Asymmetrical Information

My wife did it and has loved the results. If you can afford it, go for it.

I can't speak to whether or not it will work for your eye conditions, but I had it done back in 2000. One of the best things I ever did--no more fooling with glasses. Your vision will backslide a little after the surgery. I'm about 20/25 now. The Army docs gave me an option for glasses, and I've (barely) passed every eye exam I've taken.

I just did it in May. I love it. The new wavefront controlled lasers should be able to deal with the astigmatism, but most places will do a free consult to see if it's too bad.

I also did the Intralase blade free procedure. No knives near my eyes!

18 hours after the surgery I was 20/15, and still am. No night issues either.

Cost was about $4k, but if you can wait a year, throw it in a flex-spending account if The Economist offers it to get a tax-break on it.

Quite possibly the best money I've ever spent.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Great site, keep it up!!

Please consider a link to my homepage, The Internet Radio Network. Thank you!!!

http://netradionetwork.com

I can never figure out those ads offering financing for Lasik. If you fall behind on payments, do they repossess your eyeballs?

Have you been wearing RGP or soft contacts? RGP works pretty well for me (with astigmatism only). You might also consider "Ortho-K", the overnight wear contacts that shape your cornea.

If you're in DC, go to the Mall; it's the best 4th of July Celebration I've ever seen.

I had Lasik 3 years ago. Was very nearsighted; call it 20-800. I went to a long-established laser center in Philadelphia that my own trusted optician deals with. My experience was a little less than positive.
I had a lot of pain during the procedure. That's not supposed to happen. I would advise anyone doing this to insist on having some sort of check before they actually start up the laser to see if you are completely numb. I'm sure that if I'd had more drops it would have been fine, since I've always been perfectly OK with all other eye exams after pain medication. In my case the laser cutting was the first indication that it hurt; by then it was too late for them to do anything. I squeezed the nurse's hand and practiced controlled breathing to get through it.
Afterwards I had a lot of tearing and pain, too, for about 24 hours, and noticable sensitivity for several days after that. I don't get these plastic surgery shows you see on TV where the person has lasik surgery and then just sits up and says, "Wow, I can read the clock!" with nary a red eye or tear. Also, no water is allowed in the eyes at all for two weeks (hold a dry washcloth over your eyes and tilt back into the shower spray to wash hair) and no immersion in water i.e. swimming for many weeks. I planned mine in September to avoid conflict with the pool or the beach. There will be some haziness and haloing of lights for several months. That didn't affect my everyday life.
I ended up being a little undercorrected. I paid for a plan that would cover "adjustments", but...there was still an operating room fee of $400 regardless. I also have an astigmatism that I never had before. I am not interested in going through the recovery period again and the undercorrection is helping me avoid reading glasses for the present, so I opted to let things stay as they are.
I'd still advise people to seriously consider having it done. My eyesight now is about 20-30; I wear glasses to drive and watch TV. But I'm no longer completely blind without glasses, which is saying a lot. And the glasses themselves are light and cute in a way that strong lenses can never be.
Lastly, I paid for this with cash set aside in a tax-free medical savings account. That meant that a $4,000 operation only cost about $3,000, with the tax savings. Some insurance companies will absorb some of the cost. This laser center doesn't take ANY insurance; but, when I mentioned insurance, they instantly came down around $500 in price as their kinda recompense for not taking insurance.
Hope this helps; feel free to ask any other questions.

there's also that revolutionary war series marathon on the military channel.

and the transformers movie.

Awwww! I second the Mall vote. The fireworks are pretty amazing.

Be glad you're not up here - drizzle all day. I will NOT get to make grown professors cry by beating them at croquet this afternoon.

Oh - on Lasik - *I'd* have to add the costs of replacing the lenses in my incredibly hot (but currently bifocal) Maui Jims. I can read on the beach!

I have had glasses since 8th grade. I have tried contacts at various times and even now have one-day disposables that I use for outdoor activities, special occasions, etc. I have never gotten used to wearing them daily, and even on days when I do wear them in the office, I rarely am able to wear for more than 5-8 hours.

I definitely looked better with contacts, and I have thought about Lasik, but I had a girlfriend who had a bad experience with it - pain and second corrective procedures and still has halos and dry eyes. I have yet to meet anyone who has had the surgery and does not have a bottle of eye drops with them at all times. Perhaps a trifling side- effect, but somehow it is enough to convince me not make the leap, though I may still change my mind.

Anyhow, this all just a long way of saying I think you probably look fine in glasses.

LASIK: I did it and have not regretted it for a minute.

It is the epitome of Buck Rogers, "In The Future!" technology.

Hey! Given the weather today I think you are better off with the Twilight Zone. I had lasik in 1998 or so and thought it was great. It is still surgery though, and with any surgery there is some risks. Re: what someone said about eyedrops, I never need them during the day, but very often overnight. The halos went away over time. The flex spending account someone suggeested is a good idea - if you get the surgery at the start of the year it is basically like an interest-free loan you'll be repaying over the other 11 months. Hope you enjoy those black bean burgers Jane! Would love to see you on Saturday if you're in town...

Lasik is a good idea, with very little risk. Pick a good doc. Flex accounts for medical is excellent idea. Don't know anyone, personally, who had major problems with it.

SOrry to hear about your quiet 4th.

ENjoy the day.

Lasik is a good idea ... after you've turned 40 and your eyes are no longer continuing to change. A reputable doctor should tell you as much.

Speaking out of self interest, I think the blinder women are, the greater the possibility of them marrying a guy visually undeserving, so thumbs down on Lasik or anything that leads to greater clarity.

Speaking of the 4th (and I am here in Phoenix indoors not sweltering in 116 degree or so heat), has anybody seen both the NYC AND DC 4th of July fireworks?

Is one better? Having grown up in NYC, I am ruined for most displays and have always wondered if the DC one was bigger/better.

I had it done four years ago and have never regretted it. I also have astigmatism, and because of that my eyes were corrected for monocular vision, i.e., adjusted for distance viewing in one eye and near viewing in the other. It sounds weird, but it's worked well for me.
I've always been nervous about people working near my eyes so the procedure itself was a little unnerving, but there was no real pain. If I had waited a few hours at the office I could have driven myself home; as it was I drove to work the next day.
I've never had the dry eye syndrome that's been mentioned, but it's something to ask about. There are cautions about getting your eyes wet for about a week after the procedure (at least in my case), and I had to wear goggles to bed for the first three days to keep from scratching or rubbing my eyes in my sleep, but that was it.
All of the standard cautions apply: choose a doctor based on reputation instead of price, and look into more than LASIK, which is a specific procedure; there are several types of corrective surgeries available now, and not every doctor is well versed in all of them.
Bottom line: it didn't change my life, but it made it easier and better, and I recommend at least looking into it.

Virginia Postrel had Lasik surgery and as I recall documented her experience in some detail on her site. I imagine you can find the posts in her archives.

Hmm.. I'd suggest Ortho Keratology instead.

It's a non invasive, non surgical way of fixing your eyes. Go look around.

I asked my ophthalmologist the same question.
One of the negatives (if you'd call it negative; I do) is that after the operation the eye loses its ability for accommodation. It became sorta trained for farther sights, and near sights that have never gave you any trouble seeing, suddenly become blurry.
Make-up, etc suddenly becomes a difficult task. To the extend that sometimes one of the eyes intentionally NOT given a 20/20 correction, to retain a bit of that near-sightinness you wanted to get rid of in the first place.
Bummer.

The anecdotal evidence I've heard is mostly positive with some stories like Rigeldog at 1:49 PM. It seems like the sort of thing that a look at the numbers would be good for.

I had bladeless Lasik three months ago, and so far I have no serious complaints. The procedure itself was incredibly strange, just because I'm not used to my vision doing anything other than the usual "seeing" thing, but aside from the fact that I've always had a problem with things getting stuck in my eyes, it wasn't bad at all. I had to put in a small army of eye drops over the next week or two, wear some dorky sunglasses for a few days, and avoid looking at a book, TV, or computer for 24 hours(not as hard as it sounds - you'll barely be able to keep your eyes open).

After the first 24 hours or so, though, it's not bad at all. I got the procedure Thursday afternoon, found out I was 20/15 on Friday, made a six hour trip the same day(as a passenger, not driving), and spent the weekend partying and politicking. Aside from the inherent difficulties in trying to put in eye drops on a schedule while drunk, I didn't have any problems that weekend. There was some haloing of lights at night, and some ugly-looking red spots on my eyes, but those are both perfectly normal and they go away fairly quickly(the blotches in a couple weeks, the haloing takes somewhat longer).

I still put in an eye drop every couple days, but that has less to do with the surgery than the fact that I probably should have been doing the same for years, since I've had dry eyes forever. It was fairly cheap, because my dad's company provides good coverage, and it was certainly worth it in terms of savings on glasses alone. I'll have to wear reading glasses when I get up into my 40s/50s, just like anyone whose vision is naturally good, but that's not a big deal, and not just because I'm 21. So yeah, while I have some minor complaints, overall I don't regret getting it at all.

My wife looked into. She's an illustrator so her eyes are her living. She decided to wait. Glasses and contacts work for her. Why not wait for them to make the procedure even better?

Had it around 7 years ago, great results, painless surgery.

Here's the hard data:

http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/lasik/

Black bean burgers? On the Fourth?

Why do you hate America, Jane? WHY?

I did Lasik in January 2000, before the modern improvements, and didn't regret it. The only downside, aside from not being covered by "insurance," is that it tends to lead to slightly-earlier-than-normal onset of presbyopia. In my case, it meant the need for very mild prescription reading glasses at 39 when it otherwise would likely not have been required until my mid-40s.

A worthwhile tradeoff, though, in that I had to take an educated guess at the big E atop the eye chart before surgery and literally needed to wear glasses to put in the first contact lens.

I don't know anything about Lasik, but I do know that I need a recipe for black bean burgers that will hold up on the grill!

When the fda itself is sceptical you are better off waiting for a few years

My vision went from 20/200 to 20/20 overnight. Then it kept getting better. Two years later, I can read the smallest row on the eye chart with either eye, which I understand is 20/10. When I go to the airport, I can read the arrivals/departures board from across the room. Quite simply, Lasik is a miracle -- totally worth the money, the months of eyedrops, and the plastic goggles I had to wear for three days after the procedure.

I do get slight halos around lights at night, but it's not bad enough to keep me from driving or doing anything else I want to do.

"When the fda itself is sceptical you are better off waiting for a few years"

LOL. That's an argument that's gonna work on Jane.

I had LASIK before they could correct astigmatism. They did each eye separately. After the second eye I waited a few hours in the doctor's office with my eyes shut and drove myself home. If you get both eyes done at once you'll probably want someone to take you home.

I had to put antibiotic drops in afterward, but nothing special since. I figure if you need eyedrops before the operation, you'll still need them afterward.

The doctor included RK afterward for that. I decided not to get the RK. My vision was good enough I didn't want to risk the ends of the corneal scars extending into my field of vision.

Ten years later my vision is 20/30 in the morning, 20/40 in the late afternoon. I get my driver's license renewed in the mornings!

Two points:

1) Make sure the doctor does a *lot* of them. Practice makes perfect in surgery. Find out which doctor in your area does the most.

2) The IntraLASIK supposedly fixes astigmatism these days. Look into all the variations.

Since 3rd grade my first move in the morning was to reach for my glasses. Now I can read my clock from across the room in the morning.

Had mine done by a good doctor in Newport Beach and spent the extra dough on purpose. She teaches the surgery and had access to the best equipment. I was 45 years old and had been wearing glasses since the 5th grade, which didn't help me in little league the year before.

After years of research into the procedure, double astigmatism and nearsightedness, the inability to properly insert contacts and having just replaced broken glasses 'again' I dove in. It hurt like hell. I stayed in bed the first day and spent the second day nearly drowning in eye drops.

Had halos at night for months. Three years later I would still recommend the procedure as long as you know what 'could' happen. A vast majority of people don't have complications like mine. The one thing I did not know is that once your eye is 'cut,' it stays cut and never 'heals' completely. This is usually not a problem as a natural vacuum keeps the flap in place afterwards but I will still have a moment of panic at times when I rub my eyes.

Do get the latest procedure, whatever it is. The Wavefront was the latest and greatest when I had it done and I have close to 20/20. I could have gone back to have the last little bit fixed, but I decided I could definitely live with what I had. I do need glasses (the drug store kind) to read the fine print but that's normal after your mid-forties as someone previously mentioned.

It took me a while but I feel normal now, and that's a good thing. As wonderful as glasses are they can be a real burden, especially when they break at inopportune moments like while traveling in a foreign country.

I feel your pain about the laptop, mine's down at the moment too and will have to stay that way for a while.

My Dad had it done and, except for dry eyes for about a year afterwards was exceptionally happy with the results. On the other hand, he was far-sighted. My mom can't have it done for a variety of reasons and is rather ticked off about it.

Lasik?

Weren't you the one posting that Keratology piece a while back?

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