Eye surgery???!

Eye surgery???

How many of ya'll have had or know of someone that had their vision corrected with LASIK eye surgery?

I had PRK, a cousin of Lasik. I'm over age 40 and had monovision correction to reduce the need for reading glasses. One eye is slightly myopic (nearsighted, shortsighted) and the other is corrected for distance vision. The brain figures out what is going on and "looks" through the myopic eye for near objects and the fully corrected eye for distant objects.

I also work for a Lasik patient advocacy. We don't provide Lasik, just Lasik information and certification of Lasik doctor patient outcomes.

Our group evaluated many studies published in journals, the FDA clinical trial data, and the outcomes of thousands of patients to determine the current outcome norms for refractive surgery. These studies included all types of patients (nearsighted, farsighted, astigmatism, presbyopia) and all types of procedures (Lasik, PRK, LASEK, Epi-Lasik, P-IOL, RLE, CK) and determined:

90% of patients attain 20/40 vision or better and are within one diopter of target.
65% of patients attain 20/20 vision or better and are within one-half diopter of target.
3% have an unresolved complication at six months postop.
0.5% have a serious complication that requires either extensive maintenance or invasive intervention.

These statistics also do not represent what you can expect, but are a general guideline. Although the vast majority of Lasik patient are delighted with the outcome, Lasik is surgery and there is no such thing as a guaranteed outcome.

Talking to others who have had Lasik is a great way to get an idea of what the surgery is like, but is a terrible way to determine what you can expect. Every person's eyes are different. You would not put in your friend's contacts and expect to see well. Neither can you expect to get the same result (good or bad) from the people who respond here. What you need is a comprehensive examination from a competent doctor.