it's been 4 years for me and i'm blind

Ahh, explains the continued use of your avatar.

It depends on whether or not your prescription is stable. No way any reputable doctor would do the surgery after getting your first script for glasses. You need to demonstrate no change in your eyesight for a year to be a candidate.

Otherwise nothing you've said suggests you wouldn't be a candidate. Just because your vision isn't hideous doesn't mean you can't get the surgery. My vision wasn't all that bad (-1.25 IIRC).

I got the surgery in April of '04, and TBH I think I've noticed my far range vision has worsened slightly, but not consistently - sometimes it fogs up a bit, but goes back to normal after a while. My eyes have probably changed some over the intervening 7+ years.

wait, the dry eyes goes away at some point right? id hate to be replacing one annoyance (glasses/contacts) with another. Also, is it OK to get lasik eye surgery if you fly a lot and will likely be on a plane within a week after surgery? A doctor mentioned something to me about the pressure from being on a plane being problematic?

No idea about the plane question.

The dry eyes went away completely for me. I've heard others say they still have very minor issues with it.

i got bad dry eye from PRK, but taking fish oil + flaxseed oil + eating tuna each day keeps it at bay.

um, prior to seeing a video of lasik performed I had really no worries or concerns over how the procedure would feel. I thought you'd just sit there staring at a light as a lazer that you can't feel does all the work. This looks a far cry different than I imagined:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PJ391MDtpo

Uhh, how's that suction feel? How's smelling burning flesh? This looks pretty terrible.

smelling the burning eye is gross

lol Tyler are you serious about changing your whole diet?

more like 10% of my diet. also, my eyesight degraded back to where it was before the PRK! apparently it happens to ~3% of PRK patients.

Yeah, the burning eyes thing is disconcerting. Particularly in my case, since they forgot to mention it to my group in the pre-op meeting.

But there's zero pain during the operation, they absolutely drown your eyes in numbing drops. You can't feel a thing - they write on your eye too (at least they did on mine) and I felt nada.

I thought getting it done was cool/neat, the whole time i just thought about how it was awesome what they were doing

you don't feel the suction? I've read people describing it as feeling like your eyes are being sucked out your skull. Also, even though you can't feel anything, what about seeing them with a blade doing stuff to your eye? That's not uncomfortable? Did you feel any urge to blink while you had those metal things prying your eyes open?

I had PRK in 2006. The procedure itself is a little stressful. The recovery afterwards sucks balls.

Things are great until the numbing drops wear off. Then your eyes will itch pretty bad for 2-3 days, and will itch a little for about two weeks. And no, you can't rub them. Yes, you can put in numbing drops...but that delays the healing and thus prolongs the itching.

That said, still the best money I've ever spent.

I don't remember any suction. I certainly never felt like my eyeballs were being sucked out of my skull.

I had PRK, so no blade. Instead I saw this little toothbrush looking thing approaching. Weird, but I didn't feel a thing.

Sure I wanted to blink when they were clamping my eyes open, but that takes like 10 seconds for each eye.

You're making this scarier than it needs to be. Unless you freak out when you see something approaching your eye (some people do), the actual procedure has zero pain and what I found be a small freak out factor. The aftermath was 100X worse (with the itching, burning eyes) but that's the price I was willing to pay to not wear glasses anymore.

I'm completely satisfied with how the procedure went. Of course, since I got it for free that may skew my results a little, but nothing I've said about what I actually experienced or the long term effects is in any way exaggerated.

anyone who said it felt like their eyes were being sucked out of their skull is a little bitch.