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Invention to Impact: The story of LASIK eye surgery
- julienreszka 2y agoI was surprised to find out that the fail rate is still pretty high, about 10 percent regretting doing it
- ekianjo 2y agowhat are the reasons to regret it?
- BlackjackCF 2y agoSome people have long term negative effects from LASIK like extremely dry eyes, halos, loss of night vision, etc. These effects vary in severity. A very, very, very small percentage of people who got LASIK had such severe side effects that they committed suicide. Also LASIK isn’t always going to correct vision to 20/20. Some people end up close.
- Euphorbium 2y agoI had it, or a newer version of it. I had pain before , which I considered to be a migraine, triggered by bad vision in one eye. But the vision was very close to perfect, one clinic refused to do it. After the procedure, and some amount of healing time the vision was perfect, but the pain came back and became stronger. So I suffered strong migraine like pain for years. Untill last month somebody here recommended NAC (N-acetyl-cysteine) supplement, I tried it and it worked within days. Turns out it was just dry eye. I did not make the connection, because eye drops did not help me, they seemed to make it worse. i was not missing in tears, but the eye lubricant which retains the tears on the surface, and multiple doctors missed it.
- M0r13n 2y agoI never heard about the supplementation of N-acetyl-cysteine with regards to the treatment of dry eye disease (DED). Could you elaborate on your experiences with the supplementation of NAD? I am unable to find any real useful information in the web
- Euphorbium 2y agoThis one was probably best https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8234027/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8234027/ Also read the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_eye_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_eye_syndrome
- M0r13n 2y agoThank you!
- metadat 2y agoIt can damage your eye If the surgeon takes out too much or too little tissue, and make vision worse (astigmatism.) > LASIK has an excellent safety profile with a low complication rate. In fact, LASIK is one of the safest elective surgical procedures available today, with a complication rate estimated to be less than 1%.
- amonith 2y agoTaran (ex LTT member) has an excellent video on it as he unfortunately experiences negative side effects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQDAXSbwhR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQDAXSbwhR0 Edit: I misremembered, he got PRK, but he does talk about consequences of both methods.
- tristanj 2y agoTaran had very strong myopia, with his eyes at -10.00 and -8.50 before the operation. It's not surprising he's dealing with vision issues like starbursts now. The higher the degree of myopia, the more material in the eye they need to remove, which means a higher chance of side effects. My friends I know who got LASIK had low/medium myopia and didn't end up with long-lasting side effects like Taran. And the starbursts are much smaller and less noticeable in size.
- mgrandl 2y agoThere is no way to prove it, but I am pretty sure I developed Keratoconus due to Lasik.
- mbana 2y agoAre you attempting to fix it? I am tempted to get a contact lense inserted into one eye to correct it. I think I developed it as due to Lasik, but it only occurred in my left eye. My right eye is still good.
- mgrandl 2y agoI only got CXL. After that experience, I am not too tempted to mess with my eyes anymore :(
- raverbashing 2y agoBecause most likely that was only the trigger Keratoconus has a strong genetic component. And should have been screened (using the corneal scan) prior to surgery But of course a surface that is frail is going to become more frail after surgery
- mgrandl 2y agoThere was screening. They said the cornea was a bit weak, but still fine… Last time I checked it wasn’t yet declared a genetic thing and there is no history of Keratoconus in my family.
- julienreszka 2y agoThere was a FDA document draft released in 2022, page 14 has examples, page 17 has illustrated examples https://www.fda.gov/media/160239/download https://www.fda.gov/media/160239/download
- epups 2y agoNo, it's actually only about 1% that do: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4302464/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4302464/
- julienreszka 2y agoI'm not denying that that's what the webpage says but the page says also it's from 2015 so almost a decade old. We have more data now.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- epups 2y agoIt would be simply stupid that we got so much worse at this technique in the past 10 years. You are welcome to post a link to your data source here, you already had two opportunities to do so.
- kaiwenwang 2y agohttps://lasikcomplications.com/ https://lasikcomplications.com/
- diggan 2y ago> As of 2018, roughly 9.5 million Americans have had LASIK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LASIK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LASIK How many of those end up with life-altering complications? For being a website trying to highlight how problematic something is, it oddly is missing a bunch of data to back it up.
- moffkalast 2y ago> From the report: "In [FDA] studies, ~15% of patients experienced night vision symptoms that were worse or significantly worse than preoperative night vision symptoms. Approximately 20% of patients experienced dryness symptoms that were worse or significantly worse than preoperative dryness." View complication table from report. Says it right there?
- diggan 2y agoAs someone who never had any issues with my eyes, is worse night vision and/or increased dryness something that is considered "life-altering complications"?
- khazhoux 2y agoAnother person posted that they lost the ability to see stars due to visual aberrations. That’s really sad. And it’s not uncommon, apparently.
- raverbashing 2y agoThey also mentioned they ignored potential red flags and didn't follow correct post-op care, so blaming the technique seems like barking up the wrong tree People seem to google "lasik best prices" then wonder why their experience sucks? Don't go for the first google links when researching something, avoid sensationalistic BS
- ImHereToVote 2y agoNot super scientific, but eating dried blueberries everyday, looking into red a red light lamp every third day, and doing long distance look training made my eyesight 20/20 again. I have a feeling the red light lamp is the biggest effect. At least according to research it should be. Try it. You only have minutes and a daily blueberry cost to loose.
- mrks_hy 2y agoInteresting. From what to what? How many dpt +-, and how long did you stay there before starting your regimen?
- ImHereToVote 2y agoSorry. Not super scientific. My vision started to degrade after I had diagnosed retinal detachment. My vision didn't degrade yet when I was diagnosed. I was just told to go to the doctor if my symptoms of flashing lights returned. I just lazily noticed that I couldn't read labels far away. After changing my lifestyle I don't have any issues with my vision. Feels like when I was a kid.
- aatd86 2y agoYeah bilberry extract has been studied in Asia since they had an increasingly myopic population. Seems that it works in relaxing the ciliary muscle spasms caused by close up vision. (screen time). I've also tried red light therapy for the eyes. It seems to work a little too but this is more subjective for me. I think the best thing would be to live somewhere where its sunny all the time and be outside for the first rays of sunlight.
- graboid 2y agoDid anyone here do the eye surgery where they make a cut and slide in a permanent contact lens? My eyes are too bad for lasering, but this method would apparently still work. The doc tried to sell it to me as the better method irrespective of how bad your eyes are, since it is reversible (you can remove the lens).
- wolfi1 2y agoa colleague of mine had one, for one eye he needed minor surgical after-treatment but since then he is content with the result
- graboid 2y agoThanks.
- ecaradec 2y agoYes I did. The result is perfect as far as I can tell. Not everyone is eligible to that method: you need to have enough space in your eye so that it is doable. So checking for that is a first step to be sure it is doable. The only serious risk is an infection, so each eye was done in a different operation room. I was also told that the result is better than lasik, it is more costly though.
- graboid 2y agoThanks. And yes, I forgot to mention, here in Germany it as apparently also more costly than regular laser surgery.
- _visgean 2y agoMy mum had it and she is quite happy with it.
- LordGrey 2y agoBoth my wife and I did. She went first, and had bifocal lenses inserted. I waited a couple of years and got trifocals instead. I think I've had mine for five years or more by now; I don't remember. My wife went from "can't read the big E on the eye chart" to only using readers for very tiny print. She had different prescriptions put in each eye, for different distances. It took her brain a little while to sort all that out, but she doesn't notice it anymore. We both see concentric halos around light points (a side effect of the bifocal and trifocal lenses, I think), but eventually your brain edits those out and you don't notice them unless you try. I'm in the U.S. and insurance did not cover them. I think we each paid around $7K. All in all, they were a good buy and I would recommend the procedure. They may not be cost effective, but the quality of life change is amazing.
- RasmusFromDK 2y agoTangentially related: for those who are considering LASIK in order to save money on contacts: I created https://lenspricer.com/ https://lenspricer.com/, which compares contact lens prices across almost all online stores. Buying them online at the cheapest price can lower your cost significantly (like up to 80%+ - the price you pay at nation-wide stores is often very overpriced compared to online prices).
- lobsterthief 2y agoAn article+calculator on how long it would take for you to break even from LASIK based on your selected contacts and rough LASIK price would be a great story for your site.
- RasmusFromDK 2y agoI like that idea, thanks!
- BrannonKing 2y agoI had LASIK twenty years ago and have regretted it every day. Before that I had a -2 prescription that was perfectly correctable. I still have a -2. However, in the late evening my vision gets much worse, as the iris expands. And it's uncorrectable. I'll never be able to see stars again. I struggle with large halos when driving at night, and I lost some edge detection abilities. The cause was that the laser used had a smaller diameter than my lenses. The doctor who examined me beforehand mentioned this as a potential problem, but I was so excited to have perfect vision that I didn't listen. Also, I continued programming while healing. I needed a lot more far-sight time, so I'm told.
- thejazzman 2y agoIt sounds to me like you have epithelial in growth under your flap. Or you've had multiple surgeries to remove it and now you have major scar tissue. Or I'm just projecting because you remind me of me :( my initial LASIK went well, but when I had it corrected years later it turned into a 7 surgery living hell spanning years. It's stabilized as what you described, primarily in my left eye, while weirdly my right eye has more in growth
- m463 2y agoI suspect it is dim light where the pupil size grows near or larger than the corrected area. You will get corrected light entering the center of the eye, and halos from the uncorrected light entering the uncorrected lens of the eye around the edges of the surgery. They're supposed to measure your eye, your pupil and tell you about this stuff before the surgery. Now me - I had the surgery in one eye, it wasn't great and I never did the other eye. Except for completely uncorrected vision, the non-surgery eye was significantly better in all aspects than the surgery eye. (both with correction) Nobody asks the lifetime of the surgery, but I can tell you after a few years the surgery eye was back to where it started. It will need cataracts earlier. It has halos at night. It has continued to need correction, and now needs more correction than the other eye. So now the non-surgery eye is the best in all respects. With correction (astigmatism contacts), the non-surgery eye has more immediate focusing, less glare, and better corrected vision than the surgery eye. oh wait, I couldn't get correction of the surgery eye when it started needing it, since contacts were too thin. In my specific case, I couldn't wear glasses because the low correction of the surgery eye could not work with the high correction in the non-surgery eye. (two different image sizes, brain couldn't put them together) If I had known, I would have asked two questions: - will I get the best corrected vision from the surgery or from no surgery + contact lenses. (the doctors typically try to compare no correction pre surgery to no correction post surgery, which is ridiculous) - what will happen to my eyes in 5 years, 10 years, etc
- assimpleaspossi 2y agoMy wife and I had lasik in 1998 or 1999. My vision before then was 20/200. I still have 20/20 in one eye and 20/40 in the other. The reason for the disparity was on purpose. It allowed me to be able to read without reading glasses until a few years ago when my close up vision got worse. I've had no issues whatsoever in all these years except a slight increase in the halo effect at night just recently. My doctor was one of the early researchers in lasik and still does the procedure today. We paid $2500 per eye.
- kamikaz1k 2y agoCame across some people that reversed serious myopia (upto 6 diopter) well into adulthood. They have interviews on their youtube channel. https://endmyopia.org/ https://endmyopia.org/
- throwbmw 2y agoI think people have difficulty in comprehending the risks just from having been presented data and not seeing or talking to somebody having complications. For example I work in healthcare and have never seen an Opthalmology consultant to chose these procedures for themselves or their family.
- aaomidi 2y agoThat’s practically been my canary. Once the docs I know start doing it for themselves or their family, then I’ll consider it.
- johnmales 2y agoLots of valid discussion about risks. It is also worth considering the risks of whatever alternative correction is being used. Nothing is as safe as a spectacles, which by their nature are likely somewhat protective. The risks of long term contact lens wear and a laser vision correction procedure (PRK/LASIK/SMILE) are closer. Contact lenses have a non zero risk of serious complications including infection. The risk is much higher with extended wear contacts that are worn overnight. Daily disposables are the safest contact lens option. The risk of serious complications with laser eye surgery are non zero but low if those who are unsuitable are excluded after examination and imaging.