It's been a few years since the surgery now. The side effects are minor. My night vision has degraded somewhat: halos around lights can make depth-perception while driving slightly difficult, and I can't distinguish shapes in the dark as well. Not a big deal, mostly just slightly annoying when camping.

But I now realize that I miscalculated. I've become somewhat more fashion-conscious since college and now see that it would have been much easier and more cost-effective to actually find some glasses that made me look good. If I knew what I knew now about 'looking decent' I wouldn't have done it.

I decided not to go with LASIK just because it doesn't seem worth the tradeoff. Contacts take me about thirty seconds per day to insert and remove, not a big deal. Just making up the LASIK recovery period would take a long time. Plus the risk of permanent side-effects. Contacts have those too, but it can be substantially mitigated by using them properly (always washing hands, never sleeping in them, always changing them at the appropriate time, etc.).

I totally understand why people might see the tradeoffs differently, of course.

1. Peripheral, especially when driving.

2. Uncomfortable, pinches nose, laying down on side with them on.

Also: Modification of scale of things. Makes things smaller the further they are from my eyes. Not a big deal, but I always feel kind of satisfied when I go back to contacts because of accuracy of perception. I suppose if I can get glasses with thinner material this might be less of an issue.

Keeping them clean and smudge free isn't that big of a deal for me, I just wipe them with my shirt, and normally it's not bad enough to bother me. Fogging is slightly annoying I suppose, but goes away quick.

I also seemed to have an ever-increasing strength of prescription. The last time I had them checked was in 2010, and my optometrist changed my brand from Coopervision to Acuvue because I was refusing to take mine off at night, and the Oasis is supposed to be more meant for that. I then had two bouts of some sort of pink eye (after nights of heavy drinking, but still didn't happen with my Coopervision even then), and also in general my eyes would feel drier in them. They had these slits that would become uncomfortable fairly quickly.

I switched back to my old Coopervision prescription from 2008 or 2009 and they have been working fine for me. From my own anecdotal experience, it's my theory that the constant stronger prescriptions are what makes your eyes worse. I've also heard anecdotes from other people about them just stopping wearing eye correction and their eyes get better.

I have a hunch that optometrists tend to slightly overprescribe the strength. Every time I would get a new prescription, I would walk out with superhuman vision, but than after a few days my eyes would adjust. At my last visit to the optometrist, I actually requested a lower strength and they obliged. And while I might have to squint here and there to read something really far away, I spend a good chunk of my time in front of computer, so I prefer the lower strength.

And I agree on increasing your eye strength as well. I try to take off my glasses frequently, and I have noticed that if I go for a while without them, my vision seems a little better when I put them back on. Also there are some apps that help as well [1]

[1] Came across this link on HN a while back: https://github.com/Fordi/eyegame

the last 4 or so years before lasik I mostly wore glasses except for special occasions where I'd wear contacts.

What has your post-lasik experience been like?

LASIK recovery is just 2 days or so - PRK can be 2 weeks

I clean them with a t-shirt when smudges happen to impede vision. Happens only when somebody pokes them with a finger. If your pillow is soft enough, you can even lie down on them and the glasses are just fine. They don't care, they just bend a bit.

No weird shit to put in your eyes. Take them off whenever they annoy you. Change your entire face every few years when buying a new pair. That's always exciting.

I guess I'm lucky that I can do sports and such without glasses. Means I can just take them off when they'd get in the way. Same for fogging when I transition from cold to warm. Take them off, carry on.

My doctors always said I should avoid wearing glasses 24/7 because something about eye laziness, but I am much more comfortable when the world isn't blurry. So I wear them 24/7 except for certain sports and sleep.

<3 glasses

Yes, my face looks weird without my glasses, the overall shape is very different!

Finally, when I was about 27, I broke down and got glasses as I noticed my vision was slipping.

I can still walk around and drive without them. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and do some on-call work for 20min while squinting at the screen. I can spend a few hours walking around the house without them.

But I never leave home without them, and I never drive or work without them, and I never take them off. I simply don't see the problems you see; yes, they get dirty, i clean them perhaps once a week. I don't smudge them because I'm careful not to.

I still rather quite like them and the way they look. I have no desire to poke my fingers into my eyes or get lasers shot into them.

I'm sure you could argue that it's different for me because I don't have to wear them to see, but it's really not that different -- I wear them every minute of every waking day except those extraordinarily rare days I mention.

It helps that I go out of my way to get glasses I like. I have a few pair of colorful titanium and carbon fiber frames. Yes, it's a bit painful to spend $600+ every year or two, but worth it to have something I like the look of.

Definitely has downsides. Smudging and fogging is so frustrating, but I've gotten used to it.

Glasses have some upsides too. For instance when it's windy, they're a shield that makes you less likely to have unwanted things get into your eye :)

So the only time I ever take off my glasses is in the shower.

As an aside I always wondered how they are able to measure an infant's vision before they can really communicate.

And of course slightly older babies have ways of communicating without words! https://youtube.com/watch?v=84-Cuc-Tz2o

As far as babies being able to communicate in other ways, my mom noticed that it seemed like I was having trouble with vision well before I could talk, that's how I ended up in the opthalmologist's office in the first place. :)

For what it's worth I solved my own issue by insisting on a slightly stronger prescription (-0.25) for my myopia. It's well worth a try, especially for driving at night. The easiest way to tell if it would help is if green traffic lights look significantly blurrier than than red traffic lights in the distance.

I remember colored lights being involved in eye exams when I was very, very, very young... But that may be a false memory, it's hard to really know.

- Some think glasses look good - Glasses protect the eyes from wind, rain and flying particles

Yes, the glasses do get foggy and smudgy. But when riding a bike, they shield the eyes. Also, at the age of 50, I've had several eyeglass lenses scratched by things like a piece of metal or stone flying off an angle grinder, or dust/sand blown by a pneumatic nailgun. Without glasses, the same things would have hit my eyes.

> But when riding a bike, they shield the eyes.

In my experience, they shield the eyes from sand and small debris, but they also tunnel the wind in from the top and bottom with more force, resulting in constantly flowing tears if going at any decent biking speed. I always hated riding with glasses because of that, especially as the tears would end up staining the glasses and making it harder to see.

When it rains (particularly -0°C water) the glasses are indeed quite difficult to see through, but then the eyes would be very irritated too.

Now if I could just find something comfortable to block out all the wind noise.

I dunk my glasses into my cleaner every morning while I'm showering.

THANKS

p.s. disposable wipes with rubbing alcohol are great for keeping them clean (although terrible for the environment), and getting a non-reflective coating definitely helps keep the effects of the smudging to a minimum.

Do it now. When you're older (40 or so) you're going to need glasses for driving/reading anyway

I don't mind the fashion part, but wearing glasses (or contacts) gets really annoying with anything to do with water--swimming or even rain. I'm also a bit paranoid I'm going to lose or break them when travelling or camping (I should buy a backup). I find dirty lenses distracting and it's a huge pain to keep glasses clean. I also find using SLR cameras annoying. I can adjust the diopter to get it in focus, but I have to take my glasses off when I hold it to my face.

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.

Add sports in general and VR goggles to that list

Then I got one of those round, cool-looking glasses that really go with the shape and my face, and it changed everything. I love wearing glasses now. (Btw. they are Ace and Tate, the European Warby parker.)

So, finding glasses that you absolutely love is crucial.

PS: I also have a nerdy pair for coding, they are weightless and super comfy for computer. Don't feel confident in them though.

Strange, I have those same side effects from getting older! That happens to everybody with age.

I look forward to the day that I can stick some stem cells in a vat, come back in a month or two, and have some brand-new eyeballs.

So, it can actually be much easier to see someone with dark clothing when I have sunglasses on.

I see fine for most purposes. Thankfully, it's nearsightedness, which means I do not need any correction to work on computers (this is obviously a biggie). I use retina displays at higher-than-default simulated resolution (i.e. smaller everything) w/ no issue.

I tried contacts when I used to play soccer because you can't wear glasses due to safety concerns (for yourself). They were fine, but I have a natural dislike for putting things anywhere in/on my body unless absolutely necessary, and just the though of putting something in my eyes repulses me. I only wore them when I played, and would wear glasses by choice any other time.

For the most part, I see pretty well w/o correction -- I wear glasses because I really, really enjoy the sense of vision and want it to be as crystal clear as possible in order to experience it to its fullest. When I moved to California and I passed the driver's lic vision test w/o glasses, which surprised even me. I still wear them every time I drive, because again, not just for safety, but I really enjoy seeing as clear as my sensors (eyes) can resolve - it's a signal-to-noise/quality concern.

I never once thought about not wearing glasses because of how they look. If that's a concern, there's so much choice out there these days that there's a style for everyone. I prefer as small and light as possible so I wear half wire frame in flexible titanium. I mostly put them on when I drive, but, and this is a big but:

ProTip: You can/should get corrected permanent sunglasses! These are the best thing since before, and after, sliced bread! I do happen to have more sensitive than average eyes, but I'm never outside w/o my permanent Rx sunglasses. You can get really good/cool looking ones, I'm into sports so I wear a sporty frame. Not a concern to me, but "nobody knows" they are actually vision glasses too during the day. I then wear the clear ones at night/when watching TV or a performance, anytime I want to see maximally clear, particularly at a distance. Believe it or not, this is not that much, for example I don't need them at a dinner party.

On LASIK: until such a time that my vision requires major correction I'm not even considering it. The system I've developed works really well for me, and I think if and when I will need it the technology, and potentially solutions, will be superior at that point.

I've found frames that complement my face since getting LASIK. Sometimes I wear them ironically to parties.

This is why the (British, at least) military isn't keen on it...

It was a "fun" 3 weeks of healing ( versus 1-2 days for lasik ), but PRK based procedures have substantially less of these side effects.

edited: to note that i had lasek done.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorefractive_keratectomy

The halos and "starbursts" around lights have faded somewhat, but are still present, after over a year. I was assured throughout and after the process that they would fade away completely. There's definitely a bit of misinformation around that; not sure if the doctors were deliberately misleading me, or if they were also misled by previous studies that showed a much lower incidence of side-effects.

Fortunately the dryness did fade after a month or so, and I don't need to carry around eye drops like so many others do.

Overall, though, I'm happy with the result and still glad I did it.

We decided that PRK was the best option, as it presented the fewest potential side effects. It also helped that she was able to take the time off work for the recovery. Many years on, we still maintain that it was the best money we've spent. Her life without glasses and contacts is so much better, and she doesn't have any long-term side effects to worry about.

I really do recommend PRK strongly to anybody who is considering LASIK.

Artificial tear eye drops help a lot, but sometimes I have to use them twice per day.

All that said, it was worth it and I wouldn't go back. Being able to see without glasses/contacts is a huge improvement on quality of life.

+1 for PRK over Lasik

EDIT: did you get PRK or Lasek?

Local Dr in NYC is a huge proponent of it, and well, went for it. ( he's unfortunately known for his "odd personality traits", but as a doctor, he's top notch... )

re: recovery, I think 3 weeks was the time I felt OK enough, and better than i ever did with contacts/glasses. It definitely was a months long recovery.

The rest of the days were just blurry vision and general "pain". If you've ever wore contacts for too long, it's the burning sensation you get after you take them off, multiplied.

After those were mostly gone, then I was pretty sensitive to light, and for the later weeks, I had the problem of my vision being way too sharp, so I had trouble focusing.

But I would do it again in a heartbeat!

But... I used lubricant eye drops religiously during that month. I went through several bottles, putting drops in my eyes several times an hour. I also took omega 3 supplements, which help tears remain intact over the epithelium longer. I read some studies that suggest omega 3s shorten the reepitheialization period significantly.

So, if you're prepared to do some work and take slavish care of your eyes for an extended healing period, I believe you can have great results from PRK. Absolutely no regrets.

A few very minor vision artifacts, but by far the most annoying side effect has been dry eyes. I don't know how PRK caused this, but it started right afterwards. If I don't drink a lot of water before bed, I will wake up with dry and highly irritated eyes.

Even so, I still consider it worth it. I lost/broke my glasses frequently, and contacts are not very versatile.

Here's a question for you:

If LASIK involved a 1/10,000 chance of losing ten thousand dollars, would you do it? How about hundred thousand? One million? I would probably stop here - would wan't to be in one million debt.

So what's functioning eyesight worth to you? Because to me it's more than $1m, more than billion, more than all the money in the world. I wouldn't risk it even if there was one failed case to millions.

Anyway, this is my setup:

1. Contacts for sports/social activities

2. Lightweight glasses for work (like Snowden in his iconic photo). Don't like to wear this in social setting. I would feel nerdy.

3. Fashionable round glasses with that spotted texture. Can't get used to the plastic glasses, so I don't wear them a whole lot, but no problem wearing them in social setting.

I had Lasik about ten years ago. I just didn't like the inconvenience of glasses and contacts and taking them on/off all day when switching from a screen to driving/walking and back was straining.

I went in understanding that there was a risk night vision degradation in the future. But really, I'd likely have experienced that with age anyway.

To this day LASIK is the best money I've ever spent. I've got near-perfect vision and have since taken up many activities (flying, cycling, motorcycling) that, while they can be done with glasses, are much, much more convenient without them.

But I did try getting married; definitely one of the worst decisions I ever made in my life.

Luckily there weren't any kids involved.

According to statistics, you're significantly less than 50% likely to have a happy marriage, so it's not a very good gamble.

Personal anecdote: I have a retinal scar from an eye infection that was a direct result of wearing contacts. The $2K I spent on LASIK in my early twenties was the best money I've ever spent.

I did a good amount of research and came to the conclusion that the expected value of LASIK outweighed that of contacts over a lifetime. To simplify things a bit, you are trading a one-time risk of a serious post-surgery complication for a risk of a contact-caused eye infection spread out over the remaining years of your life.

What's the risk with glasses? Losing/breaking them?

Sleeping in contacts is also a big no-no.

Wouldn't be surprised if there's a decent amount of anecdata that people don't really adhere to the guidelines.

I was on contacts before. The thing most people don't understand about contacts is that they also carry some risk and constant contact use can lead to major complications even if you follow all best practices regarding hygiene. That, to me, is much more scary than seeing halos around lights or slightly decreased night vision quality.

http://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/mortality-risk

I had PRK done because the idea of LASIK freaked me out more and there were more side effects. The procedure feels pretty benign although there is a long healing time. I assume that most of the problems occur because people don't take proper post-surgery care.

However, I don't think it works to compare the odds here. People accept the dangers of traveling by road vehicles because it's drastically superior to the alternatives. If there were an option that was less convenient/more annoying than a car, but just as fast, almost as flexible, and much safer (glasses/contacts vs surgery)... I think a lot of people would take it. (I realise this is not a perfect analogy.)

Secondly- and I realise this sounds a bit dramatic, and quite insensitive towards blind people- but I would not want to live my life without vision. If I get smashed by a truck and killed, that sucks but I'm probably not going to have to deal with it for long. If I go blind, that's something I have to deal with for the rest of my life and which prevents me from doing almost everything I enjoy doing.

I do accept that people don't tend to judge risk in a rational way. A plane crash is a much scarier concept than a car crash, even though it happens far less often, because

* plane crashes involve many people at once * they are far more likely to be fatal when they do occur * in some cases you will know you are doomed to crash many minutes before you actually do * a passenger has zero control over that situation

BUT, despite this, most of us happily accept air travel because it's vastly better than any alternative.

The benefits of eye surgery, in most cases and for many people, are far more marginal than the advantage a car or plane gives you. I would therefore say it's quite rational for someone to decide it's not worth the risk.

Similarly, your risk of dying from getting hit by an asteroid are actually pretty significant according to some sources. Do you know how many people in history have actually died from an asteroid strike? Probably zero, at least in the last couple millenia, and almost certainly zero in the last century. But the risk is still pretty high because if a giant earth-killer asteroid hits the planet, we're all dead, or a city-killer asteroid could cause massive devastation. A small one hit a Russian city a few years ago and 1000 people were injured.

According to Wired, your risk of dying from an asteroid is higher than by lightning strike: https://www.wired.com/2013/02/asteroid-odds/

So you have to take some of these with a grain of salt. Car accidents, like the steps thing, probably also affect different places differently. Cars are much more deadly in some 3rd-world nations, for instance; does that 1/606 statistic include those? And death rates per mile traveled are probably higher in some places than others (rural vs. urban). And they're also probably higher for drunk drivers (though obviously the drunks do kill innocent people too), and possibly lower for small children (because they're better protected in car seats).

Full disclosure: I've had LASIK three times[1].

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13025716

I think most people just hear the good things about it and don't properly evaluate the risks. I know I didn't.

The quality of eyesight isn't binary, though. The chance of total blindness from LASIK is, what?

See, I've worn glasses since I was a kid. At age 8 my prescription were more -6. I ended up being a goalkeeper on my soccer team because I kept getting my glasses smashed. When I got older, I found out I couldn't use contacts because my eyes were always too dry. My glasses cost af fortune, I only had one pair and when it broke, I had to do it without for weeks. So I became cautious.

I knew the surgery existed. But for a lot of years I hesitated. I feared what if the surgery went bad, what if I went blind. Or my vision deteriorated. I use it evey day for my job. So even with the promise of a free, corrective surgery (thank you, public health care) I chose not to.

But last year I realised that if I ever were to have this surgery and not wear glasses at all for a while, it was now. Because in ten years I'll have reading glasses. So I went for it, and now I'm certain I'm bringing my own kids when I exit the public pool.

My eye sight isn't as perfect as it was before (120 %), but I had a corrective LASIK operation done two months ago on the "worst" eye, and it's above average now. Even though it's worse than it was, it's been an awesome trade off.

How are they, post surgery?

It seems, though, that having air and wind move onto my eye actually helps as I blink more when I'm outside. But it still requires conscious effort to blink often enough, especially when I stare at a monitor most of my day.

The LASIK procedure gave me a dry eye but they, sensible enough, switched me onto another eye drop, so it's hard to compare.

A couple of months after, the LASIK eye is slightly more dry than the other. </anecdata>

Is it really that clear cut?

I keep being told this but still hope that I'll keep on wearing my -1.5 (spherical and astigmatism) for another 10 years since it has been stable at those values for some 10 years now.

I'm not expecting to keep my head of hair much longer either - all the men in my family were bald at 40. There's always hoping, though.

If I had -9 I'd consider surgery just like you.

Wish I knew what caused it though.

Due to halos around celestial objects? I've never thought about that aspect and is a very good point.

I got Wavefront LASIK more than a year ago and it feels like I was born with perfect vision -- I seriously have no side effects. Seriously, what are halos? I couldn't describe it to you even if I tried. The first few months were pretty dry (to the point where I had headaches) but that eventually subsided. If you're in the market for LASIK and actually do your due diligence, it's pretty common to see people who are dealing with side effects. My advice is to (1) don't cheap out and feel comfortable with your doctor, and (2) adopt a healthy lifestyle to let your eyes heal.

LASIK was one of the best investments I've ever made. I think most people who've had the procedure will say the same.

My Mum and sister both had Lasik here as well (again, no problems at all) and I couldn't recommend them more.

But I held it off because of the downsides, such as relapses in eye prescription strength, the constant need to water your eyes and permanent visual artifacts. That and the not inconsiderable price.

Very glad that I basically chickened out, because instead I discovered overnight vision correction contacts [1]. They are hard contact lenses you wear during the night, and they reshape your cornea during the night so that your my/hyperopia just dissappears during the day. During the day, it allows you to function with normal vision without any aid whatsoever.

It's really quite amazing for me. Downsides are a halo effect (but one that actually diminishes to the point that I don't notice), and the fact that you have to wear contacts during the night, but I much prefer that to wearing any during the day. I can happily recommend trying this before considering more permanent solutions such as eye surgery if you fit in the eye prescription range that it works for.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthokeratology / apparently marketed as "Ortho-K" in NA?

I'm pretty sure Ortho-K gave me astigmatism. It does not work for higher ranges of myopia and touting it as better alternative is disingenuous at best. Night driving was downright impossible and the halo effects were so strong that I would be a menace for anyone on the road.

I strongly urge people to consider it very carefully, because the impact can be as significant as a surgery.

The halo effects are indeed quite strong in the first weeks (took my eyes about 6 weeks to fully adjust), but they have practically disappeared for me and I feel very comfortable night driving now. I appreciate that different eyes and different care can cause wildly different results and experience.

The reason is, regular LASIK applies the same "fix" to the entire cornea, and the further from the center you go, the more this "fix" will be off by. So in low light situations when your pupils expand, they are now letting in light from the outsides of your eye where the fix is not as good, and you get blurriness, halos, or glares. It's quite simple to understand and really makes it obvious that you should only get Wavefront LASIK at this point.

LASIK and PRK make me nervous as I do a contact sport (BJJ). I really don't like the thought of a weakened eyeball under these circumstances: my doctor pointed out years ago (when I first considered this) that I have a "healthy but deformed" eyeball. Given the fact that occasionally someone might wind up squishing down on my head with a great deal of force, the thought of having a bit of scar tissue there is not comforting. As it stands I lose a contact lens on the mats every couple of months (yay, disposables).

Modern daily disposable contact lenses are so easy, probably takes me total of no more than 25 seconds a day to deal with them and once they are in I have great vision and cannot feel them at all. I literally cannot tell whether I am wearing them other than the fact I can see properly.

Last time I did the math on LASIK the cost was equivalent to about 5 years worth of lenses. The convenience and flexibility of lenses outweighs the risks of LASIK for me.

I couldn't believe the positive impact dailies have had on my life - I can't even tell I'm wearing contacts, my dry eye is all but gone, and allergy season is now bearable to me. Even if it was $1k/yr, paying $3/day for perfect eyesight with no discomfort or hassle is still an absolute no brainer.

IIRC LASIK is around $1500-$2300 per eye depending on which generation of technology is used.

Even without, it was 1k a year.

0. light is important. mouse in complete darkness develops nearsightedness (-20 diopters iirc). outdoor kids got better eyes. -> nowadays i turn all my screens on full brightness level.

1. vary sunglasses for different ranges. for example, i was at -4. i used -4 for driving car, used -2 for coding and used -1 for phones instead while still comfy.

2. under sun, wear less power. notice during the day, i was still comfy wearing -3 for driving car and naked eyes for phone. the reduction can go as far as -2.

3. if you can't do less near work, wear plus lens. plus lens therapy is a long term investment. it's slow; however, there's no side effect. i'm now at the point that i can drive motorcycle and coding with naked eyes. i started around new year, so it's almost a year. it's okay. it took me three decades to get to -4, a year is nothing.

NB: for 1 & 2, you can experiment using your old glasses. don't be afraid to use your old lenses. the worst that can happen to your life is that you get a slightly blurry vision for a minute. for 3: plus lens therapy. i prefer it to lasik, which has side effects and can degrade anyway. it's not instant, that's the feature -> if anything go bad, i can stop and things revert back gradually. with lasik, it's binary. you can't go back if shit happens. to be fair, lasik is not instant too, you need months for recovery.

1. Point your camera phone to your computer screen and compare the brightness with the surroundings. The 2 levels should somewhat match.

2. Adjust as needed. Often it is a matter of having proper lighting in the room.

Most camera phones have very low dynamic range, so you'll instantly notice if the screen is way brighter (or darker) than the surroundings.

I splurged and spent 7200 on possibly the most reputable place in the area, and they took great care of me.

The best advantages for me is that I can just wake up and go, and I can buy sunglasses/safety glasses easily, without spending lots of money on custom lenses. Plus when I wake up, I can just look around and figure out what time it is.

I don't really see downsides here, I'm sure that other people have worse experiences, but my experience has been a) don't skimp and b) be happy.

So it's still glasses for now.

Now, normally, I wear progressive lenses (far, middle + close) that enable me to read, drive, watch TV, etc without switching glasses. But for extended computer work I still fall back to plain readers.

Also, back before I started wearing the prescription progressive lenses, I had to use reading glasses to read my phone -- that was a pain. The progressive lenses are great just for this reason.

I don't think established Lasik tech will alleviate my need for reading glasses, so there doesn't seem to be much point now to go forward with surgery.

There are new procedures that purport to correct nearsighted/reading problems. But they are new (to me at least) so I want to wait and see how they perform over the long run.

On the other-hand, I experience some issues, such as diminished night vision, halos, and other stuff, that are related to wearing glasses today (mostly caused by reflection, smudges, and glare I guess). So, the common issues caused by surgery would probably be acceptable to me if I could figure out a way to stop needing reading glasses.

From personal experience:

My girlfriend had LASIK a few months ago. We went for a slightly more expensive clinic, for the ease of mind. They tested extensively to make sure everything's alright before the surgery. The surgery itself was good. One eye was perfect after 1-2 days, the other one had problems that slowly disappeared. She had 20/20 or better immediately, but one eye stayed a bit blurry for 4-6 weeks, probably as she reacted bad to the steroids after surgery. Turns out she's allergic to steroids which she didn't know before. Luckily the doctors detected high eye pressure very soon, switched to other drops and lowered it. The right eye is still somewhat more sensitive than the left, although that's something she only feels after long days in front of the screen. Driving at night is also harder (but possible), although she'd always had problems with that.

Overall a great experience, for her not thinking about lenses or glasses outweighs any inconveniences she has now. Waking up and being able to see, diving without the fear of saltwater in the eyes, coming home late and not remembering to get lenses out are all amazing benefits for her.

It's still surgery, all surgeries have risks and need healing. Some people can leave the clinic after LASIK and see perfectly, for others healing takes a bit (my gf had to wait nearly a week before she could use a computer for several hours). But if you get it done in your late 20s you have a high chance of not needing glasses for several decades, sth very valuable.

Interesting that I couldn't find any mentions of the actual laser used. The newer EX500 laser doesn't have this issue. According to my doctor, the problem with the older lasers is that they would flatten out the cornea. The flat edge is what causes the glare/halos. The newer laser actually rounds the edges so no more issues.

https://www.myalcon.com/products/surgical/wavelight-refracti...

Having to deal with my hard contacts on a daily basis is a royal PITA, and expensive as hell (special saline, contacts are several hundred each, also need hard contact cleaning and storage fluids).

If your eyesight sucks, you're just SOL, period. You have a plethora of bad choices available to you: Glasses, which aside from their stellar looks can break, get scratched, lost, and hurt to wear with headphones. Contacts, which require constant cleaning and care (especially if you need hard contacts). Lasic, which is a medical procedure with all of the attendant potential side effects.

That said, if Lasic were an option for me, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I even had an injury to my eye where a tree branch came full force into my eye, and there was no damage to the "flap".

I have had very little if any glare or halos symptoms.

Given this, in hindsight I would probably go with PRK because it seems to give the eye more structural integrity and possible more post-operation options?

In speaking to an opthamologist recently, she mentioned that lense implants are her preferred choice.

I didn't know this until recently, but apparently PRK is the only option if its been 1+ year since your first surgery (regardless of what your first time was).

I never liked the idea of the flap, so among many reasons, I had gone with the option without a flap the first time.

Yes, I see halos at night, but they are "there" -- they don't bother me at all. If anything, it's like the overused HDR bloom effect in video games in 2005. I can still see and drive perfectly fine at night.

They're also going away. It's been a week since my procedure, and they have been going away every day. It can take 3-6 months for vision to stabilize.

I didn't want to wear glasses, and now I don't, and I'm happy.

PRK differs from LASIK in how the top layer of the cornea is removed. In LASIK, a flap is cut and peeled back, then put back in place at the end of the procedure. In PRK, the top layer is scraped off and has to grow back in, a process that takes several weeks and can be somewhat painful.

I had LASIK in one eye and PRK in the other (not as any sort of test, there were medical reasons, I would have preferred to have LASIK in both). The LASIK eye took roughly four hours to heal to point of no discomfort and the PRK eye took four days. My PRK eye sees about 20/15, and my LASIK eye sees about 20/20.

I would 100% do it all over again if given the choice.

I got the impression that eye doctors are not big fans of contacts, and that my situation wasn't uncommon.

Had a LASIK shortly afterwards, worked out OK, so far of course. I'm sure it has risks, but I haven't seen proof those are worse than contacts'.

As someone with LASIK, I'm not actually sure what these mean.... My gut reaction to reading this is, "Wait... do I have those?"

That being said, I do think its fair to say that we haven't studied the potential side effects of LASIK as much as you'd like to, but the fact remains that in doing so, you are accepting that there are risks.

If the risks aren't worth it to you to remove your eye impairments, then don't get LASIK?

Erm... obviously. Hence why it's important to run studies like this to understand what the risks are.

Compared to contacts, my eyes are actually much less dry now. Contacts dried my eyes a lot. My eyes used to start getting dry and scratch by late afternoon/early evening. Compared to using glasses, it either is the same dryness or less dry. SMILE was a huge improvement for me, both for correcting my eyesight and slightly improving eye dryness.

For those who are considering: I was initially suggested PRK due to the potential downsides of LASIK but learned about, and ultimately opted to, SMILE. My mother had LASIK done at age 45 and she still is very happy with it. I had about a day of post-surgery burning sensation in the eyes but nothing afterwards. In the grand scheme of things, it was the easiest surgery I've ever had (and I had a few).

If you can afford it and SMILE is an option from a decent doctor, it will be one of the best investments you'll ever make.

For anyone in the same situation I recommend to read all the way through the comments. The first ones are incredibly negative, and they keep getting better towards the end.

I've used glasses since forever. And never really worried too much about them. From the aesthetic pov I didn't care at all. Glasses have obviously some inconvenients, not going to list them now, but those never really troubled me. I just woke one day with the idea that I could as well get rid of them because getting new glasses/sunglasses every x years was going to cost more than just LASIK. This reasoning sounds incredibly stupid right now that I have to face the risks.

I got my eyes checked at Barraquer in Barcelona, and it's them who recommended me into it. Apparently, it's here where they developed LASIK, so I guess that's a big relief, not exempt of risk. Feels good that we are on the map for something science related though, so I guess I'm just finding more excuses to feel confident for tomorrow :P

Hopefully I can keep reading HN in the future...

The first time, left eye came out perfect: 4k hd quality, better than blu-ray.

Right eye however had noticeable visual aberration running diagonally that made it impossible to read for long periods. I adapted, but after a year I went back for a top up.

My second LASIK was easier, and my vision seemed promising. However, a few weeks later, I suddenly and without notice found my eye leaking like a sieve for maybe an hour. Needless to say I was a bit more than freaked out, but I got better fast, and over my next two visits to the LASIK centre found "nothing to be wrong". While my vision started to deteriorate, they thought it might recover after the swelling had subsided.

Six months later, and for my most recent catchup, they noticed a "corneal wrinkle". Got everyone in the joint to take a good look at my eye, and then they've lifted me up again to try to "smooth everything out". So far so good. 5/7 would do again.

What was your prescription before LASIK?

If you could get by without glasses 90% of the time, why did you have it done in the first place?

My night vision is full of terrible halos, something I wasn't warned about and completely ignored after the surgery.

That said, I wish I had taken my chances with PRK.

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).

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

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.

Cornea, not lens. And it's not the surface. It's the area under the flap which is mechanically cut.

Starbursts and halos are bad enough, but some people do not get them. And halos can be mitigated to some extent, you can just avoid performing the procedure if pre-surgery exams find out that your pupil is too big.

Not sure if starbursts can be avoided. It must suck if your job involves staring at a screen all day (as mine does).

What is more concerning is the damage to the cornea. First, there is dry eyes. It's not a question if you are going to get dry eyes or not, is how much and if it will be enough to still maintain sufficient lubrication. The nerves are damaged when the flap is created, not all return. And that is serious, people have committed suicide over dry eyes.

Then there's the flap. The fact that a doctor can lift the flap again years after the procedure is very concerning. The cornea has a complex fibrous structure that never heals after the flap is created. You just have to hope that you are not subject to strong G forces. Or trauma, more generally.

At least the pre-surgery exam battery is complete enough nowadays that we can predict ablating too much of the cornea so that the eye's structural integrity is no longer compromised. This was at the expense of a few early adopters, though.

There is also the question of how the operated eye is going to age. There is just not enough data. If issues arise, these are usually blamed on older equipment. "Oh, that was a Nth generation Laser, it [did not have enough resolution, did not create the flap, was not wavefront, whatever]". Well then, when is the tech going to be "enough"? Last I checked, the resolution still wasn't too great. The cornea would look like the surface of the Moon under a microscope.

If I decide to do it eventually, it will be a LASEK. At least there won't be flap-related issues. A few weeks recovering time is nothing if it means avoiding entire classes of issues for the rest of my life.

I'm in the middle of a multi-year application process for a job in the armed forces. They are VERY suspicious of all laser eye surgeries. I had several tests specifically looking for evidence of surgery. They didn't find any, but they did find a tiny scar in my cornea left over from when I was a teenager. My point: think long and hard about laser eye surgery if there is any change that you may want to work with or for any armed service. You cannot hide these procedures.

Flip side: If they implement a draft, lasik might get you a pass.

(2) Future correction. Pilots cost upwards of 5mil to train. Maybe in 5/10 years your eyes aren't good enough any more and they want to send you for corrective surgery then. They want to know where they are starting.

(3) Catching cheats. There are a huge number of questions re eyes. They want to fish out anyone who may be fibbing about their medical history. A liar is worse than any medical condition. Basically, if you are caught you will be blacklisted for all the services.

Very informative

Omega 3 supplements help healing by helping tears coat better--can knock days off the re-epithelialization period. You should take those religiously.

I'm very happy I got PRK. Allergies, convenience, seeing my dirty shower; all better.

As I've aged, my prescription has got stronger (I'm long sighted), and I've realised these effects can be caused by stronger spectacles too. Long term contact lens use can also commonly cause symptoms.

With hindsight I wish I'd just gone ahead in my 20s or 30s!

In the last few years, it's become worse due to the super-bright LED street lamps that are going in everywhere. Not only are they brighter but they don't seem to bother putting shades/lenses/diffusers on them, so the LEDs themselves are directly in your line of vision. Horrible!

Shits works!!!!

I own an online eye glass store and rarely wear my own frames.

But recently (After getting a job), I've grown less and less attached to the procedure and don't intend to have it in the foreseeable future. (complications and side effects make me feel that what I have right now it is not too bad).

The short follow-period is a problem with the study. I had halos for the first few months and dry eyes for the first year. Nowadays (~4 years later) everything is fine.

My night vision feels like it's like "4x" worse than it it was but it is really hard to tell. Seeing in the dark is difficult in the first place and I don't have any hard data.

Given that most of these in the article are higher order effects, it only makes sense that if you simply ignore higher order error, you get bad results.

Dentistry can be like that too. As can some orthopedic stuff like setting a broken bone or replacing a hip. But most of the rest of medicine isn't like that.

Suppose you have high blood pressure or low blood pressure or balance issues or cancer or joint pain or acid reflux or arthritis or a lack of energy or are overweight. Doctors can give advice and prescribe treatment for any of those but most of it doesn't work very well. The best case might involve continuously taking pills and changing behavior for the entire rest of your life. There's very little where the doctor says "just do this one thing, let me turn this knob over here, and you're all better." In a lot of cases they can't even tell what's wrong, much less how to fix it, much less precisely how much it's going to cost to fix it.

In large part because LASIK is optional and usually not covered by insurance, it tends to be a FAR better experience than most other medicine. The pipeline is ridiculously optimized to make the operation fast and efficient and cheap and transparent. It would be awesome to have the equivalent of LASIK centers for every other kind of medicine, rather than the sort of confuseopoly we've got.

When I first visited the office they went over why I might not want to do the procedure.

Once they confirmed I was still interested, they did human and machine measurements and tests of my eyes, and showed me the results and told me what they meant. They took care to explain their error correction procedures.

After they'd done their tests they told me what the procedure would cost and scheduled it right away They explained what I'd need to do after the procedure (eye drops and followup visits) and what that would cost.

The day of, they saw me promptly. They did more verification, and then the procedure. They made sure I understood my instructions for post-op care (correcting my misunderstanding about some eye drops).

The procedure cost what they said it would, and at each followup appointment I was seen promptly and kept in the loop about my status.

Outcome: I could see perfectly day after. I had halo during nights but this gradually faded away to something insignificant.

I cant speak for all people, and I cant comment on how this will end up in 5 or 10 years but I am really happy I did this.

I used to wear contact lenses that went dry after half a day. If I spent the day out I had to bring with me couple of pair of lenses + 1 more for safety. Why so many? Some lenses no matter how I try to fit on my eye just glided down and fell. I used to spend 5-10 minutes every morning just to get them to fit. It was such an daily obstacle.

Aircon blowing from the car? Lens dry.

Now I dont even think about the LASIK surgery or lenses. I just moved on with life

> The results [of a previous study], published in October 2014, showed that some patients developed problems that adversely affected their day-to-day lives, such as difficulty driving at night or in sunshine. But it was such a small number — less than 1 percent — of the patients in the study.

> On Wednesday, the group released a follow-up report in JAMA Ophthalmology that provides more sobering information. The study suggests that the percentage of people who undergo LASIK and wind up with new visual symptoms — such as double images, glare, halos or starbursts — may be much higher.

> One interesting component of this study was that the survey showed that the percentage of people with symptoms may be much higher than what has been previously reported in studies involving direct interviews with health-care professionals.

My dad had been just letting his cataracts go, since he's the stereotypical stubborn person who doesn't like to go to the doctor till it's too late. So, one morning he woke up and panicked because he was effectively blind.

He somehow managed to get a hold of my sister (I was away from home; she lived in the same neighborhood luckily) who helped him get an appointment for LASIK. Long story short, he ended up with nearly 20/20 vision afterwards.

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/diseases/what-is-cataract-sur...

My Dad says shit that he makes up in his own head by reinterpreting what others have told him and I just believe him without bothering to verify unless I know it's incorrect; and even then sometimes I just don't bother.

For instance, in this case he probably saw or heard the term LASIK so much by advertising that it just stuck in his head and he glazed over whatever the doctors were telling him when he went in, and he's been repeating that same thing ever since. I believed him, because I don't have eye problems and was never curious enough to look further.

Shame on me.