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Lelorox posted:Anyone have any experience doing this with an astigmatism in one or both of their eyes? Yes, I did and it's usually not a problem for the surgeons. Lelorox posted:Does it make sense to get it done here before I go back to the US in 6 months, or just wait till I'm settled in one place and suffer the higher fees. I'd have it done at one place where you'd be settled so the same person would be doing it if you needed a touch up etc.
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Jan 20, 2014 05:44
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Lasik scheduled for January 30th  Apparently my eyes weren't so bad. I'm at or shy of -2.0 in each eye with minor astigmatism (really shoulda asked for a printout). They seemed downright excited to take my money and shoot laser beams into my eyes. I guess 29 going on 30 is a very good time to do this? I'm not really even nervous. I just want to be able to see again! 
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Jan 20, 2014 05:50
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zxqv8 posted:I guess 29 going on 30 is a very good time to do this? Yes, that's good because your eyes shouldn't be changing drastically anytime soon.
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Jan 20, 2014 05:56
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After lasik trip report: I can loving see! I have a blood spot on the white of my left eye, but vision from it is just great. My right eye is noticeably blurrier (though still insanely clear compared to before), but I go back tomorrow for an immediate follow-up exam, so I'm confident that whatever issues I have can be tweaked. I'm feeling slightly disoriented (disorientated?) by the difference, though I figure that'll fade quickly if I have to live with it for any amount of time. Point is, I can see without glasses now! 
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Jan 30, 2014 23:51
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Three weeks after my LASIK surgery, it's getting a lot better. Fewer fluctuations (close to none at all) and drying eyes are few and far in between. Left eye is still coming along but my right eye is now 20/20. It's surreal to wake up and be able to see without glasses. My prescription was -8.6 with astigmatism. Coming from that, the difference is night and day. Best $6,000 I've ever spent.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:03
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Demented Guy posted:Three weeks after my LASIK surgery, it's getting a lot better. Fewer fluctuations (close to none at all) and drying eyes are few and far in between. Left eye is still coming along but my right eye is now 20/20. It's surreal to wake up and be able to see without glasses. -8.6? Did you have coke bottles strapped to your head?  My eyes are coming along after LASEK. I ended up going with monovision and no problems with that, but the healing time is longer (vs LASIK) and things are still not 100% crisp 2 weeks later. I have halo's around bright objects at night, but every day is better than the last. People have been falling over themselves to tell me how handsome I am (was I that ugly before?) and I went to a dance club last week and somehow enchanted a guy with my eyes and have a date with him tonight 
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Jan 31, 2014 21:59
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Demented Guy posted:Three weeks after my LASIK surgery, it's getting a lot better. Fewer fluctuations (close to none at all) and drying eyes are few and far in between. Left eye is still coming along but my right eye is now 20/20. It's surreal to wake up and be able to see without glasses. I am glad to hear that since my vision is pretty terrible and I am saving to get it done in a year or so. But $6000 seems higher than what I have been hearing about. Was it because of the doctor, special circumstances, weird eyes, or something else?
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Feb 1, 2014 05:39
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Atticus_1354 posted:I am glad to hear that since my vision is pretty terrible and I am saving to get it done in a year or so. But $6000 seems higher than what I have been hearing about. Was it because of the doctor, special circumstances, weird eyes, or something else? I paid $6,000 for my PRK. I didn't go to a chain or doctor who does dozens of procedures a day, though: my surgeon only does the procedure half the week. He's also a professor at Stanford's School of Medicine and the director of the Stanford Eye Laser Center. That'll drive the price up a bit, but on the other hand, my vision is awesome now (20/15 from legally blind).
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Feb 1, 2014 07:28
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ibntumart posted:I paid $6,000 for my PRK. I didn't go to a chain or doctor who does dozens of procedures a day, though: my surgeon only does the procedure half the week. He's also a professor at Stanford's School of Medicine and the director of the Stanford Eye Laser Center. That'll drive the price up a bit, but on the other hand, my vision is awesome now (20/15 from legally blind). Dr. Manche! We went to the same doctor. I only have two eyes so I have no reason to skimp on it.
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Feb 1, 2014 14:35
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Yeah, $6k is what I paid too, but like these guys the two doctors still do major medical research, present papers at conferences, perform clinical trials, and are just pioneers in the technique. Surgery for LASIK/EK/PRK is a sometimes thing but I think they have such access that if anything were to go wrong they know what to do.
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Feb 1, 2014 21:07
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Trip report: had it done yesterday, $3600 with the "lifetime enhancement" for custom wavefront marketing buzzword LASIK. That was freaking weird. Hurt like gently caress for 4 hours then fine. Today had the 1 day, 20/15 in both and I got 3/4 letters on the 20/10, ugh so close.
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Feb 1, 2014 22:19
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Demented Guy posted:Dr. Manche! We went to the same doctor. I only have two eyes so I have no reason to skimp on it. The very same! That was my thought process, too.
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Feb 1, 2014 22:37
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I'm getting Wavefront LASIK on April 11th. My doctor is mailing me a packet of what to expect but it hasn't gotten here yet. Those of you who said you got it said it hurt afterwards, is that normal? How bad does it hurt, like need a vicodin prescription kind of hurt or just a "ow that's annoying better take a Tylenol" kind of hurt? I have a fairly high pain tolerance and I'm willing to put up with a day or two of being uncomfortable/in pain since my eyes suck (-7 in each eye) so it's worth it to be able to see like a normal person again. I'm getting the procedure done two hours from where I live, hopefully the pain isn't so bad I can't just pass out on the drive back. I've started the no contacts period since my pre-op appointment is in about two weeks and I am really failing to see how anyone in their right mind wears glasses when contacts are an option. I've never gone this long without wearing contacts since I started wearing them 10 years ago and jesus christ wearing glasses is annoying. Mostly because I can't wear my sunglasses now and hell if I'm going to pay for a pair of prescription sunglasses to wear for a month.
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Mar 11, 2014 23:35
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They gave me 2 little valiums, and numbing eye drops. It was a small bottle of numbing drops, and they said you could use them every 15 minutes. They said you will be in pain for approximately 4 hours 30 minutes, and then the pain pretty much goes away immediately, and that's what happened. They recommend you basically try and sleep for those 4 hours, and it took me about an hour to fall asleep, and then I slept for 3, woke up in a bit of pain but hit the 4hr 30 min mark and voila pain was gone. The pain feels like you have something in your eye, it's like a burning, itchy type feeling. It's not unbearable, but it is uncomfortable. The numbing drops were like jesus, a few drops and you felt good, but then I realized I was nearly out if I used them every 15 minutes (which is about how long they lasted for) and made the sleep thing happen.
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Mar 11, 2014 23:44
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Ok, that's good to know. I can deal with that, I think the hardest part will be not touching my eyes afterwards. I may just wear the goggles on the way back sleeping or not. I will need the valiums though, reading up on the procedure I think I can handle all of it except the suctioning your eye into place that makes you lose vision part. I'm pretty sure I'd wig out about that part without happy pills. I haaaaate watching medical procedures but when it's being done to my eyeballs I really don't have a choice 
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Mar 11, 2014 23:51
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You should wear the shields on your eyes from when the doctor puts them on until the next day, excepting the times someone is administering drops.
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Mar 12, 2014 00:04
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For the record not every place does shields/goggles, mine didn't. My eyeballs didn't fall out, my last test was 20/10 in one eye and 20/15 in the other. It wasn't hard to not touch your eyes. I still find myself trying to rub them every once in awhile and although it's been like 5 or 6 weeks now you're.. not supposed to do that. Re: the suction cup thing: yeah, take the valium they offer. It made me feel like I was drunk, all the fear went away, and it was just a really weird thing going on. It's such a fast procedure, you don't have much time to freak out. But in retrospect, it was like an alien abduction. Flashing, blinking lights, look here, now here, now here have some drops. So bizarre. The Slaughter fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 01:54
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On a scale of 1 to "I hate myself" how bad will it suck to walk around outside for a few hours the day after if it's sunny out? My work is having an open house thing that's like the one day every other year where outside people can come in and see what we do where I work and my parents really want to go, but it's the day after LASIK. I'll have sunglasses and there'll be indoor places to hang out if the sun is too bright. Also on the front of not getting extraneous crap around your face afterwards, should I deep clean my house beforehand and put my dogs elsewhere for a day or two so I minimize the amount of hair/dander floating around? Or is it only bad if I'm rubbing my face all over the dogs (I wasn't planning on doing that anyway...).
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Mar 12, 2014 02:32
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I think you'll be okay the next day. I didn't really have light sensitivity, but they do say it's important to wear sunglasses, basically for everybody LASIK or not, cuz UV is not good for your eyes. I was chillin' with cats right after the surgery, I think it's okay. For me, it was a pretty minor procedure. Go to the doctor, check in, somehow they didn't even have my appointment (slightly disconcerting) but "no problem, we can laser your eyes anyway!", 10 mins to get refracted again, led me to the surgery room, 2 minutes each eye, and I could see clearly upon leaving but there was a glow and haze around everything. That's when I went home, spent an hour in pain, finally fell asleep for 3 hours, woke up, about 30 more min of pain and then it just went away and all was pretty much good that night, although the halo/glow lasted a couple days. I would try and minimize the amount of night driving you do the first week, just in case you get bad halo/glare. I get a little bit, but no worse than I had with glasses/contacts really, it's just a little more distracting maybe because everything else is so clear. Also, it keeps getting better and better. Doctor said eyes are continuing to heal for several months.
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Mar 12, 2014 08:19
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I had it done 2 years ago. The part of the surgery that involves the suction cup on my cornea was the only part that hurt, and only on the left eye. The actual laser was just weird. I had astigmatism and minor distance perception problems with driving at night before the procedure, so I wasn't really surprised to end up with night time vision problems afterwards also. They had given me Valium before the procedure and so luckily I was able to convince a co-worker to drive 40mins to pick me up and take me home. I hadn't thought that far ahead because it was kind of on a whim that I decided to go through with it after a long time of consideration and research. It took several months for my vision to stabilize completely and then I did a round of Restasis to make sure I wouldn't have dry eye problems after everything. I think it cost around 4k for me, and it was worth it not to mess with contact hanging off of my cornea because of the astigmatism! And now I can wear colored contacts if I want to. :-)
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Mar 21, 2014 15:35
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Had my pre-op appointment this morning, they did the whole thing where they paralyzed my pupils to do a super accurate reading and it turns out I'm -8.5 in both eyes. I'd been wearing -7 contacts and thought -7 was bad. I can't imagine what the world is going to look like when I have perfect vision because what I thought was 20/20 actually wasn't. They said that normally people with eyes as lovely as mine can't do regular LASIK and need to get PRK, but I have unusually super thick corneas so they can use the regular LASIK laser on mine  Also my eye doctor said that I should just man up and do it sans sedative, saying that without the sedative I'll focus on the laser better and get better results. Is there any truth to that? Problem! fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Mar 31, 2014 |
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Mar 31, 2014 20:58
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Hey guys, went in for a consultation for LASIK today. I went to the Mann Eye Institute here in Austin at the suggestion of a friend who went through them a year and a half ago. My prescription is pretty terrible (-8/-7.5 contacts) but they told me that I have thick corneas and that I'd be a great candidate for wave front LASIK. From what I can tell, they only do the wave front LASIK procedure, and there was no mention of PRK, which seemed kind of odd, but maybe that's normal. Is LASIK an acceptable substitute for PRK and does this seem legit? I'm really excited about the chance of being able to actually see again without contacts/glasses but I'm definitely nervous about LASIK itself, especially in regards to the cornea flap that it makes and what not. I'm probably just overthinking it but LASIK is something I want to have really thought over beforehand.
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Apr 19, 2014 01:13
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I had -7/-8.5 contacts and I have weirdly thick corneas (to the point where everyone who looked at my measurements commented on it) and just had Wavefront LASIK a week ago. I had my week out followup appointment today and could read the 20/15 line on the chart. Totally worth it. At my appointment today my eye doctor said they usually draw the line between LASIK and PRK at -6, but if you've got thick enough corneas LASIK is perfectly fine. They're not going to do a procedure they're not confident will work. The procedure itself is really weird but it doesn't hurt and is only mildly uncomfortable if you're used to people poking around at your eyes, and they will likely offer you a Valium beforehand to take the edge off. They gave me a tiny dose and honestly I think it might've just been a placebo because I didn't feel loopy at all and I still made it through the procedure just fine. The only part that made me feel a little "AGH EW STOP IT" was when the surgeon flips the eye flap open, mostly because I could see him poking around in my eye. When they're doing one eye, they tape the other one shut (or at least that's how they did it where I got mine done) so for the part where you lose your vision it just feels like you've got your eyes closed. I thought that was going to be the part that freaked me out but it really wasn't bad at all.
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Apr 19, 2014 01:26
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Tannin posted:Is LASIK an acceptable substitute for PRK and does this seem legit? It usually is and it depends on the person. Some are only candidates for certain kinds of surgeries.
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Apr 19, 2014 05:46
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Scheduled for Wednesday at 2 pm. Going to be an awesome $3400 to spend. Looking forward to waking up and being able to see. The best part is work basically paid for the whole thing.
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May 9, 2014 20:49
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The two options I'm looking at in Australia at the moment are $2500 for ASL PRK or $6500 for the newer Relex SMILE. Really don't know which to choose. I've heard so many good things about the PRK doctor online I suspect him of review site spamming but the SMILE technology is newer, therefore better? Spent the whole day researching but still unsure.. Think it will come down to price and therefore PRK. Any thoughts from Aussies?
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May 13, 2014 09:42
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I had LASIK done in January, months later I have no problems and my vision is better than seeing with glasses. Good luck!
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May 13, 2014 13:53
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Tannin posted:My prescription is pretty terrible (-8/-7.5 contacts) but they told me that I have thick corneas and that I'd be a great candidate for wave front LASIK. From what I can tell, they only do the wave front LASIK procedure, and there was no mention of PRK, which seemed kind of odd, but maybe that's normal. Is LASIK an acceptable substitute for PRK and does this seem legit? I was 9.0 and they had to do wavefront
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May 13, 2014 16:07
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I had LASIK in March of last year and did skydiving (with not great goggles) this weekend without an issue.
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May 13, 2014 16:18
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Crazy experience but I can see! Still a bit hazy and a little blurry but not bad at all. Well worth the money.
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May 15, 2014 13:04
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[*]Has anyone here had laser eye surgery done? I had PRK done about 7 years ago. Chose that over LASIK because I had heard more stories about things going wrong with LASIK than with PRK and the idea of someone cutting my eyeballs is just not something I'm ready to cope with. [*]Do they see as well as they did with glasses? My near vision is noticeably worse than before, and unfortunately my left eye did not turn out as well as my right eye, so I wouldn't say I can see better than I did with glasses. [*]Does it hurt (before/during/after)? PRK is pretty painful for a couple of days (3-4) after the surgery while the top layer of the eye recovers; one of the worse parts is that you have a bandage contact on that really blurs out your vision so you can't really do much, you eyes are also pretty sensitive to light during this time so going outside isn't an attractive option. Once they take the contact off however, being able to see clearly without glasses feels pretty nice. [*]I've been told it messes with your night driving, is that the case? I've heard the halo stories from LASIK, not sure if it applies to PRK. [*]Does it make working with a computer more difficult? (Using contacts slows down your blink rate which can cause dryness when working at a computer, did this happen to anyone?) No problems on my end whatsoever. I work on my computer all day and get home to play videogames most days, never had a problem. [*] Having done it, would you still choose to do it over again? Yes, in a heart beat. My only regret is not going back to get my left eye sorted out immediately. Now I'm planning to go back and have it re-done. [*] Is there anything bizarre (like your eyes falling out) that I should know about? One of the benefits of PRK over LASIK is that there is no cutting, the only part of your cornea that gets affected is the part being shaped by the laser, so there is a much lower risk of issues later on. People with thin corneas are often advised not to engage in anything requiring strong physical effort after the surgery because of the eyes' reduced ability to take pressure, not sure how true that is, but I do know that it is not a problem with PRK. Here in the UK I've seen a lot of people pushing the LASEK, I believe in the US it's called no-cut LASIK; from what I understand it is PRK where instead of scrubbing off the top layer covering the cornea, they weaken it with an alcohol based solution and operate through it, making the recovery somewhat quicker. edit: I just now read a bunch of comments on LASIK vs PRK above this comment so I'll go over my thinking on the subject as a patient. Do note I just have internet reading as background, I'm an engineer and know nothing about eyes. When researching the differences between PRK and LASIK I came across many side effects of LASIK and the difficulties associated with correcting the cases where the side effects were too bad, with PRK it seems like any side effects are fixed as easily as going back in and hitting it with the laser some more since you aren't really restricted by the thickness of the cornea or the original cut into it. Going over the advantages of LASIK over PRK all I found was a speedier recovery. I know friends who were out and about the same day they had LASIK, while I had to stay locked in my windowless room for a couple of days. The risks seem to far outweigh the benefits when looking at LASIK over PRK; keep in mind that after 4 days recovery you will be done for the rest of your life, doesn't sound so bad to me in that perspective. SoUr fucked around with this message at 14:50 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 14:43
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SoUr posted:My only regret is not going back to get my left eye sorted out immediately. Now I'm planning to go back and have it re-done. I had PRK and got my right eye touched up a year later. The recovery time and pain was a lot less since it was a minor modification. I didn't even take any time off work other than the afternoon of surgery. Mind you, it was a lot more than three to four days' recovery the first time since I was legally blind beforehand (something none of my optometrists ever bothered telling me  ). The surgeon had to make some radical reshaping the first go, which meant it was almost a month before I could read kind of normally and bright lights were still a problem a couple of weeks past that.
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May 24, 2014 02:49
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Aurora-Capitah posted:The two options I'm looking at in Australia at the moment are $2500 for ASL PRK or $6500 for the newer Relex SMILE. Not an Aussie, but I got SMILE done in February and it's pretty amazing. The incision is super tiny like the name suggests and healed really quick. I stayed in bed with protective goggles on the day of the operation and the following night, next morning I took the goggles off and felt fine so I just went to work. I could already see fine and there was never any pain. I used the prescribed moisturizing eye drops for a couple of weeks, then stopped because I really didn't need them. My vision is better now than it was before with glasses, it was the best 3900 I've ever spent by far.
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May 27, 2014 20:07
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I have decided to have LASIK, but now I am trying to decide with who. I had a consultation last friday with a doctor that had done the operation for a friend at work. They offer a 20/20 guarantee or your money back and 18 months of checkups for $4.5K, though they say they have never had to return money on the guarantee. This monday I have learned what my new health care provider is and they offer discounts on QualSight and TruVision, but not the doctor I consulted with. In both cases I wanted to put the LASIK cost in a FSA to not have to pay any taxes for it. This causes a issue though, as I need to declare the amount in my FSA this friday. Do I go with the doctor I have consulted with, or not do the FSA and see what the pricing and review of local QualSight and TruVision are? I am unsure how much I would effectively save through the FSA, looking at my paycheck it seems like it would be around $1k.
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Jun 4, 2014 15:07
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Ingenium posted:I have decided to have LASIK, but now I am trying to decide with who. I had a consultation last friday with a doctor that had done the operation for a friend at work. They offer a 20/20 guarantee or your money back and 18 months of checkups for $4.5K, though they say they have never had to return money on the guarantee. This monday I have learned what my new health care provider is and they offer discounts on QualSight and TruVision, but not the doctor I consulted with. In both cases I wanted to put the LASIK cost in a FSA to not have to pay any taxes for it. This causes a issue though, as I need to declare the amount in my FSA this friday. Do I go with the doctor I have consulted with, or not do the FSA and see what the pricing and review of local QualSight and TruVision are? I am unsure how much I would effectively save through the FSA, looking at my paycheck it seems like it would be around $1k. I got LASIK and used FSA dollars to pay for most of it. I maxed out my FSA at $2500 and only had to pay $1100 out of pocket for my procedure. Since FSA is maxed out well below the cost of LASIK anywhere and you're planning on using it, might as well throw as much money as you can into it regardless of where you're getting it done and save yourself some cash.
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Jun 5, 2014 03:35
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I was not aware that FSA had a max, thanks that totally answers my question!
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Jun 5, 2014 14:39
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My surgery is scheduled for late June, apparently I'm an ideal candidate for lasik with thick corneas/small pupils/not bad eyesight, but they gave me a choice between advanced custom wavefront and standard lasik. The lady recommended standard, to my surprise, but my gut feeling is to not gently caress around with my eyes and do the more expensive wavefront ($500 more). Anyone else have to make that choice and have advice? Another concern is eye rubbing - ever since they told me I couldn't I've noticed I do it a LOT, especially in the morning. I'm a bad sleeper - anyone hosed up their surgery by rubbing too much? Also apparently I have a strong starbust effects already. I had no idea other people didn't see giant globs of light from car headlights at night. When people leave their highbeams on it's really rough on me. UnfortunateSexFart fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 02:17
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Do you wear contacts? I discovered rubbing wasn't much of an issue for me (I was worried about it too) because I already had a habit of not directly rubbing my eyes because of worrying my contact would pop out. I was super sensitive to not touching my eyes at all post surgery, especially day of, that I'd catch myself before I touched my eyes. Now that I've hit the two month mark where they say it's ok to rub your eyes I still don't. If you're still worried about it you can always wear your super stylish googles till you're comfortable that you won't accidentally rub your eyes.
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Jun 17, 2014 05:31
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No, never even tried contacts. Got my first pair of glasses three years ago as a 31 year old and hate wearing them, but also hate the idea of something on my eye.
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Jun 17, 2014 07:40
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leidend posted:My surgery is scheduled for late June, apparently I'm an ideal candidate for lasik with thick corneas/small pupils/not bad eyesight, but they gave me a choice between advanced custom wavefront and standard lasik. The lady recommended standard, to my surprise, but my gut feeling is to not gently caress around with my eyes and do the more expensive wavefront ($500 more). Anyone else have to make that choice and have advice? Go for the custom wavefront, provided your surgeon has plenty of experience with the procedure and machine. The eye rubbing will go away. I too am a frequent eye rubber, but after the surgery I had stopped completely. You can definitely gently caress up your eyes by rubbing them, but with the protective goggles at night you should be fine.
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Jun 19, 2014 03:40
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