Surgery review?

[David Ottosen]

I had the LASIK procedure yesterday on my eyes to rid myself of the coke bottles I've been carrying around since age 9. Today I'm 20-20.

Forget people who say "what is something goes wrong?". The thing takes 30 minutes and has an almost perfect success rate. If you can afford it....do it. Best $2K I ever spent.

[HDPM]

OK, I rag on Canadian government and socialized medicine, but just 2K (Canadian I presume) for the surgery? And I have heard Canadian docs are good at Lasik and are sometimes ahead of US doctors. (I know people who have gone to Canada for it) That is a great deal. Congrats and I hope it all goes well. I'm still against government intervention in medicine tho. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

I might get it someday, but I will only go to the very best at doing it and want to be sure there is as little risk as possible. It has to be very very very low risk for me to justify it.

[Jimbo]

HDPM,

Right here in my little home town resides one of the worlds best lasik doctors. His name is Dr. Pettigrew, he used to practice in the Caymans before the surgery was approved in the USA. He charges $1500 per eye so he is not cheap. I believe he is one of the early pioneers and always has the latest technology with which to work. About a dozen of my friends have used him and all with resounding success. I suppose I am next since he just told my buddy's wife whose eyes he performed lasik on yesterday that todays methods are as accurate as they will be for probably 10 to 15 more years.

[HDPM]

Might have to head down there and get it. I'll have to get a pool lesson from you first. If I knew how to play and could actually see it would be a big improvement. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

I think 1500/eye is pretty cheap for a doctor who is excellent. I think my health insurance may kick in some to it now also, which they didn't used to do. I know my wife would do it for 3K from an excellent doc. Maybe I'll make her be the guinea pig.

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

Jimbo,

The current issue of Business Week has an article about new advances in laser eye surgery. Here's a piece of it. The whole article is available at businessweek.com but I think you need to be a subscriber.

Now the science of vision measurement and correction is set to push beyond the familiar 20/20 line on eye charts to a benchmark described as "eagle vision." The basis for this shift is a powerful diagnostic technology known as wavefront analysis, which gives doctors a new window into the imperfections of the human eye. Paired with laser vision surgery--and, in time, with implantable, light-tunable lenses--the technology will enable physicians to customize laser treatments, yielding unparalleled results.

Nevertheless, wavefront technology has already sparked a lot of excitement--in part because of purported improvements in quality. Armed with special software, doctors first generate a three-dimensional model, or wavefront map, of the changes they must make to a patient's cornea in order to correct a pattern of defects unique to his or her eye. Then, by positioning the map over the eye and tracing its contours with a laser, they can nullify each of the defects.

So it looks like there will soon be improvements to straight lasik. FWIW, I talked to the opthamology department at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and went through a whole battery of tests only to find out that it probably wasn't worth it for me. My goal was to never need to wear glasses and the doctors told me I'd either have to wear them for near or distance vision.

Chuck

[snakehead]

was there some reason you were not a candidate for monovision (where one eye is corrected for distance and the other for close up)?

[David Ottosen]

I went for it after getting my assessment (and getting it confirmed) that I was an ideal candidate in my late 20s with a bad but not horrific prescription. I went to the Gimbel Eye Clinic which is fairly world renowned and was in the chair a week after I called them (it's their slow season).

They don't sugarcoat it, but it seems like the worst that can happen nowadays is that you have to go in for enhancements or adjustments, which they do for free for the first 18 months following your surgery.

As for government health care, it works for us, I guess. I know I'd rather not worry about it. But I don't believe it applies to LASIK surgery; I think I could have gotten it done cheaper, but my mother had hers done at Gimbel, and both my grandparents had cataracts removed there. I felt pretty confident in their work (:

[andyfox]

I know a lot of people who have had the surgery and most of them have had to go back at least once. Some are happy with the results, others not so.

[davidross]

My wife is considering having it done, and here in Toronto we have a lot of experienced doctors doing it. It has created a price war. I think the lowest I've seen so far is $600 cdn per eye. I think that's about $25 US for you mericans.

[BruceZ]

I still won't have it done. How do we know all these people with their corneas cut won't go blind after 30 years or so? Do we have enough history with this stuff yet? Also, if it doesn't give me 20/20 or better, I'd prefer to wear contacts or glasses anyway rather than sacrifice perfect vision, and I understand that if certain things happen I may not be able to wear contacts anymore, so I'd just be trading contacts for glasses. I also understand that many people see starburst patterns around bright lights which I think would be annoying.