Ask HN: Have you had laser eye surgery? What was your experience?
I am a long term HN member writing under an anonymous account as this is a somewhat personal issue for me.
I have been short-sighted (myopia of about -5.00 in both eyes) all my life, and generally wear both contact lenses and glasses. I find contact lenses really irritate my eyes when programming (dry eyes due to less blinking when on computer) and am fed up of issues with glasses (steaming, cleaning, etc) and recently have been considering laser eye surgery.
I live in the UK, and have booked consultations at the 3 main providers here - UltraLase, Optimax, Optical Express. I'll write my assessment of them each later once I go for my consultation with the last provider at the end of the month, but so far have concluded that one has to really research the area to avoid much of the nonsense that they tell patients especially with regard to equipment and surgeons used and why e.g. Ultralase charge £4700 for lasik+intralse+wavefront and say they use new Bausch & Lomb lasers that has higher resolution (dpi) and better surgeons (but ironically most of them are ex-Optimax surgeons) but Optimax charge £2395 for a similar lasik+intralase+wavefront procedure but say they use Nidek lasers as gives better results (even though it is older generation device) and they are cheaper as they already bought their machines and premises and have less ongoing overheads.
Anyway, I was wondering if any other HN members have had laser eye surgey (or thought about it and why you did not do it), what prodcedure you took (e.g. Lasek, Lasik, with Wavefront and/or Intralase), what your experience was like, what equipment was used (e.g. Visx, Nidek, Alegretto), and whether you researched this and what your thoughts are about various equipment-factors in the final result, and most importantly your surgeon and final result.
Thank you!
18 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 22.4 ms ] threadWe're in the U.S.
My wife had it done about 5 years ago. She went in to do Lasik, but due to thin corneal tissue had to go with PKR. She could barely recognize my face from a few feet away. Now she has 20/20 vision. She has slight issues with hazing sometimes at night, but overall the best money we've ever spent.
It cost me just over $4,000, 6 years ago, got both eyes done at the same time, took a total of 5 minutes and now I see better then 20/20. Before with glasses I could only get to 20/30. You get to 20/20 the day after the surgery.
Just make sure you find a good doctor, ask his success rate. The two worries are 1)cornea thickness 2) if you have diabetes it's under control and not a problem. My doctor had done a couple thousand procedures, owned his own laser, and only had failures when the patient wasn't honest about their diabetes.
Don't go cheap get the wave front/adaptive procedure where they take a topography of the eye.
My main concern was developing myopia again after the surgery. Sure enough my eyesight today is poorer than it was immediately after the surgery and I expect it'll continue to get worse over time.
Here's how I found my surgeon: I asked the various doctors I interviewed who'd done their eye surgery. Surprisingly many of them had used the same person - he was generally regarded as the best by the other surgeons. Once I found that out I was willing to pay more and go with the best.
Overall I had an excellent experience, my only regret is not doing it sooner.
I went to a highly recommended surgeon in my area. I had the procedure done using a machine that didn't have eye tracking, so I had to look straight ahead and not move my eyes during the procedure. I must have done something wrong because my eyesight had some...issues.
All the visual anomalies they'll warn you about in your consultation (halos and starbursts), I had in spades. They were so bad I had trouble functioning in dark settings. So walking around at night was difficult, watching movies was awful, and so forth.
My vision DID kick ass though otherwise.
My surgeon had me coming in regular to monitor my progress, and when things weren't getting better scheduled a touch-up (all included in the initial cost). After the touch-up, all the problems were resolved, and 6-7 years later my vision is still pretty damn good. I don't need glasses, but my vision took a tiny dip a year after the surgery and maintained the quality ever since.
So with all that said, would I recommend Lasik? Absolutely. First, the technology has come a long way since then. Two, my brother had the surgery the same time I did from the same surgeon, and his turned out fine the first time. Third, having perfect vision is something I'm still thankful for all this time later.
tl;dr - I had Lasik surgery twice. First time gave me problems seeing at night, a subsequent touch-up fixed the problems. I still recommend the surgery, but when they say problems can happen, BELIEVE IT.
Keep in mind that while serious complications are rare, there are some downsides to refractive surgery. LASIK, for example, frequently results in a loss of "contrast sensitivity"--a metric which isn't captured in the typical "20/20" Snellen score. Vision can be sharp but dynamic range can be lost. Furthermore, the flap interface creates a distortion in the eye's optics which, while normally hidden in during the day, becomes apparent when the iris is forced to widen at night (especially affected are those with blue eyes, which "leak" more light). Nerves are cut in the procedure, too. Also ask about other forms of error, such as cyclotorsional registration and nomograms.
The field is evolving so quickly that I have chosen to wait. Femtosecond lenticule extraction (FLEX) is on the horizon, but I'm most excited about intrastromal corneal reshaping (http://www.lasiksurgerynews.com/news/intrastromal-corneal-la...). The intrastromal proeedures promise to change the interior of the cornea via laser triangulation. No flaps or cuts of any kind are made. Incredible stuff.
Took about 15 minutes for the whole procedure and my results were awesome. A few minor side effects: After the surgery on the way home my eyes began to burn a bit, like when you get hot sauce in your eye, but not unbearable. Only lasted for about 30 minutes then went away. Also for the first few months my eyes would take a little while to adjust to night time. At first I would see larger halos in the street lights. After a few minutes in the dark halos would get smaller. After 4 to 6 months I didn't have any issues adjusting to night time.
I'm very happy I had it done, it's really worth it. Oh and even though my right eye will never get to 20/20 my vision is still excellent. Definitely life changing.
Her response: The long-term effects have not been studied thoroughly (i.e. large samples, etc.) and enough time hasn't passed yet for patterns to emerge in terms of any long-term complications that can withstand rigorous scientific analysis.
I said to myself: When she gets her eyesight corrected through laser eye surgery, I will to. She still hasn't.
I remember a few years ago the National Health Service's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence released some results showing that LASIK wasn't really effective for treating severe short- or long-sightedness. I can't find this study now, and things may have changed. This was at least 5+ years ago. Still, worth mentioning and possibly finding out more if you're seriously considering this.
Some 'glare' around bright lights at night. But otherwise, the best 25K I spent :)