- I can wake up and glance at the time instead of having to lift something up and put it centimetres from my face to tell the time.
- I can do sports without the glasses falling off, getting mashed into my face, etc.
- I look a lot better, with a -13 prescription, my glasses were heavy and thick
- My nose and ears aren't in pain from carrying the weight of my glasses all the time.
- I'm not having to constantly adjust my glasses whenever my nose sweats a bit.
- I'm not completely blind any time I have to take off the glasses, like when I take a shower or go in a pool, or especially swim in the ocean where there are big waves.
- I'm not utterly helpless because I'm blind if I lose my glasses. If you're blind without your glasses, and your glasses aren't where you expect, you can't really use your eyesight to find them.
- I don't have to deal with all the problems of using and potentially losing contacts.
- ...
For me, before I got laser surgery, I was once swimming in the ocean at a very big and popular beach. I was wearing contacts because obviously wearing glasses in the water is next to impossible. I got hit by a big wave, tossed around, and lost my contacts. Now I was almost completely blind, in a foreign country where I knew almost nobody, and trying to find my beach towel and bag among thousands of others. I actually can't remember how I resolved that problem, but I do remember the massive stress and panic being blind like that caused. When I got back from the trip, I got my eyes fixed within a year.
There's a lot of folks in the comments who are pretty cavalier about the safety, yet the CEO who produces Lasik machines refuses to get the procedure and just wears glasses.
Obviously there's a lot of folks happy with it.
However, many people end up needing glasses within ten years. "Relating to the legal requirements in Germany, sufficient visual acuity was found in 76.7 % of the LASIK group, in 73.9 % of the Ortho-K users and in 85.7 % of the reference group (72.7 % in the adult group, 100 % in the juvenile group)." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23508754/
"Nearly 5% of subjects were dissatisfied with their vision after Lasik... eyes feeling irritated (50%), glare (43%), halos (41%), and [trouble] seeing in dim light (35.2%)." Source: Mamalis N. Laser vision correction among physicians: "the proof of the pudding is in the eating". J Cataract Refract Surg. 2014 Mar;40(3):343-4.
"Lasik Suicide" is a real thing, most of the folks who have been affected don't take the time to say much about the excruciating pain, they just commit suicide.
https://www.lasikcomplications.com/suicide.htm
Definitely think very carefully, your eyes are something you can't fix if you get this surgery. For some people enough nerves are damaged to cause persistent pain that doesn't go away.
I almost got the surgery a few years ago, if it worked 100% of the time I would have taken the risk. But vision is so important that I didn't want to take the risk. Several of my family members did get it and still have dry eyes and halos ten years later, and two now need glasses again anyway.
I'm not sure if I look better without glasses or I just look better in SD
To each they're own. I got lasik'd because I hate having my very existence almost entirely reliant on this fragile glass and plastic thing on my face that I had to constantly clean. I also want to go hiking for more then a day, so I went ahead with it. I wish I had went for the femtosecond operation in another city though, less chance for dry-eye.
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.
Had all-laser LASIK done in 2007.
Was scary, and the excimer laser sounded like a giant electrical wasp, but overall, I’ve had zero problems. Best procedure I’ve ever had done.
My older sibling had it done back then, too. No issues. 2 other close friends did the same. Not a single issue.
Give it a rest people.
Go get checked to see if you’re a valid candidate, and have the procedure done by a professional ophthalmologist with an “all-laser” setup who has more than a decade or so of experience and also has the $200,000 equipment to do it right and a lifetime contract-backed guarantee, and you will be happy with the choice you made.
I did it because I was blind. Hella blind. -6 and -9. When covid hit I suddenly realized that if supply shortages ever hit hard and I lost my glasses, I was absolutely fucked.
I could not drive, I could not use two monitors, I would be functionally blind... I always joked I would be dead weight in the apocalypse but in the midst of a hurricane, a wildfire, I could be absolutely fucked. With months before a replacement pair could be acquired. And with all the shit that went wrong with covid... I just wanted to hedge my bets.
I was a very early adopter, as soon as lasik came out I got it, the radial-k that preceded it couldn't handle my prescription. It's regressed over the intervening 30 years, but even now I wear thin light glasses and can at least sort of see without them.
You know what sold me on this, even though the vision isn't as good as I could get with hard contacts? My mom had to go back to glasses after wearing contacts for years because the contacts wore away her corneas! At least the glasses I have to wear at this age are only like a -2 prescription, that's much more comfortable than what they would have been.
I have photophobia, which is not a fear of light (that's heliophobia) but a high sensitivity to light. I have to wear sunglasses essentially sunup to sundown. I keep my office lights off. My display is set to the lowest brightness and contrast settings I can get away with.
I have Transitions lenses and even those aren't strong enough sunglasses to cope with the brightness. Goodr sunglasses work really well for me as does my $600 prescription sunners. But mostly I try to avoid sunny days and live for the November through March days when the sun sets at 4 PM so I can go outside and enjoy myself.
tbf every medical intervention has its risks but it doesn't often go wrong (assuming the surgeon knows what they're doing)
It is nasty if it goes wrong. I know someone where it did and he was knocked out in a pretty bad way for a while until it could be fixed (though it was fixed).
Aspirin has a risk of giving headaches..
Bob's Discount LASIK Barn or whatever it is called down by the Confederate flag monument on the 5 had a big sign for the Nazi "America first" congressman and I feel like I wasn't about to trust my eyes to them anyway but I especially want to avoid them now, Jesus fuck
Anon is tyhe type of guy who looks at a California Prop 65 label and believes the worst in everything.
also people with damage to thier cornea, like from shingles even if it made a small scar on the sclera, makes in ineligble for lasik.
ITT pussies who don't want to pop xannies and see the pretty light show
Wife got lasik over ten years ago. Vision is great. We live in one of the moist parts of Texas, so dry eyes have never really been an issue. Absolutely none of that other stuff is relevant.
That said, she's no longer perpetually wearing a semi-efficient pair of goggles, so when our son tries to grab for her face his fingers go directly into her eyeball rather than being deflected harmlessly away by super-hard transparent glass. Also, completely fucked when it comes to cutting onions.
I'll keep my glasses, thank you.
I got it done cause I was doing archery and my astigmatism meant I had to shift my glasses onto my nose for it. Contacts would have solved the problem but my eyesight was close to 20/20 and was only ruined by my astigmatism so I never bothered getting fitted for them. Plus, I kinda liked buying stlyish frames which I could wear cause my prescription was so light.
In the end, I had a consultation with a reputable optometrist that rejected a lot of people with thin corneas, dry eyes, and would try to sus out if you’re shopping around for a “yes.” They did not try to minimize the risks and kept reminding me it’s an elective surgery and anything can go wrong in surgery (although, rare).
The main side effects for me were: a painful, burning sting that lasted for 30 mins after surgery (due to correcting my astigmatism), which a nap cured, some lasting light sensitivity at night (LED headlights feel so bright), and a dryness that went away after a few months. What they don’t say is that you’re still healing for more than a few months after surgery so a lot of side effects can linger and fade away with time, and a few may stick.
Now if you don’t want LASIK, there is PRK which doesn’t cut anything off but has a more complicated healing post-surgery regiment and your vision is not 20/20 until at minimum a week after surgery. It also has its own problems depending on how you handled post-op.
In the end, if you realllllly want it and you find a trusted surgeon, and they’ve discussed all risks cause everyone’s eye is different, it’s certainly nice to no longer rely on glasses. But again, absolutely not necessary surgery.
Either way, if you ever get cataract surgery, it’s practically the same procedure of cutting up your eyes and replacing some lenses. (Also if you get LASIK, keep your records cause you’ll need em for cataracts).
Worth it!
My cousin had his done for like $3000 several years ago. No issues. He actually has surprisingly good vision.
I dunno, after having family get it done, I'm not scared of it, but I'm also not going to get it done until I'm a bit older, and only if it gets covered by Medicaid or something.
Even then, I'd still need glasses what with presbyopia, but at least I could do without for normal vision and only need reading glasses.
Assuming it went well.
But, everyone I know that's had it ends up needing glasses around the 15 year mark. I wouldn't even be 70 at that point, and I have no fucking desire to go back to glasses at that age.
So I doubt I'll ever get it done.
https://moskowitz-eye.com/blog/lasik-safety-whistlin-diesel (The original video got taken down)
I'm not going to dissuade people from doing lasik, in theory 99% of candidates should not have any issues. Personally the complications of a failed surgery are a little too scary for me.
The other problem is that not every clinic is a morally good one. They might try to upsell lasik on a not so good candidate, and that risk is not a risk I'm willing to take.
