My aunt got corrective eye surgery and was really happy with it, but her description of the experience made me want to never do it. For whatever procedure she had, they had to keep her awake to provide feedback while also scalpelling open the lens of her eye and she said she could smell her eyeball being lasered. She had absolutely no side effects and loves not needing to wear glasses, but her telling me what the procedure was like put it firmly in the hell no category for me.
I got LASIK about 10 years ago. Can confirm both the visual experience of watching them laser/scalpel my lens off, as well as the highly unique smell of buring eye.
Along with the painful light sensitivity that persisted for like a year.
Hell I got a USB at the end with a video of the procedure to relive.
The most important thing to remember, is they also put you on a medically supervised dose of what is essentially an anti-anxiety medication. So you actually like don't care at all during the procedure. Like you are fully aware and fully alert, but you are super cool with what is going on. It's all chill, a totally normal thing, could do it every day if need be.
I worked (assisted with minor tasks) in a surgical room where those surgeries were done on a 15 minute cycle per eye. It's a fairly routine and clean thing for cataracts or frontal chamber lenses (like eye-internal glasses) when your own lens is still intact. Better thank Lasik for sure