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Lasik
I've been on the interview circuit for the past couple of months. A lot of the jobs I've been trying for are with Federal or State agencies (Federal or State benefits - sweet!).
I'm really hopeful that I'll get a job that has decent benefits. If I get a vision program, I'm gonna have to try Lasik. I've had to have vision correction for longer than most of you on this board have been alive. I was able to wear contacts for a number of years, but my eyes are so dry now I have to wear glasses.
Glasses can be a fun prop. Nothing puts someone in their place as fast as an older guy looking down at them over half-frame glasses. I have a pair just for that. However, the costs of glasses often outweigh the benefits. You have to clean them, they get scratched, you don't have good peripheral vision, they slide down your nose when it's hot, they can hurt your nose and ears if they're not adjusted correctly, etc.
So Lasik looks pretty good. The only thing I'm hesitant about is I've followed the industry enough to know that it has a motto: "20/10 by 2010", meaning that they expect that, by 2010, procedures will be advanced enough that they'll be able to promise most people 20/10 vision. Imagine that. That would be SO COOL! How much would I love to have 20/10 vision after a lifetime of 20/400 in my right eye and 20/600 in my left eye? So I don't know if I want to do it now or wait a couple of years to make sure that I can get the 20/10. I want the 20/10 pretty bad.
Have any of you had Lasik?
I'm really hopeful that I'll get a job that has decent benefits. If I get a vision program, I'm gonna have to try Lasik. I've had to have vision correction for longer than most of you on this board have been alive. I was able to wear contacts for a number of years, but my eyes are so dry now I have to wear glasses.
Glasses can be a fun prop. Nothing puts someone in their place as fast as an older guy looking down at them over half-frame glasses. I have a pair just for that. However, the costs of glasses often outweigh the benefits. You have to clean them, they get scratched, you don't have good peripheral vision, they slide down your nose when it's hot, they can hurt your nose and ears if they're not adjusted correctly, etc.
So Lasik looks pretty good. The only thing I'm hesitant about is I've followed the industry enough to know that it has a motto: "20/10 by 2010", meaning that they expect that, by 2010, procedures will be advanced enough that they'll be able to promise most people 20/10 vision. Imagine that. That would be SO COOL! How much would I love to have 20/10 vision after a lifetime of 20/400 in my right eye and 20/600 in my left eye? So I don't know if I want to do it now or wait a couple of years to make sure that I can get the 20/10. I want the 20/10 pretty bad.
Have any of you had Lasik?
Comments
I've been wearing glasses since I was 13, that's about 10 years now, and I'm guessing you've been using much more longer, so I think you should do it. Being able to wake up in the morning and actually see everything without stumbling to find your glasses that would be priceless.
Really, just 20/20 in both eyes would make me happy. My glasses can't quite get me there, so even with my glasses, I get something like 20/30 in one and 20/40 in the other.
Would I sound too paranoid if I said I want to get this done soon so I won't have to bother with glasses after the apocalypse?
I would suggest you wait a little bit until the 20/10 is available. It should keep decreasing in cost and it may go down even faster if more people opt in at the 20/10 level.
Good luck! Keep us updated with what you choose.
And I *think* those +/- numbers are the number of diopters.
Astigmatism is a defect of the eye, where vision is blurred by an irregularly shaped cornea. The cornea, instead of being shaped like a sphere, is ellipsoidal (like an egg) and reduces the cornea's ability to focus light.
Hyperopia, also known as hypermetropia or colloquially as farsightedness or longsightedness, is a defect of vision caused by an imperfection in the eye (often when the eyeball is too short or when the lens cannot become round enough), causing inability to focus on near objects, and in extreme cases causing a sufferer to be unable to focus on objects at any distance.
Myopia (from Greek: μÃ…ÉÀία myopia "near-sightedness"[1]), also called near- or short-sightedness, is a refractive defect of the eye in which collimated light produces image focus in front of the retina when accommodation is relaxed. With myopia, the eyeball is too long, or the cornea is too steep, so images are focused in the vitreous inside the eye rather than on the retina at the back of the eye.
You'll notice that there are no mentions of the muscles of the eye that focus the lens and light. The defect lies in the shape of the cornea or length of the eye itself (distance from cornea to retina).
If the eyeball is too long or too short, ideal eye muscles would adjust the lens to accommodate the longer/shorter focal length. That said, it is possible that no human has ideal eye muscles.
What is the reason most of us wear glasses if not near- or far-sightedness? Does astigmatism make up that big of a percentage of people with bad eyesight?
I'm getting PRK done next week, my doc said my cornea was too thin for lasik. The procedure is pretty similar but they use a laser to rub off the surface instead of using a blade to cut a flap. I'll let you guys know how it goes when I get back from the Baylor College of Medicine.
I had Lasik done about 3 1/2 years ago. I wasn't happy about it at first b/c I felt that my vision with contacts was better, but I've become quite happy with it over time.
The problem is not lazy eye muscles, perfectly capable muscles are affected.
To answer your other question, about 32% of adults have astigmatism of the eye.
I wouldn't, but what if you could have your eyes surgically altered to make it look like you were wearing those cat's eye contact lenses all the time? That might be cool. I'd be even more likely to do it if they could make your eyes look like Gary Mitchell's eyes from the TOS episode Where No Man Has Gone Before.
When she had this glass eye "installed" she had them match her other eye and it is attached to the eye muscles so that it moves in sync with her other eye.
Just like a woman to get a matching glass eye. If it were me I would have a white orb with a red reticule painted on it with some sort of paint that was partly luminescent. Then I would just tell people it is a war wound and that I now have a bionic eye.
If I did go the glass eye route I'd get a red one. Hey, by the time things get more advanced I could have a Batou eye.
Hmmmmm... if I ever lost an eye... what would I do... Most probably just put a glass eye in place of the lost eye, even if I would wear an eye patch. But, I don't see myself wearing an eye patch though. Even though they're awesome, I just don't think I would bother with an eye patch. It would definitely annoy me. The glass eye would probably be just white, with a (lighter) copy of my other iris. Lighter as to indicate that something is wrong with said eye.
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The primary difference between PRK and LASIK refractive surgery is that in LASIK, the vision correction occurs under an epithelial flap, while in PRK, the vision correction is performed on the surface of the cornea after the epithelium has been removed.
It wouldn't be so bad for me, but at the age of 17, I'm considered legally blind by my eye-care specialist, with a vision of 20/2000 (yes, 2000) in both eyes, with astigmatism in both. (I actually think that it's worse than that, but when I asked, they told me that it's not really measured past that.) I think that it's somewhere around -6 or so. I have no idea, seems like I remember seeing that on the paper.
Anyway, I've also had to have surgery on my right eye. They had to straighten out my retina because it had gotten pulled on the edges, and I'd have gone blind in less than six months in that eye. I was told I will always see random floaters (black/white dots, somewhat large in size, that obstruct my vision mildly) in it, and that someday I will eventually develop a cataract in the eye because of the surgery. I also can't see colors as vibrantly in it as I used to be able to.
On top of all that, I can't get contacts, because the eye doctor told me my corneas were too large for the contacts he knew of, and they couldn't stay on my eye and would just slide down it.
In conclusion, I would LOVE the LASIK stuff.
By the way, does anyone have any idea if insurance will cover LASIK surgery at all? I was hoping that because I'm legally blind that they might pay for part/all of it.
Being able to see effectively sans glasses totally negated the fact that I would have to stay awake through a surgery that had a small chance of going wrong if I couldn't keep my own eyes still while doctors cut and burned them with their fancy doctor stuff.
The first week after I got the surgery done I had to wear a pair of sunglasses to go outside as a precaution. I had a hard time focusing my vision for a while and my eyes seemed to dry up without any warning. Even so, the first time I actually went outside and just sat down on my steps without glasses was like nothing I could have imagined. Normal eyesight is nothing like what I saw through my old glasses. The phrase " infinite horizon" actually had a meaning now. I can only describe the feeling as having lived my whole life with my eyes under murky water I would have to try my best to make anything out through, with one day getting pulled out of the murky water and allowed to see life through a 1080 high def superscreen that wrapped around my head for full 360 degrees of vision.
If it's safe for you, get the surgery. Don't worry about 20/10. I can assure you that you won't regret missing out that first day you go to the park and actually SEE things.
Anyway, I do agree with you about getting a cool eye.