction surgery. I sure wish I "knew it all" as well.
PBJ, you should start a course "Know it all 101". I'd sign up right away!
Ed_McCarron:
I had thought about having it done about 10 years ago.
Give or take 8 years ago I blew out one of my retinas with a blood clot - basically wiping out the sight in that eye.
When I went back later to have the other eye lasik-ed, they refused, telling me that "well, if something goes wrong, you won't have another eye to fall back on."
That kind of turned me off on the whole thing. I realize any surgery has chances of failure, but when you seem to expect it to fail...
YMMV.
TOK:
--- Quote from: pinballjim on February 09, 2008, 05:40:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: FrizzleFried on February 09, 2008, 05:08:37 pm ---PBJ, you should start a course "Know it all 101". I'd sign up right away!
--- End quote ---
I read... constantly. And I forget nothing.
My knowledge of lasik comes from reading articles talking about how servicemen that were given the laser/knife treatment weren't allowed to fly fighter planes.
I thought that was pretty weird, so I looked into it. Turns out the Navy covers the treatment where your eyes are basically ground down into another shape, and that thousands of people were getting that versus the other methods so they'd be eligible to fly jets. This was a national news article ~6-8 months ago.
Then it turns out that the belief is that those flaps never properly heal and there's plenty of people that have had them pop open when subjected to various stresses.
People are free to crap the thread with half-baked ideas, though (as always)
--- End quote ---
I don't know much about Lasik, but where did you make the leap from flying fighter planes to riding roller coasters?
I think the wildest coasters give you 3G for a a couple seconds. A little over 4G is typical grayout range and 4.8G is where vision goes black. At about 5.4G, the average person goes unconscious.
A potential F-16 pilot has to be able to withstand 9G in a centrifuge (without a G suit) to qualify for training, I'd imagine the Navy F/A 18 requirement is similar.
There is absolutely no comparison between the requirements of a fighter pilot and riding a roller coaster. If you're riding coasters less than a month after your surgery, you're probably going to get what you have coming, after that I don't think anyones eyes are popping out.
EDIT: I just confirmed this here...
Long link shortened to lasikmd.com
Activities after 1 month
Activities that can begin at 1 month WITH eye protection.
* Water skiing, wind surfing, kayaking, surfing.
*
Sun-tanning and salon tanning with eye protection for PRK patients.
*
Dirt biking, mountain biking.
*
Parachuting.
Activities that can begin at 1 month without eye protection. Proceed with caution:
*
Riding a roller coasters.
*
Dying your hair and eyebrows
* Swimming, waterslides, scuba diving, snorkeling, sailing.
* Basketball, football (with helmet), soccer, baseball.
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