4 ms·

What do you expect when a laser cuts into your eye? Joke aside, I'd like to know not just that these things happen but if the person who is experiencing these

by yladiz 10y ago

What do you expect when a laser cuts into your eye? Joke aside, I'd like to know not just that these things happen but if the person who is experiencing these issues is more or less happy compared to before the corrective laser eye surgery. There are always potential complications to surgery but often times the outcome, including the complications, are positive for the patient. I know one person who needs to rest their eyes as it gets later in the evening/night because their eye apparently swells or is noticeably more difficult to focus due to the way the surgery happens but is generally okay otherwise (my understanding is that the laser cuts a flap under the iris or some part of the eye near the pupil and that cut may not always heal properly, leading to various issues).

officialchicken 10y ago
> What do you expect when a laser cuts into your eye? Technically, it's a femtosecond laser that's sculpting the surface of the lens of your eye using ablation (i.e. pulse of laser light disintegrates an area the diameter of laser). A "3d scan" of your eye (tomography) done prior to surgery is done while sitting to create the surgical plan. But the lasik procedure is performed while laying down. And since the shape of your eye is a lot like a water balloon... the shape of your eye changes between sitting and standing. A more accurate surgical plan / tomographic profile could (in theory) lead to better patient outcome simply by having both procedures done while standing.
- yladiz 10y ago
  Ah, interesting. I wonder why they don't do it standing up or at least in a brace with the head forward like they do some surgeries.
- woofyman 10y ago
  >sculpting the surface of the lens Cornea, not lens. And it's not the surface. It's the area under the flap which is mechanically cut.
cosmie 10y ago
> I'd like to know not just that these things happen but if the person who is experiencing these issues is more or less happy compared to before the corrective laser eye surgery. I had PRK done a few years ago (my prescription was too strong and my eyes dilated too widely for LASIK). Before I had that done, I had a strong astigmatism and nearsighted in both eyes. It was bad enough that it was "surgeon's discretion" whether or not to perform the procedure - the ophthalmologist doing all of the prep visits warned me several times that the surgeon may refuse when he reviewed the file. I've got almost all of the lingering issues the article mentions, plus a few more. The most annoying is a muscle-memory tendency to "hyperfocus" when I look at objects at certain depths of field, like my eyes used to do in order to compensate for the nearsightedness. It's usually imperceptible as it corrects itself immediately, but it stumps autorefractor machines and the eye muscle fatigue causes headaches. I'd still get it done in a heartbeat. My alternative was a world of semi-clarity that had a ~2ft radius around myself, that very rapidly devolved into a world of multi-colored blobs as the world around me blended together. Without glasses, I couldn't see or do much of anything; I had them on from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. The ever present anxiety of "does doing that risk my glasses/contacts" (particularly anything water or beach related) and "do I have enough backups" was stressful. Stress that I didn't even notice until, about 3 months after my surgery, I realized I hadn't so much as thought about my vision for weeks. I just took it for granted I could see stuff. Sometimes I'd see it with halos, sometimes I'd see it with a bit of glare, but I could damn well see it. In HN speak: Think of glasses/contacts as a critical external dependency to your system, one which you have no control over. If it goes down your whole stack goes down until it comes back. Your entire system will be exhaustively and defensively designed to ensure the stability of that dependency. You're so busy protecting that dependency that you never get around to adding new features that might, possibly, somehow cause that dependency to go down. LASIK/PRK gets rid of that external dependency at the cost of a few mild (but known) exceptions that you may have to handle. tl;dr: 10/10 would do it again

by yladiz 10y ago

officialchicken 10y ago

> What do you expect when a laser cuts into your eye? Technically, it's a femtosecond laser that's sculpting the surface of the lens of your eye using ablation (i.e. pulse of laser light disintegrates an area the diameter of laser). A "3d scan" of your eye (tomography) done prior to surgery is done while sitting to create the surgical plan. But the lasik procedure is performed while laying down. And since the shape of your eye is a lot like a water balloon... the shape of your eye changes between sitting and standing. A more accurate surgical plan / tomographic profile could (in theory) lead to better patient outcome simply by having both procedures done while standing.

yladiz 10y ago
Ah, interesting. I wonder why they don't do it standing up or at least in a brace with the head forward like they do some surgeries.
woofyman 10y ago
>sculpting the surface of the lens Cornea, not lens. And it's not the surface. It's the area under the flap which is mechanically cut.

cosmie 10y ago

> I'd like to know not just that these things happen but if the person who is experiencing these issues is more or less happy compared to before the corrective laser eye surgery. I had PRK done a few years ago (my prescription was too strong and my eyes dilated too widely for LASIK). Before I had that done, I had a strong astigmatism and nearsighted in both eyes. It was bad enough that it was "surgeon's discretion" whether or not to perform the procedure - the ophthalmologist doing all of the prep visits warned me several times that the surgeon may refuse when he reviewed the file. I've got almost all of the lingering issues the article mentions, plus a few more. The most annoying is a muscle-memory tendency to "hyperfocus" when I look at objects at certain depths of field, like my eyes used to do in order to compensate for the nearsightedness. It's usually imperceptible as it corrects itself immediately, but it stumps autorefractor machines and the eye muscle fatigue causes headaches. I'd still get it done in a heartbeat. My alternative was a world of semi-clarity that had a ~2ft radius around myself, that very rapidly devolved into a world of multi-colored blobs as the world around me blended together. Without glasses, I couldn't see or do much of anything; I had them on from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. The ever present anxiety of "does doing that risk my glasses/contacts" (particularly anything water or beach related) and "do I have enough backups" was stressful. Stress that I didn't even notice until, about 3 months after my surgery, I realized I hadn't so much as thought about my vision for weeks. I just took it for granted I could see stuff. Sometimes I'd see it with halos, sometimes I'd see it with a bit of glare, but I could damn well see it. In HN speak: Think of glasses/contacts as a critical external dependency to your system, one which you have no control over. If it goes down your whole stack goes down until it comes back. Your entire system will be exhaustively and defensively designed to ensure the stability of that dependency. You're so busy protecting that dependency that you never get around to adding new features that might, possibly, somehow cause that dependency to go down. LASIK/PRK gets rid of that external dependency at the cost of a few mild (but known) exceptions that you may have to handle. tl;dr: 10/10 would do it again