Lasik’s Risks Are Coming into Sharper Focus

I have a very bad shortsightedness and this is the thing that always kept me from at least trying to pursue a career as a professional pilot. Now that I begin with my private pilote license, I decided to never to LASIK in order to avoid the risks. I have perfect vision now - as long as I wear glasses and I will be able to fly night and day with it. But I really fear about unforseen consequences of the LASIK treatment in my case.

As a person who recently wore contacts every day until dry eyes and an injury forced me to switch back to glasses, I have almost entirely the opposite experience. It bothers me to wear glasses again. My prescription is quite strong, so it creates a pretty significant distortion, stronger towards the edges of the lenses. It's hard to do sports, as I now have a background fear about losing/breaking them, and the distortion messes with my hand/eye coordination. I had an episode skiing where I actually got nauseous from disorientation. As a result I do far less sports and that leads to other things. Ultimately, it has kind of screwed up my sense of scale of things, too, because the glasses make everything appear a bit smaller.

When I take off my glasses the distortion goes away, of course, but I can't read street signs, see people's expressions, watch movies, and other things. Watching an incredible sunset or mountain scene with my own eyes...it's like looking at a 200x100 pixel image Gaussian blurred to fill the whole field of view.

I might agree with you if my prescription is less, but TBH I wish I could get rid of these damn spectacles.

On the other hand, it did teach me a bit about philosophy. E.g. now I realize that to see the world "clearly" I require lenses, I just never noticed before. All of my perception is actually through lenses, not just my eyes. Touch, taste, smell, feeling, all distorted by my senses. And it feeds into my mind, the biggest, most distorted lens of all :)

You also cut the article to fit your point. E.g. full text regarding 574 participants:

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But many of the trial’s 574 participants reported having visual aberrations and dry eyes before surgery, and the study concluded that Lasik slightly reduced the prevalence of these problems.

Three months after surgery, however, glare, halos and double vision were common, affecting 50 to 60 percent of all patients, with up to 5 percent characterizing them as “very” or “extremely” bothersome.

Even after six months, some 41 percent of patients reported visual aberrations, with nearly 2 percent — or one in 50 — saying the symptoms presented “a lot of difficulty” or “so much difficulty that I can no longer do some of my usual activities.” And one-quarter of the patients followed six months had mild to severe dry eyes.

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Note that wording here is unclear, because "many" is not quantified and we don't have percentage change over time here. Did it increase or not and by how much. But due to this it is possible to interpret this part however your want - that lasik made things worse or that it didn't.

Infections and foreign objects, is the usual answer.

I've worn glasses since I was 6. 3 times over the years, the glasses have prevented damage to my eyes from flying objects. They aren't true safety glasses (I have a separate pair for that) but I like the extra protection, as well as the protection from UV.

But at my age everyone needs glasses anyway, so there's little upside to lasik and even a small risk is too much for me to accept.

The glasses make for terrible eye-hand coordination, as they warp the trajectory of balls in unpredictable ways. I cannot hit nor catch baseballs worth spit. Fortunately, I couldn't care less about having an athletic career.