Vision correction surgery - DON'T

[Caduceus]

Out of curiousity (and b/c I'm considering it), any long term people out there? Like, 10 or 20 years out from surgery? How has it held up?

[YVK]

Out of curiousity (and b/c I'm considering it), any long term people out there? Like, 10 or 20 years out from surgery? How has it held up?

I don't think anybody really knows yet on a systematic basis, you might get anecdotal reports, but no large-scale data. I think FDA organized some sort of long-term safety panel about 5 years ago, but I am no aware of any definitive data.
BTW, while theoretically 10 years is long term, I am not much interested in it - I would prefer 20 some, and this would be hard to find. The lasik has been around that long, prk even less. Lack of long-term data is what turns me off. Human eye changes over the time, and I am quite concerned that something done to it at age of 30 and 40 will backfire when the patient is 70.
Vast majority of people who had done this in recent time are quite happy. I only know of two people who had it done some 15 years ago, and one of them need to have a repeat procedure a couple of years ago.

[olkev]

Out of curiousity (and b/c I'm considering it), any long term people out there? Like, 10 or 20 years out from surgery? How has it held up?

I had RK done in 1987. I know, it is not the same as LASIK. It was good for 10 years. I hit 40 and my eyes start to change. When it is all said and done, I have a 10 diopter swing in my vision from where I started to where I am now. I now need reverse geometry, gas permeable contact lenses and tri-focals to see 20/20 in the left and 20/25 in the right. If I had the opportunity to start over and do LASIK, I would probably opt out and say "no". Many eye doctors will say that if you can get correctable to 20/20 with glasses or contacts, don't cut on otherwise healthy eyes. Long term predictability is an issue. If you are in a profession such as law enforcement, fire fighter, or the military, it is, in my view, easier to make the argument for the surgery. Otherwise, I probably would not. That being said, I still would not do LASIK. I would opt for PRK for reasons below. It is very easy to succumb to the marketing. Deciding to do this is not something to be taken lightly.

FDA - LASIK

What Laser Correction Surgery Means to the Military

In the USA candidates who have had PRK can get a blanket waiver for the Special Forces Qualification, Combat Diving Qualification and Military Free Fall courses. PRK and LASIK are both waived for Airborne, Air Assault and Ranger schools. However, those who have had LASIK must enroll in an observational study, if a slot is available, to undergo training in Special Forces qualification. LASIK is disqualifying/non-waiverable for several United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) schools (HALO, SCUBA, SERE) per Army Regulation 40-501.

LASIK Vs PRK

Photorefractive Keratectomy Eye Surgery

Implantable Contact Lenses in the Military

I hope this helps.

[Caduceus]

Thanks Olkev, looks like I'll be reading this afternoon.

yes, I'm military, but it's not mission-essential to be 20/20. Contacts do well with me. The only hassle is you're not supposed to wear them if deployed overseas. That means my sunglasses are the eye-pro that's issued, which SUCKS with inserts in my prescription. Talk about distortion.

[jknopp44]

I had the all laser lasik procedure which has been incredible. This is not the typical flap created lasik procedure. The all laser lasik has been approved by all branches of the military including pilots.

The above link has a power point that stresses the strengths of this procedure. I WOULD NOT hesitate to have it done.

[trinydex]

Stick with glasses or contact lenses - they are much safer than vision correction surgery.

My wife had Lasik more than 10 years ago. Yesterday, our 18 month old son accidently poked/scratched her eye. She had to go to the emergency room, where she was seen by a physician's assistant (why she was not seen by an MD and referred immediately to an eye specialist is a subject I will take up with the hospital very soon) who informed her that she had a hole in her cornea, told her to call her eye Dr. in the morning, and sent her home with antibiotic eye drops and pain medication.

This morning, she visited her optometrist, who informed her that the injury had become worse overnight, and by that time the cornea had been essentially torn off. He cleaned the wound, applied a contact lens bandage, and wants to see her tomorrow morning. Fortunately he expects full recovery, although nothing is 100% certain until it happens. She is visiting an opthamologist this afternoon just to be sure - we conly get one set of eyes.

She was informed by her optometrist that the Lasik surgery had weakened her cornea, and made it more susceptible to injury. In fact the injury might not have been as severe as it was but for the surgery.

When I met with an FBI recruiter in my last year of law school (1997), he informed me that anyone who had vision correction surgery would not be accepted as a special agent. Now I know why - even more than 10 years later, the eye is more susceptible to injury.

I have worn daily wear contact lenses for 28 years, through high school wrestling practices, traditional martial arts training, and now MMA training, with no issues. They are very tough to knock out of one's eye, although others do make credible claims of having lost them during training. Just keep a few spare pairs of disposable lenses in various places (car, work). If you prefer glasses, then get a pair with polycarbonate lenses and spring hinges, and unless/until they get knocked off in a fight, you will be wearing what amounts to partial safety glasses.

Whatever you do, DO NOT GET VISION CORRECTION SURGERY.

never had a contact knock out. even swim with eyes open in them.

however i've had them squeezed out in wrestling... but that's just life and life before i realized wrestling doesn't require too much vision.

i know a bunch of optometrists. they all wear glasses... i also always hear of this anecdote being a clue to others, but i've also heard so many positive stories about corrective surgery.

[YVK]

A coworker who had hers 4 years ago confided the other day that she already needed additional correction. That's a 3d person I know with less than stellar durability of a result.
On a positive side, my wife was deemed a no-go. I call it positive because I felt the approach to her was very professional: one center deemed her a poor candidate, explained why, and referred to another center for an additional evaluation.

[elephantrider]

In fact the injury might not have been as severe as it was but for the surgery.

The important word here is 'might.' It is hard to say what part the eye surgery played in the severity of your wife's injury.

I had LASIK done a couple years ago and am very happy with the results. I actually started martial arts training after the surgery and haven't had any ill efects. I've even taken a good poke to the eye from a Thai pad and I haven't gone blind or anything.

The Dr. I chose to do the procedure is a national authority on corrective eye surgery. He had fixed a lot of botched corrective surgeries and is involved in the latest in research and technology. He was not the cheapest, and in fact was probably one of the most expensive ($3k per eye). He used the latest in Wavefront LASIK and recomended using only that procedure over PRK. His office and equipment were new and pristine. There was absolutely no sales pressure whatsoever.

I also checked out one of the local big name Doctors that adverstised on the radio, just for the sake of doing my due dilligence. He was about $1k cheaper. His office seemed decent, but felt like you were being hearded through a cattle chute. I had to see 3-4 various tech/sales people and watch a retarded sales video before talking to the Dr. The Dr. gave me a different story of what my options were than his assistent did. The whole thing felt impersonal and more about getting people in and out of the front door. In fact they were e-mailing me for quite a while to see if I was coming back for the procedure.

I'm sure the technology has progressed in just the couple years since I had my eyes done. There is probably even better technology on the horizon. I was in a bit of a hurry to get it done, but I am still happy with the results.

If you are considering it: Do some research on the different methods and check out a few doctors. Don't just go with the cheapest one.

[ClearedHot]

I know an active duty SEAL who got PRK and is satisfied with the results. He did mention PRK does diminish some of your eye's natural night vision abilities, but I guess having a set of PVS-15's will compensate for that.

[maximus83]

As I posted earlier in this thread, I've been pretty cautious about the whole area and especially about the LASEK/LASIK varieties, although it seems like they get better all the time. There's a lot of marketing hype and bad practitioners as well as good in this field. I held off for a long time because of this. Yet, there does seem to be a genuine benefit if you get a reputable surgeon and you're a good candidate for the surgery. My local eye Dr. finally convinced me after he found a good surgeon in the Puget Sound area who he trusted his own family to go to. On his advice I decided to go with PRK for a number of reasons (see the above-linked comparison between PRK and LASIK). I opted for the WaveFront PRK and it was done last January, total cost $2600 with lifetime warranty/corrections as needed. I was nearsighted and got great results. My L eye is dominant and is now 20/15 with zero astigmatism. The R eye is 20/25 (also zero astigmatism), which is good enough for me to go totally without correction, and gives me a practical monovision where the L eye gives great vision at distance and R lets me read up close despite presbyopia.

Date           Refractions            Uncorrected  Corrected
Pre-surgery    R: -5.00 -0.75 x 140   20/600       20/15
               L: -3.75 -0.50 x 085   20/400       20/15

8 mth post-op  R: -1.0   0.00         20/25        20/15
               L: -0.25  0.00         20/15        n.a.

The main drawback has been that you can have issues with what are called HOA (higher-order abberations), which affect your contrast sensitivity and fine detail of vision, such as night vision, glare, contrast. I especially notice it at night: it's harder to see details in the stars, or in dark areas like parking garages. But this improves gradually over time. Also, I tried to skip the prescribed Vicodin on the day of surgery, and that was a mistake. I recommend following doctor's orders, including pain medication. :-)

Overall I'm happy with the results and glad I did it. I went from being nearsighted all my life, glasses and contacts, and the last 3 years needing progressive lenses for both myopia and presbyopia, to today needing nothing at all. The vision quality is excellent, still with some HOA issues mainly at night but these improve incrementally each month. Time will tell if there are long-term issues or regression.

The only issue I have left to decide is whether to keep the monovision, or whether to get the 20/25 in the right eye further corrected so that both eyes are about 20/15. The Dr. generally doesn't like to do a repeat surgery on anything 20/40 or better, as they believe the risks outweigh the benefits. Plus, I'm actually quite happy with the monovision as it lets me avoid reading glasses, so I may just stick with it. Would be interested to hear if others have tried the monovision approach.