[OT] Laser Eye Surgery

That method is called Flap And Zap, literally because they cut a flap out of the front of the eyeball and pull it to one side, laser your eye and then pull the flap back over again. I think there's a new slightly less brutal method used now called wavefront or waveform or something like that, but yeah that's pretty nasty.

That method used to be the least brutal. I think the old very old method used to work straight on the surface of the eye and needed more drops and more painkillers aftewards, because the raw surface was exposed to the air all the time.

How did it work out for you? Are your peepers 20/20 now (or whatever the correct notation is).

A Yankee cousin of mine had it done a few years ago in Vancouver, she says it's very good but her vision still isn't exactly perfect. I don't think that I would have it done, 1. would freak me out a bit (my neurotic gland would go into a fatal spasm) and 2. if I spent however many thousands of pounds on it and my vision wasn't like that of a hawk, I'd have the hump.

Likewise. You hear the very odd story of it going slightly worse instead of better, so you pay and suffer and still need glasses. I would love to be rid of the specs, but I'll keep them for now thanks.

Potential for the cornea to drop off always put me off it...

That can't be good for your eyes if the only reason is to avoid wearing glasses or contact lenses .

Just after I had it done I was better than 20/20, but it settled down to

20/20 right eye, virtually 20/20 left eye after a few months, and has stayed there unless I'm really tired or something, pretty much like most people I guess.

No problems three years down the road, touch wood... I have problems with glasses always slipping due to a slightly broken nose and I got pissed off with always pushing them back on so I switched to contacts. Only I can't wear them properly during the summer as I have hayfever and I need drops, tablets just don't cut it. Only you can't use the drops and contacts so I thought 'f*ck it' and got them lasered.

The worst bit about the procedure is the smell...

Sounds pretty good! What was your prescription beforehand? Did you have an astigmatism at all?

Can't remember what it was before, but I needed gegs for everything; watching tv, driving etc. etc. I had a slight astigmatism in my left eye.

I found the slight irritation of the lenses and the increased watering makes my hayfever more tolerable with contact lenses - extended wear lenses are mega convenient too.

Low fear tolerance?

What's your night vision like? Several people I know have had Lasik and found their night vision to be worse afterwards.

No bother at all, can see fine. Certainly miles better than it was before surgery.

After the surgery I found driving a car to be a better experience overall too, because I wasn't wearing lenses for the AC to dry out...

lol!

That's pretty encouraging, actually.

Wavefront is just the way they measure the aberration before they do the op, rather than by a standard eye-test - it's still done by peeling the cornea back and ablating it with a big FO laser. Some cut a small cross in the front and peel back four flaps, which reduces the chance of misregistration of the cornea, but means that you can get corneal scar tissue in the middle of the pupil plane.

I would have it done, except that the technology isn't really mature enough for my liking yet - there is a lot of variability in the results, patient to patient, and the ablated area doesn't always fill the area of the fully dilated pupil, the net result of which is that you tend to get haloes around bright point sources at night.

Maybe in a few more years...