I was about 20/250 before Lasik surgery last year. The procedure was painless, probably due to the Valium they gave me. The ride home (as a passenger, of course) was fairly uncomfortable, mainly due to light sensitivity. The doctor gave me dark goggles, but the light was still too bright. I was in some pain once I got home (maybe 3 hours post procedure), but I had some left over Vicodin, and took two doses of that. The Vicodin took the edge off. Slept fine that night. Woke up the next morning, and I COULD SEE FINE! Hallelujah! I was jazzed up about that. I drove myself to my one day check up (an 2 hour round trip) with no problems. For that check up, I was seeing at 20/25, less than 24 hours after the surgery. I went to work that afternoon (doing ultrasound which really requires you to use your eyes). For my one week check up, I was seeing between 20/20 and 20/15. Other than the touch of pain I had post procedure, before I went to bed for the night, I had no other problems. I would do it again in a heartbeat! No more glasses, no more contacts, no more cleaning solutions and saline!
Just one other thing….I went to a doctor who used computerized, laser equipment. No knives were involved. But, it cost me a pretty penny. I paid $5500 for both eyes, but I was not comfortable going to a doctor that advertised in the newspaper for $500 per eye. Sometimes you get what you pay for! Good luck to you!
Can Anyone Tell Me About Lasik Eye Surgery? What To Expect, And Things Like That.?
January 25, 2010 By 4 Comments
I had my Lasik about 2 years ago, and let me tell you, it’s the best thing I have ever done for myself. I went from not being able to see s/one in the same room to 20/20 in the matter of a few mins. REALLY!
You go to your Dr. and they do a bunch of test, dialating your eyes and such to make sure you are a candidate. If it’s decided you are, you go for your appt. I went to the office/surgery center about lunch time. They took my vitals, gave me a valium (to calm your nerves not knock you out) then I vaguely remember going to the room, lying on the table, they put some drops in my eyes, held my eye lids open with s/thing ( valium has kicked in by now!) and told me to keep looking at the red light. It was over in a few mins.
Then, went home with these silly but VERY important goggle things on, you have to keep them on for 24 hrs. Reason being is that you just had a flap cut on your eye and now your eye needs to heal, w/o getting anything in it, and NO rubbing. They (the dr.) has written you a presciption for some drops, use them as directed for as long as directed.
I had the surgery on Thursday and went back to work Monday. Could have gone Sat. if they were open. And have been enjoying NO contacts or glasses ever since!
It’s great and relativly painless
good luck
Hi there,
This is a topic that I have put a great deal of research into. I’m going to try and show the facts as I believe they are, if you really want to get to the bottom of Lasik you have to go find the scientific journals and scour them as I have. This information is out there, but you won’t find it on some slick lasik advertisement.
Lasik:
Lasik is no where near as safe as surgeons will lead you to believe and now that some facts are starting to get out many of these lasik surgeons are starting to leave the practice and move to other laser ablation techniques.
Your eye will never ever ever ever (ad infinum) heal, ever. Your flap will always be suseptible to tearing, especially from a blow sideways to the eye. The best numbers that the limited research can provide is eventually the inside of your eye will regain 2% of its origional strength and the outside layer will recover to 12% (I can’t remember this number perfectly, my mind also wants to say 8%).
Surgeons also make creative “lies” about their results. As most eye doctors seem to do, they only measure your refractive error. This is getting better as they look at the surface of your eye with a corneal topography and can see when they’ve totally screwed up, but you can get 20/20 “perfect” vision and be utterly crushed by blinding sideaffects (common examples are: glare, halos, night time vision, double vision and so on). From what I hear in personal stories, it is more profitible for the surgeon to kick you out the door and take in a new patient than it is to help you with your train-wreck vision. Not all practices are like this though so if you decide to do this pick very very wisely.
There is no practical difference which way the flap is hinged, new lasers that track your eyeball movement don’t work 10% as well as they claim and many surgeons turn off those features as they interupt the surgery a disconcerting number of times because of movement in your eye. Machines are often poorly calibrated and poorly maintained. Surgeons do not sterilize their surgery rooms. If any debris is trapped under the flap things can go bad fast. This surgery is not suitable for high refractive errors, as you would need to sacrifice too much tissue in the eye and jepordize its safety.
Surgeons exagerate the quality of their lasers. Go to the FDA website, you can get some no bs studies there on the success rates of various lasers.
Now there is emerging a new type of ‘microkeratome” on the market. Instead of cutting the cornea with a microkeratome, which is not as accurate as surgeons will tell you it lasers the flap into your eye. This technology has not shown promise and it does increase the risk or haze formation. Another thing I should mention to you is that the device used to hold the eye still during this part of the procedure compresses your eye flat. Pressures are known to increase many fold causing increased incidence of floaters (big ones, not little ones) as well as other things, including overall structural weakness of the eye.
Now, as most people seem to speak of lasik surgery, but use it to refer to all types of refractive surgery I will cover some more types for you.
Radial Keratotomy/Diamond Microsurgery:
If your surgeon tells you that you are not a canditate for any surgery, save for this one, this is god telling you that you can not have refractive surgery.
RK features unpredictable results, changing refractive errors and a ridiculously high level of side effects. You will never be able to withstand high or low pressures either.
Now that being said this surgery did start out extremely positive. It started in Russia with a very good success rate because the doctors were not fixated on profit. They were willing to split the pie and stick to their one task, doing it to perfection instead of our current jack of all trades doctors.
Long story short: this is an extremely old, unreliable techniqiue that no self respecting surgeon would perform.
LASEK/PKR/EPI LASEK/Surface ablation techniques:
The close cousin to LASIK and the flap surgeries, surface ablation works in an almost identical manner, except the laser is applied to the surface of the cornea without a flap being made. This is making a big comeback in recent years as people are realizing the dangers of lasik. These techniques are documented to have a greater risk of the refractive error returning, greater discomfort and a greater probability of haze forming.
These techniques are not suitable for patients with high refractive errors, the higher your refractive error the greater the risk for haze development. Some surgeons use Mitomycin C on your eye to keep haze from forming. This practice is not fully researched yet. It does appear that it stops haze from forming in some patients, however it also kills alot of the stuff it touches in your eye.
Now this surgery spares your eye the looming threat of the lasik flap, but it comes at a high price. In the process of ablating your eye the Bowman’s membrane is irreversibly destroyed. It will never grow back. The Bowman’s membrane it thought to contain a fair potion of your eye’s ability to filter out high energy radiation. the side-effects of sacrificing this membrane are not fully researched.
There are other surgerys out there like inacts, or phyiscally placing a lens infront or behind your iris, but I believe these techniques are far too new to even be considered.
Believe me, I wanted this surgery to be the miracle solution it is touted to be and it can be, but the risk factors are simply too large for me to ignore. I would say that if you needed this to pursue a dream job or something of that nature then the choice is up to you. If you are only looking to get rid if your glasses, this is a serious gamble considering the limited benefit you can derive from it.
http://www.iblindness.org
Kind regards,
Hydra
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As a practicing optician I have never seen anyone who has had the corrective surgery that was not “tickled to death” by it. This surgery eliminates the need to depend on glasses and gives you new freedom. Im not saying that there are no cases of mishaps but like I said, In my 6 years I’ve never heard a complaint
Lasik eye surgery is very safe nowadays. My cousin got her dental implants and lasik surgery in India by a company called Forerunners Healthcare. The Price for dental and lasik surgery is very less in India. She paid 25% of the price she was quoted in America.
Forerunners Healthcare is very famous in India They arrange Dental surgery, jaw surgery, lasik eye surgery, Dental Implants etc for foreign patients in India. I read a lot about them in the Newspapers and magazines- about their patient stories.
They arrange financing for USA, Canadian, UK and other international patients who plan to have surgery abroad for low cost, as dental and eye surgery is not covered by insurance. They also have photos pasted of their International patients. You can checkout their website. There are huge cost savings. As a doctor I personally believe that surgery can be easily handled in India, as the quality of healthcare available In India is simply best in the world. The surgeons are USA/UK trained and facilities are 5 star.
http://www.forerunnershealthcare.com
Hope this helps.