no idea

I don't know if LASIK makes you more prone to rubbing, but I know that rubbing, especially in the first several days after your surgery, is a bad thing. Pretty sure it has to do with the risk of detaching the corneal flap, or slowing down the healing of the flap.

They gave me an eye shade thing of sorts so I didn't rub my eyes for the first several days while I slept, that seemed to work well.

Yeah, I imagine you would have to avoid rubbing your eyes until the flap heals.

After that, though, you should be fine, it usually takes a pretty severe hit to the eye to re-open the flap after it's healed fully.

If you can avoid rubbing your eyes for, what, a week or two, tops? Then LASIK might be fine for you.

I had LASIK in March.. basically my vision now is great, but I have got some side-effects, particularly when I'm tired. It's harder to stay in focus now. I wonder if that's because they damaged the muscles in there somehow? It's weird anyways.

Still would recommend it though.

as someone who is pretty content using contact lenses and glasses occasionally, is lasik really that beneficial? it's a large chunk of money for something (decent vision) i can get at a significantly lower cost (contact lenses). plus contact lenses don't bother me THAT much.

If you add up the total cost for contacts for the rest of your life, I can't imagine it costing less than LASIK or whichever procedure you get done. Plus you get all of the extra time you're not spending putting contacts in and taking them out, you never have to worry about them falling out, or cleaning them, etc.

It's a no-brainer for me, others might disagree.

I mean, that's a decision only you can make. I wore glasses before, and it didn't really bother me to do so, but I'm much happier not wearing them.

Of course cost wasn't a factor for me so that's obviously different, but I would have been willing to pay a standard amount for the surgery, I had been thinking about it before I knew that the Army would do it for free (sort of).

your vision is also going to be better with lasik than it will be with glasses /contacts

(hopefully)

big risk to take if contacts don't bother you imo.

the point about reduced cost over time is well-taken. i'm just surprised peoples' quality of life has been so drastically altered when contact lenses, to me, are a god send compared to eyeglasses. and the negative aspects of contacts (cleaning, replacement, occasional discomfort) are incredibly manageable, at least for me.

It varies by person, obviously. I wore glasses from age, IDK, 9 or so until I was a junior in HS, when I tried contacts. I didn't make it two years, I just had constant problems with them, from dry eyes to a lot of irritation. So I switched back to glasses in college.

For me part of the perk of PRK was that I'd no longer have the frames. While I don't think I looked bad with them (except for the BCG's in basic - no one looks good in those), I of course prefer to not wear glasses at all.

Plus, now I can wear actual shades, as opposed to clip ons or being forced to choose between comfort and the ability to see for distance. Not a huge deal if just laying on the beach, but kind of a problem while driving.

So I have pretty terrible vision. I have a severe astigmatism and with contacts/glasses, I can only see 20/40. The contacts I have to wear are the toric kind, or semi-hard and they irritate the **** out of my eyes if I go more than 3 hours with them in. Basically, it really really sucks and I would love to wake up in the middle of the night and not have to put on my glasses to see where I'm going when I walk to the bathroom/look at what time it is.

Anyway, the last three eye checks, my vision hasn't changed and I know that's a plus for getting Lasik. But what about just how abysmal my vision is to begin with? Is it worth even getting a consultation? My eye doctors always tell me I'm not a candidate, but I don't know if I believe them considering they typically try to sell me glasses and lenses

AFAIK, having really abysmal vision does not rule you out as a LASIK/PRK candidate; it just means you'll be under the laser longer than another person might be.

Why did your eye docs say you weren't a candidate? If you can get a free consult from a LASIK doc it certainly couldn't hurt, but there are certain eye conditions that do make the surgery an unacceptable risk (or maybe impossible - I'm not an eye doctor and never played one on TV).

I had the bladeless Lasik a year ago and when my eyes get really dry my vision becomes a bit hazy (it is really noticeable when I close one eye or the other). I don't think this means they screwed up, just that I occasionally need drops.

I think my eyes were pretty dry for awhile and that my astigmatism is so severe... Not too sure though, it was awhile ago I talked to my Dr. about it.

Best bet is to try and find a free consultation in the area for sure, though.

Is Lasik only recommended to people with bad eye sight? If someone has like -1 and -.75 and don't like wearing glasses or contacts, should they get it done or suck it up and wear glasses?

No, if you're interested in getting your vision corrected go for a consultation. You do not need to have "bad eye sight"

You may be a candidate but with a less than desirable "best corrected vision". So maybe they could only correct you to 20/80 or something.

Not NJ, but I went to TLC White Plains. Dr. Abramson is one of the best around

http://www****cvision.com/centers/white-plains/
http://www.lasiknyc.com/dr_jodi.html

I understand from reading this thread and my experience in life that lasik/prk is a pretty good product. However, like others in this thread, I wear contacts, and while it is somwhat of an inconvenience, I feel like dry/hazy eyes would also be an inconvenience. Not to mention the psychological bias of people who have gotten eye surgery is going to convince themselves/others it was worth it, even if it was a marginal experience, I would suspect.

I mean I was really thinking the dry eye thing was going to be a hassle, esp after the doc told me my eyes were dryer than normal, but it's amazing how quickly humans can get used to things -- I'm just squeezing off to the bathroom to put in a few eye drops a few times a day, takes like 20-30 seconds (heck, you don't need to go off to the bathroom even to do it, who cares). I consider it to be a very minor inconvenience. I even had a 36 hour period where I didn't have access to eyedrops, and while things were a bit dry, I felt fine, just wanted to put some eyedrops in for health reasons since I had been in a dirty casino all day (to flush things out).

Re: the psychological thing...I think I'm pretty self-aware, and wouldn't just be trying to convince myself that something was actually awesome if it was in reality pretty marginal. It's a very good thing being able to see near-perfectly, and if you're like me, and hated contacts (and don't really like wearing glasses either), obv you're going to speak well about a procedure that gives you strong vision without having to wear glasses/contacts.

I think the strongest argument against LASIK is the fact that it's a relatively new product (12-15 years of existence in the mainstream, I think), so you're short of a lot of studies on long-term effects. Perfectly valid reason to wait a while, IMO, but to me, in the long-run we're all dead; would prefer to have good vision in the short-run and gamble against the slight chance that something horrible about LASIK's long-long term effects is later discovered.

And biggest advice is to do your homework on doctors if you end up seriously considering the surgery.

But really, if you are completely used to contacts and they don't bother you at all, seems to me it would be more on the marginal than the "super awesome!" side of things. YMMV, really. I just haven't found dry eyes to be too much of a problem, even though I was kinda worried that it would be a big annoyance.

My vision wasn't hideously bad (-1.25 IIRC), so having really bad eyesight isn't a requirement AFAIK.

Meh, I mean, people like to bitch about bad experiences, so I honestly think people who are touting their eye surgery in this thread are legitimately really happy with the experience. I don't have any issues with dry eyes, so other than the need to have sunglasses with me and the occasional stinging/tearing if I open my eyes too quickly after sleeping for several hours, I've personally had zero issues.

If I had had a ****ty experience I'd be just as happy to warn people away by sharing my "horror story".

It's a good product overall, and a lot of people seem to think the trade off of dry eyes or a slight increase in light sensitivity is worth no having to wear glasses/contacts. If you really don't mind your contacts, or think the tradeoff isn't worth it for you, then I'm not sure why you'd even care about the surgery or what others think.

Lasik, if it's not a problem with money, beats having to wear glasses or contacts ainec.

+1.... I had Lasik 3 weeks ago and my eyes are rarely dry (still have to do drops for a few months to help healing) but my vision is great. I've basically forgotten that I ever had to wear glasses which is awesome.

I was -1.75 so not terrible vision, but definitely worth every penny. I don't buy the "you'll spend more money on contacts over your lifetime argument", but if you can afford it you should definitely do it!

Im 23 and after about a year of noticing my long distant eyesight had become awful I finally got an eyetest two weeks ago.

Optician said im -1 and need glasses for driving and watching TV etc. would I be a candinate fot LASIK?

Thought I'd pop in and give a medium-term update. Been 3 years since LASIK and vision is still perfect.