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Two years after LASIK eye surgery

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Re: Two years after LASIK eye surgery

#91

Post by kgtm »

outworlder wrote: post #73
kgtm wrote: post #35

Slightly unrelated, but has anyone developed floaters (moving or static) in their eyes (late 20s)? I find them quite irritating, especially on solid light-colored backgrounds, not to mention the white background on most apps. I'm slightly worried about them, especially if it means i will develop more as i get older...

Black-ish floaters? There's a discussion on those in this thread. Floaters usually move. If they are static, they may be something else. It's common and normal to develop floaters. What is NOT normal is to develop a bunch of them very suddenly. That could mean many things, such as possible retinal detachment. Which is a very common Google search result, but uncommon otherwise. If you are worried, get your eyes checke…

Indeed, i see the other posts now. Must have taken off while i was writing my reply! :/

I have been to the doctor, he wasn't able to see mine either. I think i might pay another visit.

By static, i mean their position relative in the eye, they do follow my tracking. Otherwise, they roam around mostly free, and blinking a couple of times pushes them outwards and out of my way.

Re: Two years after LASIK eye surgery

#92

Post by saidajigumi »

mikeash wrote: post #10

I've been wearing glasses since I was 15 (found out I needed them when I failed the eye exam for my driving learner's permit) and long thought about LASIK. A few years ago I switched to contacts and since then the desire for surgery is gone. Contacts are comfortable, I can stop any time they become a problem, and only take up a minute of my day to put in and take out. And as my eyes change, my prescription can change…

As a contrast to @mikeash's experience, I'd love to use contacts, but can't really wear them. My astigmatism is ... epic. Astigmatism with soft contacts means toric lenses, which have a few annoying "quirks". First, they never quite fully correct most astigmatism because the corrections are quantized in a way that makes it difficult to get a bang-on correction. Second, they lose acuity if the wearer's head is tilted. Both of these flaws relate to how toric lenses work: they're weighted to maintain their orientation. They're only in correct position when your head is straight up-and-down. Tilt your head a bit and they start to float off line. The worse your astigmatism, the more annoying these deviations become. As such, when I'm in for an eye exam no one recommends soft lenses for me anymore.

That leaves modern rigid gas permeable (RGP) lenses. I don't mind the feel of wearing these, and the vision is excellent. They don't need weighting for correct orientation, which eliminates the aforementioned limitations of soft lenses. The visual acuity for my correction is in all ways superior to soft lenses I've tried. The central vision nearly rivals good glasses, and the sharp peripheral vision blows glasses out of the water. But even with the newest, most permeable lens materials my eyes can't really ramp up to tolerating them for a full day's wear. And there's the rub, since RGPs require a ramp up to acclimate to wearing them, they aren't really amenable to just popping them in "weekend warrior" style.

I haven't taken the LASIK plunge yet, but the above might illuminate why it's an appealing option for some people.

Re: Two years after LASIK eye surgery

#93

Post by mikeash »

beambot wrote: post #49
mikeash wrote: post #10

I've been wearing glasses since I was 15 (found out I needed them when I failed the eye exam for my driving learner's permit) and long thought about LASIK. A few years ago I switched to contacts and since then the desire for surgery is gone. Contacts are comfortable, I can stop any time they become a problem, and only take up a minute of my day to put in and take out. And as my eyes change, my prescription can change…

I researched LASIK heavily before deciding not to proceed. A few things that fed into my decision: (1) 1% have serious complications, and another couple percent say they would've abstained if they could go back in time. Basically, ~3% of people were unhappy with LASIK. That means that you'll see a lot of echo-chamber about how it's amazing (the 97%), but 3% is not negligible. (2) By the time you're 45 y/o, you're goi…

The autofocus lens looks really interesting. One of the things I'm worried about is what I'll have to do once I get older and my lens starts to lose flexibility. Is there any more you can share about them, like how they work or how likely it is that they'll be available as a real product in a decade or two?

Re: Two years after LASIK eye surgery

#94

Post by WorldWideWayne »

I wish there was a common procedure to remove these damn floaters from my eyeballs. Ever since I was a kid, they've been there, floating around and making me see things that aren't there. I think there's one place in the USA that removes them but I'd have to travel to another state to do it and since it's not very common I'm not sure I want to risk my eyes on that one.

Re: Two years after LASIK eye surgery

#95

Post by beambot »

mikeash wrote: post #93
beambot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I researched LASIK heavily before deciding not to proceed. A few things that fed into my decision: (1) 1% have serious complications, and another couple percent say they would've abstained if they could go back in time. Basically, ~3% of people were unhappy with LASIK. That means that you'll see a lot of echo-chamber about how it's amazing (the 97%), but 3% is not negligible. (2) By the time you're 45 y/o, you're goi…

The autofocus lens looks really interesting. One of the things I'm worried about is what I'll have to do once I get older and my lens starts to lose flexibility. Is there any more you can share about them, like how they work or how likely it is that they'll be available as a real product in a decade or two?

Much to my chagrin, I'm not allowed to talk in detail about anything (technology or timelines). But I think it's compelling... :)

Re: Two years after LASIK eye surgery

#96

Post by Gobiel »

mdolon wrote: post #46
mikeash wrote: post #10

I've been wearing glasses since I was 15 (found out I needed them when I failed the eye exam for my driving learner's permit) and long thought about LASIK. A few years ago I switched to contacts and since then the desire for surgery is gone. Contacts are comfortable, I can stop any time they become a problem, and only take up a minute of my day to put in and take out. And as my eyes change, my prescription can change…

As someone who had contacts and got LASIK later on, I would still highly recommend considering it. For me, the deciding factors included 1) hassle of putting on contacts, 2) ability to lose them when swimming and 3) lack of access to new contacts when traveling or outdoors. I've since found that my contact prescriptions were, apparently, never that great, since after getting LASIK my vision feels noticeably better. T…

You should never put water on contact lenses as water is a strong vector of bacterial infection. I'm glad you haven't lost your eyesight (probably because the contacts fell while swimming with those).

Re: Two years after LASIK eye surgery

#98

Post by anishkothari »

artmageddon wrote: post #28
anishkothari wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been wearing glasses since I was 8, got contacts when I was 13 and have been thinking about getting LASIK since it first became popular ~10 years ago. I have gone from wanting it really badly to now not wanting it all. In high school and college, I wore contacts all the time because it improved my confidence. As I got older, I found myself wearing glasses all the time and contacts at the gym/social events, etc.…

> I have gone from wanting it really badly to now not wanting it all. What made you change your mind?

Realizing that the benefits outweigh the costs (health and financial). In my case, the benefits would be avoiding the annoyances of glasses/contacts (cleaning them, reshaping the frames when they get bent, moisture, buying new ones) but given that the surgery might not result perfect vision or even cause new problems (halos, night vision, having to redo the surgery after ~10 years) it's not worth it. Plus, I'm less vain and more frugal now.

Re: Two years after LASIK eye surgery

#99

Post by mikeash »

beambot wrote: post #95
mikeash wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The autofocus lens looks really interesting. One of the things I'm worried about is what I'll have to do once I get older and my lens starts to lose flexibility. Is there any more you can share about them, like how they work or how likely it is that they'll be available as a real product in a decade or two?

Much to my chagrin, I'm not allowed to talk in detail about anything (technology or timelines). But I think it's compelling... :)

That's OK, I figured that would probably be the case. I hope you make something great!

Re: Two years after LASIK eye surgery

#100

Post by dspillett »

mikeash wrote: post #88
dspillett wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your first point: the relative risk factors vary significantly with age. For a young person deciding between LASIK and contacts the chance of a significant problem due to the surgery is actually lower than the chance of one due to contacts (accidents putting them in and taking them out, contamination causing eye damage or infection, ...) over the next few decades. For me at 37 that balance is probably the other w…

When you say that the risk with LASIK is lower than for contacts for younger people, does that take into account different habits? My guess (and this is totally a guess, barely informed) would be that the statement is true for the general population, but that it is not true if you actually do everything properly and consistently. There are a frightening number of people out there who don't wash their hands before the…

IIRC the study I'm quoting (from memory, I can't find a link to it right now to verify unfortunately) they were considering everybody so yes, for people doing things right all the time the risk would be lower and those not (possibly lower than the LASIK risk).

It was only looking at people using daily lenses (the variety that I use) so things might be worse for monthly or "permanent" lenses depending on what you clean them with.

Some of the risk considered was manufacturing defects and so forth, so not all the risk considered was human error on the part of the user.

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