I've been considering it for 5 or so years, more seriously mulling it over for a year, and finally decided for good a couple weeks ago, and have just booked in to kick things off. Has anyone here had it done, who/where did you have it done? Any morsels of wisdom to offer, or anything you wish you did or didn't do, or asked in the initial consultation? I plan on going with Laser Vision. Optimax and Optical Express have been spamming me with vouchers for the last year which would make them a fair bit cheaper, but all else considered I have had a warmer and fuzzier feeling from Laser Vision.
Worth getting a proper consultation, I had a few but turns out my right eye is that bad they can only reduce the myopia, left eyes doable but they quoted me just short of 5K but I'd still need glasses after They Seemed rather peeved when I declined.
This is what pushed me to Laser Vision - the others seemed to want to get me through the door as soon as possible, quite pushy and dismissive of questions/concerns. Yes... I get it that you've done eleventy bajillion successful procedures, that doesn't mean you get to make me feel silly for being circumspect about being lasered in my eyes. That kind of defeats the point a bit... who was "they"?
Had mine done about 10/11 years ago now with optical express so my memory is a bit hazy but from what I remember the consultation and procedure was very quick. The procedure itself wasn't painful just very uncomfortable, like someone pressing down on your eyeball, and I remember my blink reflex going crazy which made it a bit more difficult. Just remember to allow yourself a recovery period afterwards, even though I could notice an immediate improvement straight away it takes a few days for your eyesight to settle down and your eyes will feel like sandpaper for a while so will need to use plenty of drops. Even 10 years on though I'm still glad I had it done and I haven't seen any notable decline in my eyesight in that time (although I haven't been back for a test in about 5 years or so).
The people I do glasses for don't offer laser treatment, but this is something I have to talk to people about a lot. It's definitely worth asking as many questions as possible beforehand. Important questions to ask: What is your title/level of qualification and experience? Seems like a dumb question, but make sure when you discuss this you're talking to an Opthalmologist, Optometrist or Doctor and not the sales guy. There are a lot of mealy mouthed job titles out there that sound important but aren't, I should know I'm one of them. In theory only someone with a recognised qualification can give you medical advice but still ask anyway. What is my Corneal thickness like and am I at any risk of developing Keratoconus later in life? This is a very, very important to question ask since Keratoconus is one of the most common complications from being lasered and once you have it you're looking at a corneal transplant to fix it. Even so it is rare in the UK, but more common in other countries where attitudes to acceptable risks are more lax. Will I still need glasses afterward? Another silly sounding question, but LASIK cannot necessarily correct all parts of a prescription. How long will it last and do you cover/discount future procedures? About 10% of people need further lasering within 10 years, about 40% within 20 years. Some places will cover part or all of the cost of follow ups within a certain time frame. Having said all that, LASIK in the UK is very safe, around 5% of patients require some kind of further treatment afterwards, less than 1% suffer serious complications (without looking in the book I can't remember the exact numbers and I'm not driving to work on my day off!).
Would like laser surgery but, my prescription is not stable, last decade or so needed new glasses every two years, so a non-starter.
Lucky you I was quoted around £20k for the cornea and lens transplants I would need to not need specs anymore.
Just the thought makes me want to run away screaming. I would have to be quite heavily sedated to go through that.
Nope, wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot barge pole, I like being able to see so risking (no matter how small) my sight for vanity just does not compute, YMMV.
Awesome - muchas gracias. I got the feeling with some of the places that the first time I'd meet a real doctor was when I was waiting for the procedure itself, and it would be whoever was rota'd for that day. That's not to say it would be bad advice or a poorly performed procedure, but just not something that made be feel okay about it, which is most of the reason I've only been mulling for so long. Recently, instead of searching for laser vision correction outlets and such, thought I'd just start looking up ophthalmologists in Nottingham and narrowed down a list of names, and two at the top of the list just happen to operate privately out of the hospital not 10 minutes away, where my wife just happened to have an operation last week coincidentally. So that's how I got to where I am now, and feeling a bit better about it. My prescription hasn't changed for the last 10 years, but I've had issues with my contacts, so will wait and see what that means for teh lazerz at the initial consultation. I've started to get eye strain wearing my (RGP) contacts... again, for close/intermediate distances. When I initially got my current lenses a couple years ago I had the same, and there was a whole rigmarole of swapping and changing - they were all "the same" prescription, I'm told, however apparently the tolerances aren't exactly tight and my eyes seem to be particularly sensitive to even slight "wrongness" with contacts, where it's not an issue with glasses. I've been mainly glasses-ing for the last several months due to this, but will swap in my contacts for sports/activity or when glasses are particularly inconvenient for whatever reason and just live with the headaches. I definitely can't be doing with going through 5+ pairs of new contacts again just to try the luck of the draw.
Had mine done about two years ago. Opted for LASEK (versus LASIK, you'll probably hear "Eye Kay" or "Eee Kay" at some point in the consultant spiel). LASIK has a much shorter and less excruciating recovery time (epithelial flap is replaced and rebonds rather than needing to regrow), but has two drawbacks: the slight possibility of the flap dislodging in the event of a hard head impact (not sure how many actual documented cases there are of this occuring for a nonfatal head injury, so I take it as mostly apocryphal) and that it only allows for a slightly smaller corrected area. The corrected area is key: you will probably hear stories of people who see 'halos' after correction: this is when the corrected area is smaller in diameter than the size of your pupil at its maximum size (i.e. in low light conditions) the edge of the corrected area will be a step change in lens power and result in the ring artefacts around bright sources. My pupil size was right on the edge of what their LASIK machine could achieve, so I opted for LASEK instead. In terms of recovery from LASEK specifically: for the first few hours after surgery it's just fine and you can do the HOLY $#!+ I CAN SEE EVERYTHING dance. Then you have two to three days of excruciating pain where you can choose between shooting pain from keeping your eyes open with even the tiny amount of light emitted from a status LED, or the intense throbbing pain from closing your eyes. Expect to sleep very little, and line up some podcasts to listen to as a distraction. Learning all the various OK Google/Hey Siri commands beforehand is a good idea. USE ALL THE EYEDROPS PROVIDED, FOR THE FULL COURSE DURATION, EVEN IF YOUR EYES FEEL FINE. In terms of optical outcome, I'm very happy. Right (dominant) eye remains corrected to about or just above the acuity I had with toric contacts (and above glasses), no halos, PSF pretty tight. Left eye not quite as good as the right (mostly due to a wider PSF) but still around the same level as when corrected with contacts previously. These have been stable for the last year and a half. ::EDIT:: Oh, and eyeballs smell like bacon.
Thanks dude, will mark these down on my "to ask" list. I play ice hockey so head impacts are often and numerous, though I had expected I'd need some time off.
Get a week or two booked off if you can, you'll probably still be wearing sunglasses for that long during the recovery period. I can recommend Wiley X glasses, rather pricey but the ones with a gasket around the edges give a good seal and block out wind which helps with dryness (plus most are impact rated and built like a brick dunney).
interesting thread always wanted to get my eyes corrected as well but have too scared to go ahead with it.
I've heard accounts of Laser Eye treatment from two colleagues. The first was a young lad and was a real success story. The second, an older lady had it done and now lives with blurred vision that cannot be corrected. I considered it for a time but I'm happy with the vision I've got with glasses. It's not a great hardship to stick a frame on my face each day and the slightest risk of worse vision is enough to put me off Laser Eye surgery.
