As I'm approaching 40 I'm noticing my eyes aren't what they used to be. I'll probably need glasses or contacts soon. However, I'd rather not have to deal with them so I'm thinking about laser eye correction. Has anyone here had it? What do you think of it, would you recommend it?

Warren

 

Look at Scot's thread from a few days ago about having to wear glasses.

 

Had it 6 years ago, happy with it. Most turn out to be good, however, some may go bad and say good-bye to ocular health and vision. It depends on the doctors.

 

It also depends upon the machine they do your correction on. The older style generic type of mapping (non custom wave front or other such name) actually add astigmatism. I have had that 3 times and my vision is worse than it was when I began.

There is a very basic misunderstanding about power. 20/20 doesn't mean you can see anything. You can have 20/20 vision and if you have astigmatism or "stuff", as one doctor called it, from the surgery then you still can't see.

There are side effects of the surgery that adds artifacts to the lens. This "stuff" can impair the clarity of your vision. Never talk power, talk clarity.

I have read about starring at night, but have never talked to anyone who actually had any. But by the same token, until very recently I have never talked to a person who got the vision they thought they would get. We have all be disappointed.

The lens replacement has been getting rave reviews from all the people I have talked to have done it and the custom mapping has gotten much better reviews than the generic mapping.

Don't get the cheapo procedure and insist upon the bladeless rather than the bladed procedure. I have had both and the quickness of healing and the comfort level from the bladeless incision is so much better than on the bladed.

I actually had one of the flaps on my eye pop up the very first time I had the surgery and I was very worried, but the eye is amazing, it straightened out all on its own.

 

Is your vision going to shlt for distance or close up?

I had LASIK 2 years ago, one eye was under corrected for reading the other is my distance eye.

Go bladeless all the way, more exact results.

You get what you pay for, cheap places are cheap because they cut corners somewhere. Royalties need to be paid for, consumables, calibration of equipment, salaries, rent, insurance. Pretty f'en hard to do when they try and sell you on

Min. requirements are thick corneas, small avg. size pupils (big eyes greater chance of halos), no dry eyes before or you will be fooked after.

Interview several doctors beforehand.

Plan B, have the doc yank out your lens and pop in a replacement lens. Fixes your eyes and no worries about cataracts if they run in your family.

 

I was told I qualified for laser eye correction, but I was also told what they don't tell you in the ads -- that in most cases the correction is only temporary. I was told that because of the "problems" with my eyes, that I would need glasses again 7-8 years after the surgery. I couldn't say "no thanks" fast enough!

 

Most top tier places will re-zap you with out charge. Yup your eyes change as you geezer up.

With the lens replacement deal they can re-cut you (2mm slice ) and pop a correction in.

Or look at it this way you could go 7 / 8 years without glasses and die before you need to get "fixed" again.

 

I had laser sugery about 6 months ago. I had horrible astigmatism and was legally blind in one eye. I cannot say enough good things about it. If you already have good vision, however, laser surgery will not help you and a competent doctor will tell you so. Age related vision problems absolutely cannot be corrected by laser surgery, so if your vision issues are age related, don't even try it. A bad doctor might convince you that it could help, but those are the ones to avoid.

I am sure I will need reading glasses soon, and I knew that going in to the procedure, but my vision was so bad that only blindness would have been worse.

 

if your vision deterioration (due to age) is so that you can not see things up close it usually due to the deterioration of the muscle tissue, not correctable.

everyone is sooooo different. after the surgery you may have issues you think are critical. then again someone may have the same vision for their whole life and will not know any difference!

my cornea thickness was not as expected, instead of cutting a flap (behaves like a bandage) they used the laser directly on the surface. this process saves cornea thickness but is VERY painful. the cornea thickness you save can be used for any corrections later. in the case of the flap it bonds back over night. there is about a 3-5% additional risk with the cut, as any surgery.

i am about 8years out from my surgery and all is still good as day one.

the surgery is all about how they map your eye surface. if you currently wear contacts consider not wearing them for 2-3months before the surgery to give time for your eye to stabilize.

the result of my surgery i have significant astigmatism in each of my eyes and my close up vision was never 100%. you can get reading glasses at Wallmart for $5, if thats the case. the good side of all this is my distance vision is great. compared to wearing contacts i noticed my perception of color is much greater. at a distance the time to aquire an image seems shorter

If you have a before tax deduction for health related issues at work use it for your eye surgery, if you feel the quality of care is not to your standards in your area it will pay for travel.

 

you may have presbyopia, like WFO said. Look it up on google.
if you have presby, you may want to consider CK.