Anon considers LASIK
1y 17d ago by sh.itjust.works/u/Early_To_Risa in greentext@sh.itjust.works from sh.itjust.works
- 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.
Not necessarily useful to you any longer, but you can utilize a pinhole lens for situations like that. You can even use your hands/fingers to make the lens. You’ll look fucking ridiculous, but I doubt it’s bother you too much when it’s that or being blind.
To expand on that, you make a very small hole by curling your index finger, and look through that hole.
Just tried this and am now reading comments below to learn what the actual fuck. That works. This random internet advice isn't a lie.
just tried it and it work?? how
When your eyes are open and unobscured, light is coming in from every direction. The lens is shaped in such a way that light rays parallel to the eye's axis are focused on the macula, the center of your sharp vision. A near-sighted (myopic) eye focuses those parallel rays in front of the retina, and a far-sighted (hypermetropic) eye focuses them behind. The farther away the ray is from the eye's axis, the more it is refracted by the lens, and the more obvious its out-of-focus-ness becomes if the lens has an incorrect shape.
Corrective eyewear works by refracting the light before it enters the eye and essentially cancelling out the lens' imperfections.
A pinhole works by obscuring light rays that are farther from the axis and contribute to the blurry image, only letting through light rays that are near the axis, already aligned more or less with the macula, don't have to be refracted as sharply, and don't contribute as much to the blurry image. This is why the camera obscura works, and why apertures in modern photography are used to control both the image's exposure and the strength of the depth of field.
Same reason why squinting also kind of works iirc
Afaik if you're myopic, your eyeballs are too long so the plane of focus created by looking at a far away object is no longer on your retina. So i think by looking through a pinhole you widen the depth of field. This means even stuff you don't focus on is seen sharper.
I wonder if this also works for hyperopia...
huh! our bodies are so weird
Yeah, but not only our eyes/bodies are weird. If you want to know more about weird eyes look up goat pupils (they have horizontal pupils the can rotate 50% to be always level with the ground) or nautilus pinhole eyes (early stage of our eyes with no lense).
I use it to read with hyperopia
Big spectacles hate this trick!
Is this why I can see so much better in VR? Smaller field of view? I always assumed it as kind of a side effect of the depth of field hacks they do but FOV would make sense.
I learned this in school. It's because it focuses the light through a narrow passage which increases the details. It's also how cameras originally worked.
Optics.
That has limits. Not sure what it comes down to exactly, but under the most ideal conditions I have pulled off yet, I'd estimate it improves sight by 3-4.
-8 with the fov of a pinhole is still blind.
The worst one is when you wake up having drunk a little bit too much and you can't find your glasses. You are now effectively blind and helpless and hungover.
If I was at home, I always knew where I had some backup glasses. But yeah, wake up at a friend's house or something and you're screwed.
I once had a friend forget to take out his contacts when drunk. He woke up bleeding from his eyes and struggling to get the things out in severe pain...
Before my wife got the surgery, she used her phones camera to look around. She used to jokingly say that she is a cyborg.
Regarding the topic. For her the procedure was also a game changer.
maybe not in the case of swimming but when you have your phone around you can always turn on your camera and then look at what it's showing you
If you can find it
Depends on what issue you have, I get intense headaches/nausea/dizziness from looking at digital screens without my glasses for more than 20 seconds or so. The longer I look at them the worse it gets and longer it lasts. So it's not really viable.
yeah same, but if all you use it for is to scan the room to find your glasses then it works quite well!
i have prescription swimming goggles
Yep, a good idea, but if you use them when playing in the ocean and are hit by a big wave, they can be knocked off.
fair enough, when I think about it theyre probably not better than the contacts in that sense
That’s actually awesome, I didn’t know those existed.
but you didn't have any massive stress or panic thinking about the worms that burrow into your eyes after wearing contacts in the ocean?
No, I was on vacation on Earth, not Proxima Centari 6.
Now all I wonder is how the hell you solved that issue.
So do I.
So, what I think happened was that I knew roughly where my stuff was. When I went to play in the waves I basically went straight out from my towel. Because of the rip currents I was being pushed sideways while in the waves, but I mostly kept trying to correct for that so that I didn't wander too far from my stuff. I am pretty sure about that, because that's what I always do at the beach. I always hate being pushed around by rip currents and am really worried about getting caught in the undertow so I try to stick to the same part of the beach.
When I got tossed by the huge wave(s) I did end up getting moved sideways. I remember that because I remember how out of control I was. But, I suspect it wasn't too far. So, when I went to search for my stuff I wasn't searching the entire beach, just a small section of it.
I think I remembered what colours my beach towel was, so I think I just wandered that section of beach, squinting so I could see a bit better, looking for a towel with roughly the right colours and with nobody on it. Then when I thought I had the right one I crouched down to see if I could recognize the bag I brought.
I don't think I asked for help, which would have been the smart option. But, I was a shy kid in a foreign country so I am pretty sure I didn't do that.
But really, I don't remember. I just have a clear memory of how helpless I felt, and a vague memory of wandering up and down the beach. The rest is just reconstructing how I think it probably happened based on vague memories and what I know about myself.
The answer to almost all of those is contacts.
Glasses are a hotness superpower
Spoken like someone who has normie glasses
Talk to me when your prescription is -13 or worse, your glasses always have to be special ordered with the most expensive high index lenses, your glasses are physically heavy, and they distort your face so the area around your eyes looks far away.
You go to warby Parker and get the $99 frames but it’s still somehow $230. Even a place like Zenni is $75 for 1.74 lenses (not including frames).
Also you have to be cautious about what frames you pick because the larger your lenses are the thicker they’ll be. You one of those zoomers that wants cute big grandma glasses? Bad plan
Still cute as hell
Thank you for making me feel more confident
I do not have to wear glasses, although I have some reading glasses with a hacked prescription I made.
I find the psychology of glasses somewhat fascinating. I can fake my actual visual limitations in almost every instance using peripheral awareness. I have no clue what it is like for others with worse vision than my own. When I put on glasses adjusted to my vision, it feels like relaxing, like my mind shifts to other interests and awarenesses. But I kinda like my normal visual focus, even if it limits me in some way that could be improved.
I also have a pair of ultra magnification hacked reading glasses I use for soldering very tiny things. I adjust and relax with them just the same.
So really, when I see you in your big thick glasses, first off, I see someone aware of their needs and both willing and able to address them. Looking different is actually looking interesting to me. Secondly, I am curious how my vision measures up and the psychology. I really want to probe and explore self awareness from many angles. Finally, I find nerdiness super attractive although the glasses and look are only a hint at the possibility of what I actually find attractive.
I am a jack of all trades type of person. I am very aware of my limitations. I have no ego or narcissism. I can be very unintentionally intimidating in the broad spectrum of what I am interested in and know. Hidden in this aspect of life, I need someone that can correct me, can tell me no, but also has their own curiosities independent of my own. And this is key to what I really see; when I see someone that looks a little different, I see the potential for an independent mind. I see someone that might have hobbies, and interests. Someone that may not be totally absorbed in simple friends or fixated on some fantasy future expectations. I see the life catalyst that pushes a person to explore within themselves incrementally across their years of existence. I see the potential for someone I can respect and someone that can tell me no with substance and understanding. That is what is truly attractive. Looks fade, but friends first and forever.
So you see, glasses say a lot more than one might imagine. It infers much about a person before we've even met. I pick up on the details and it is the implied meaning behind them that I value. These are not some judgmental expectations or anything like that. I am only perceptively aware of the potential and it is the potential that I explore with an open mind. That is what I actually find attractive. It has nothing to do with the aesthetics of those cute glasses. Conformity is ugly and boring in almost all instances. Differents are who make life interesting; so much potential is hidden just under the surface of different.
Tldr, Jake is tryina fuck
De facto can't. Physically disabled in social isolation and too easily harmed by such physical interaction. Like right now I wake up after only sleeping 5 hours. My spine feels like a twisted towel. I can barely move. I write a few words at a time with long pauses you can never see between the words as I try and twist and turn against the pain until I can get up through the tears. And this is a good day. One of my best. I am haunted by the knowledge of how fast I am degrading and what that will mean.
I come here to escape that reality. Here is the only place I can exist as me; as some simulacrum of who I was because in the real world I am a hollow shell in extreme pain, ridiculously fragile. I don't want to make anyone watch me fall apart. I have nothing to offer anyone but burden. I can't be fixed. I can't get anyone to even fully diagnose the problem. Such is life after barely surviving a broken neck and back. Sex would be suicidally inducing levels of frustrating and I could never sleep with someone else in a bed with how I must move around constantly to keep from locking up entirely and losing my remaining mobility. So while there may be some element I am drawing on from such an emotional place that rings true to your accusation, there is nothing I have that can back that up. Reminding me of this is a little hurtful. Like telling me I can't exist and oppressing the last outlet of humanness that remains a thread of me that did not die at the hands of a terrible driver while riding a bicycle to work 2/26/14
I will be with you there soon.
-7 and deteriorating like a mother fucker.
Yup, same. - 7.75 and -8.25 plus astigmatism on both sides. The last lenses, which weren't even the most expensive ones, including the health insurance benefit cost me nearly 700 Euros.
Does Europe have options that break the luxottica stranglehold?
I have some major qualms with zenni optical, warby Parker, etc but the fact of the matter is that luxottica/essilor had a stranglehold on many independent opticians, places like Walmart and target, chain stores like LensCrafters, etc and drove prices up substantially. Those other places have issues but they bring costs down substantially
My newest glasses I got last week. -15, -15.25, astigmatism both eyes, prism. Warby Parker frames were $99 and 1.74 index lenses brought to 230, with insurance it was $130 because they pay for frames. Zenni would’ve been even cheaper because they have frames super cheap and the 1.74 index for like $75 but warby Parker has actual stores near me where I can get an exam and also get the glasses adjusted if necessary.
Whereas a few years ago I was in the same boat as you. My script was closer to -13.75 then but the local optician only had luxottica brands: Gucci, Ray ban, etc. a few no name ones that still cost like $150 instead of $250-300. High index lenses were like $3-400. Insurance would bring the $6-800 glasses down to 4-600
Someday I’ll get implantable contact lenses. They recently approved the ones that correct astigmatism in the USA and can correct up to -20. No insurance coverage though. “Cosmetic”. $5-7000 per eye. Sigh
I don't even know tbh. Never heard of Luxottica before. After a quick search I found that they manufacture Ray Ban, Oakley and other brands. They're very available here as well but I have no idea what conditions apply to what optometrists.
Thought about LASIK but I think my sight is already to bad for that, so maybe ICL might be an option but with 4,5 - 7k I won't be able to have it done soon.
Not just that, but you're absolutely blind without your glasses. Someone sexily takes them off to look at you sexily, you're now squinting and can barely see their face. You wake up in the morning and either put on your glasses or pick up your phone and put it right next to your face otherwise you can't see it.
There's a reason why any scene where an actor wears glasses they have essentially zero prescription, unless the goal is to make someone look nerdy. (Aside: Stephen Root is an incredible actor!) In fact, it gets even more ridiculous. There are pictures of Brad Pitt wearing glasses going all the way back to the 1990s. But, when he's in a movie role he's wearing contacts and then has zero-prescription glasses on.
Laser correction won't really help in these extreme cases, no?
230 bucks? I usually paid twice that. Then I spent 7000 bucks on getting ICLs implanted. The years later my eyes got worse again so now I'm wearing glasses again plus I'm a bit farsighted from the ICLs.
But those glasses are only at -2 dpt and are so comparatively cheap that I'm still saving money over my expected lifespan.
So. Fucking. Worth. It.
Warby Parker, Zenni optical, eyebuydirect, etc are finally breaking the luxottica monopoly. 5-6 years ago my glasses were easily 2-3x that
Very jealous of the ICLs. I need the toric kind (or to also get lasik or also continue wearing glasses/contacts) and the last quote I got was 5-7k per eye. It should be covered by insurance, ridiculous
You rep a -13 in both eyes? Ouch, my -9 is bad enough, and I feel you in the pain of everything relating to glasses is very custom and very expensive, I get the extra bonus of I'm a large human, at 6 foot 6 and that reduces the small selection of frames i can choose from even further, as so many just don't fit my large head.
*"Optional" glasses are a hotness super power.
Real glasses are more about how you see than how you look.
: Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys enters the chat :
Source on that?
As sad as that was, the article only mentions that the family suspects it was the operation as they "don't know what else could have caused the suicide", to paraphrase it.
Not saying that Lasik couldn't cause any of these issues, just that this particular example is just a suspicion
Not the first and won't be the last.
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.
The sample size of that study was only ~300 people. A study with 20,000 participants in Singapore found that 90% of patients had 20/40 or higher vision after 10 years. It found that high-myopia (-14+)(the most extreme form of near sightedness) patients had a much higher rate of regression, with 39% of those patients losing 2 points or more from their vision within 10 years of tratment (and likely choosing to wear glasses [not listed in the study] or get retreatment [27%]).
So basically, if you have extreme vision problems before LASIK you're much more likely to have to wear glasses again down the road.
Also, worth pointing out that almost everyone will need reading glasses as they age regardless of LASIK. This conversation only surrounds glasses for near sightedness.
Good points. So roughly 10% chance of needing to get glasses or surgery again, which gets higher the worse your vision is to start.
Yep you got it. So for people with only minimal vision issues it might not be worth it, but for those with severe vision problems it may be worth the risk even though their vision likely will degrade slowly back to their original prescription.
Yup friend of the family got it years ago and now sees coronas of light intensely enough while driving at night that they had to stop driving at night in their mid-40s.
To each their own, I guess. For me, it was some of the best money I've ever spent. My research ahead of it suggested that the most likely permanent side effect was halos, and I'm inclined to think that even if that had happened, it still would have been a net positive.
Had mine done almost 18 years ago and absolutely 0 regrets. One eye went from 20/200 to better than 20/20. The other wasn't as bad and was corrected to be 20/15. Vision has not regressed at all in either eye. Dryness was mild at first but completely recovered after several months. I've had no halos or night vision problems. The most important thing to remember is that not all procedures are equal, and not all clinics are either. Go to a few different eye doctors and ask who is the best in town, and then go there. Don't get quotes, don't shop for coupons, and don't go with the 2nd lowest bidder. If you can't afford what the best surgeons in town are charging, then you don't do it. I had to save for 4 years to pay for mine (I think it came out to around $5000 but I can't remember for sure anymore). The next most important thing is to follow every instruction and post-op care recommendation they give you to the letter. I wore those sleep goggles, stayed out of the pool, and avoided touching my eyes for 2x longer than they recommended.
Granted, my research on this is all 18 years old but this was not a brand new procedure even back then. I was convinced that the vast majority of horror stories came from people who did not go to good clinics or did not follow post-op care instructions. If you remove them from the dataset the procedure looks a whole lot less risky than what the naysayers in this thread would have you believe.
What's the success rate? Oh yeah, over 95%. Get outta here
meaning around 1 in 20 people who do it end up facing consequences? that sounds like quite a lot actually, at least when its about longterm health.
A little less so when the main consequence 1/20 people face is something like dry eyes.
Or halos, which are just a little annoying
You've clearly never dealt with dry eyes.
Xcom players: nah. Fuck that
I feel this in my bones...
...unlike the Muton who just Neo'd his way through 4 overwatches.
5% is way too high of a chance of getting permanent chronic dry eyes.
Go look at horror stories on the dry eyes subreddit and take note of the people considering a permanent solution.
You missed the part where not all LASIK procedures are "bladeless". As in: there is an eye knife and guess which way you gotta look for that to work.
Bonus:

I don't have eye problems of any kind. Don't even need reading glasses....
And even I cried upon reading this.
just wait you'll get there
Have had it done, bladed. Yes, you look straight at it, but you can't see shit anyway because of the drops they put in your eyes first. I was much less concerning than I expected.
That was only for one eye though. The other was not a candidate for LASIK, so I had the alternative procedure known as PRK. This one is super fun because instead of cutting the cornea off then put it back on (LASIK), they just scrape off the outer layer of the cornea.
Yeah, the vision during the procedure was not an issue at all. The smell of burnt eye as the laser works away was a bit off putting though. I can attest that burnt eye smells a lot similar to burnt hair.
As if I didn't have enough reasons to avoid that procedure.
I'm not sure if I look better without glasses or I just look better in SD
I just don't mind my glasses that much that I want to put myself through this/take the risk/pay the cost. I've had them since I was a child, I'm used to them and as far as I know, that's still what has the least side/adverse effects.
I can think of two specific instances in my life when wearing glasses saved me from serious eye damage, I'm sure there were more.
You can still wear glasses, and not need them.
I live in a sunny place, so I'm never outside without wearing my sunglasses. As you've pointed out they've saved my eyes from traumatic injury at least a dozen times over the years.
I wear safety glasses when I'm working around the house with anything that could be considered a power tool (kitchen mixer, drill, etc..) and those have saved me a few times as well.
But not needing glasses, now that could be a lifesaver. I have a close relative who is basically blind without his glasses. He's told me that if he's in an unfamiliar place and is woken up by the fire alarm, there's a good chance he can't find his way out without his glasses.
Yeah! This ^ Lasik doesn't sound worth the risks at all.
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.
Why would glasses prevent you from hiking multiple days?
If they get lost or damaged I would be stressed for the whole time. Just a me thing.
I've learnt the hard way to always bring a second pair of glasses for any trip, no matter how short.
That could work, if you have the extra money for a second pair. I used to have my old pair as backups but even still if anything happened to my new pair I would need a replacement that cost at least $400.
You can buy glasses online from china for super, super cheap. If you have a really rough prescription they might still be kinda expensive but I pay like $15 or something for mine.
their
nuh-uh
To each where own?
Yes, exactly!
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.
Yup. The procedure is like something out of a body horror movie. Nothing I’d wanna do again for fun. Still 10/10 payoff, would do again.
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.
Totally worth it though
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.
How do they keep your eyes from looking away or blinking while they're doing it if it's whilst you're awake?
They use anaesthetic eye drops that makes your eye not move around, and they clamp open your eyelids.
smart
Sounds like a clockwork orange lol
That's what it was like for me, but it only took like 2 minutes so..... I've had worse. Going on ten years with dope vision.
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
Risk management isn't solely based on how bad the outcome is but also on how likely that outcome is.
It's a big factor considering the benefits.
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.
if supply shortages ever hit hard and I lost my glasses, I was absolutely fucked.

And the results? Did you died?
Went perfect. Although I had a friend who went same weekend. It did NOT. Couldn't peel the first layer of the eye.
Otherwise I have full 20/20 vision. No side affects.
It was so WEIRD though. I felt like I was on an assembly line. The process was so fast.
no but he will... probably of old age the poor fella 😔
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.
My mom had to go back to glasses after wearing contacts for years because the contacts wore away her corneas!
That's a slightly horrifying thought... My wife has keratoconus and has to wear hard contacts (scleral lenses, but functionally the same thing) in order to see at all.
Yeah it was unsettling.
My hope lies with science. Two women at my work had to have cornea replacement and both of them don't need glasses at all anymore - one is 65 and one is 70.
And oh yes I was profoundly nearsighted and hard contacts gave me superhuman vision. They are the best correction by far. But I am really hoping that good artificial corneas are available soon.
at work
70
Excuse me wtf?
Welcome to the USA.
She is planning to retire in a couple of years. Both of them say this is their last job.
MURICA, land of the freedom to die at work.
yeah the lady who I taught how to use the new computerized inventory system was like 74 or something. muricaaaa
Duplicate post, sorry
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.
Do you also have an urn of dirt from your homeland so you can get a restful sleep in your coffin?
I do. May I enter your domicile and show you?
Only if I can spill some salt grains first 😅
Well-played!
There definitely are risks and i feel doctors can be too cavalier about those risks
Having said that, i got the procedure done 5 years ago, and install have better than 20/20 vision. The only issue inhad afterwards was that i could see things up to 1cm away from my eye ball, now that is 30cm at the least and since the last year or so i cannot read the 2 pixel size texts on medicine bottles anymore
Beyond that, I'm super happy with the result
That's a lot of typos for someone with perfect vision.
Seeing well doesn't equate to intelligence. In fact you lose +1 INT when you take off your glasses.
Mobile phone keyboards have little to do with vision, though
Edit: reading my comment quickly I found 1 autocorrect thing. That's the "a lot of typos"?
It was a joke. Also, I count two.
... Ok, I did not get it
I happen to just like wearing glasses.
One of the best decisions I every made, going from essentially blond without glasses to not needing them. Especially as someone who enjoys a lot of outdoor activities, not being made helpless by a lost or broken pair of glasses is a huge weight off my mind
essentially blond
Lasik changed your hair?
Right? This is an absolutely awesome autocorrect fail.
is that like chemo curls
tbf every medical intervention has its risks but it doesn't often go wrong (assuming the surgeon knows what they're doing)
I don't plan to do LASIK, unless:
-
I am not able to put my glasses on;
-
When my glasses break, I am not able to go outside and drive by bus to the nearest glasses repair shop.
Please try to ride the bus instead of drive it if your glasses break.
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
Aspirin has a risk of giving headaches..
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).
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.
Anon is tyhe type of guy who looks at a California Prop 65 label and believes the worst in everything.
night lenses,
game changer
no idea why they are so obscure (besides conspiracy theories)
wear them while sleeping. perfect eyesight.
used to wear them for a few years, stopped, because one possible side effect is that it will improve your eye sight.
I no longer need glasses.
My kids both use night lenses. It's awesome.
Huh; are they more a commercial product or generally covered by eye insurance?
i got mine in the UK, they didn't cost more than glasses.
not sure how the States deals with them
Totally fair; thanks for just mentioning them. First I've heard of them, even.
it's so strange that it exists and yet practically no one heard of it.
it isn't new, got mine and 2009. it's called Orthokeratography or ortho-K.
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.
your glasses help with onions? mine certainly dont.
Surprisingly enough, one reason could be a dull knife that exposes you to more of the irritant.
The duller the blade, the more it was liable to bend the onion’s skin before cutting. These delays stored elastic energy that built up pressure in the vegetable before ultimately slicing open, resulting in a more explosive release of juice. [...] those droplets fragmented while flying through the air to create an even more diffuse mist of all-natural mace.
Dull knives can be such a nuisance that they even create as much as 40 times as many droplets as a sharper alternative. Meanwhile, faster cutting speeds generated four times as many particles as slower rates.
a sharp knife and a slow approach will most consistently minimize the undesirable effects of onions.
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).
I just want to mention that PRK absolutely cuts something off.. It actually cuts the most. LASIK cuts a little, requires very little healing, and leaves flaps from cutting into the eye. PRK cuts off the entire layer and doesn't leave flaps.. It requires way more healing but it's recommended if you live a very mobile lifestyle like a profession skydive or swimmer etc since the flap could cause issues and mess you up. My husband got PRK in the military because of the "active" lifestyle and the military didn't (or didn't at the time) offer LASIK. I've been looking to get LASIK and my optometrist actually recommended me ICL. It's a bit more complicated and expensive however I have very thin cornea layers and the Dr said I was really on the cusp of possibly have permanent dry eyes if I were to get LASIK. Considering it's my eyeballs that I use to see I'm planning to get ICL because even if it's more expensive... Eyeballs are important .. You know? One other nice thing is in ICL the Dr cuts into the eye and then inserts a permanent lense under a layer of your cornea. So if your eyesight gets worse.. They can re-cut.. Take out the old lense.. And insert one of a stronger prescription without having to cut more and more layers off. Either way my Dr said to wait because I was looking to have kids and the Dr said that having kids can actually permanently change your eyesight. I have an adorable 1yr old now and plan to have just one more.. Then I will look to get it done. (Damn adorable kids) Just thought I'd mention that PRK does cut and a little more info for anyone wondering 👍
My understanding was it was some sort of dissolving? But, you’re correct, both PRK and LASIK means there’s surgery. The difference is whether or not you have a flap in your eye forever vs PRK which is supposed to heal back.
Active can be misleading as it’s really a concern about head injuries causing the LASIK flap to disconnect from a specific angle and force of trauma. After surgery, that sucker should be ON there, but they don’t recommend LASIK for anyone who are at risk of high impact injuries. So if you play a sport that doesn’t involve your head or aren’t a cop/military it’s a slim risk.
The whole thing is really complicated and I didn’t want to make a long post… longer. Which is why I stressed one should talk to their doctor and not internet strangers about their choices for surgery in a meme post. Haha.
I never had it done for two main reasons:
- Actual cutting of the cornea.
- A cripplingly negative response to anything that surgically impacts my body. Even giving blood triggers an overwhelming need to inject it right back into me.
Knowing what I do about CC and the astronomically high likelihood of global civilizational collapse before mid-century, I should really have something like that done so I can do without glasses if absolutely necessary. Assuming I live that long, that is. Which, judging from the current advanced age of my own parents, is a decent “likely”.
It's only good for 10-15 years before they have to shave more cornea off, best to wait for the last possible moment
I had my done over 20 years ago, and only needed glasses again this year (and that is only for a very slight correction, I can see fine without them, while 20 years ago I was basically blind without my glasses). I can't recommend lasik enough, especially for people with very bad eyesight.
Never knew that it wasn't permanent. The climate change argument would've worked on me. Now I'm even less inclined.
You just have to make good friends with a ripper doc in the wasteland
ITT pussies who don't want to pop xannies and see the pretty light show
Worth it!
you shouldn't - go with ICL
Yes, 99% safe. Be very scared :p
99% safe isn't that safe, it just means that out of every hundred customer one will be injured.
So, looking at this page:
https://www.mariettaeye.com/eye-care-info/lasik-eye-surgery-statistics/
1700000 lasik procedures are performed every year (estimate), and to give the treatment the best possible chances (and make it easier to do the math), let's accept that it is 99% safe
This means that every year 17000 people are in some way injured by it.
That is not negligible....
It's not 99% perfect 1% absolutely obliterated. That 1% is people with itchy or dry eyes for a bit afterwards. But yes, I could've pointed that out.
Heck, the 1% of the covid vaccine included people complaining they had to poop the next day :p
I see your point, but when you consider that eyeglasses have a 100% guarantee to not damage your eyes directly, that one percent risk becomes a huge extra risk.
I mean, I've had my glasses break and scratch my cornea... The likelihood of that happening is probably less than 1%, but it's definitely not 0%
That is why I specified "directly", accidents happen, but the glasses won't dammage your eyes just by wearing them
This "directly" distinction you're making is not very relevant.
Usually "direct" would mean that without it, it wouldn't have happened. Yes, whatever broke the glasses would've happened without the glasses as well, but it likely wouldn't have resulted in a scratched cornea. So yes, the scratched cornea is a direct effect of having worn glasses.
Eh, fair I guess, but I maintain that glasses are 100% safe when you try them out, LASIK is way more dangerous during the treatment phase even at a 99% safety rating
I noticed women looking right past me when I'm wearing glasses, and jizzing their pants when I am not wearing them
That’s a really weird vision problem.
He is Clark Kent
yea
Are you Clark Kent?
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.
Okay do this for driving a car.
I have a one mile commute, but may or may not have to drive random directions and distances for errands at a moment's notice. It's hard planning which days I could bike for minimum fuel use reductions.