So glad I didn't go for Lasik

[Zarla]

After reading the terrifying stories on here I am so relieved I didn't go for Lasik or PRK back in 1998. This was when I'd been told by British opticians I'd never wear contact lenses again. I'd actually booked a consultation appointment and then two days before it a little white box containing a pair of zero 6 (I think then they were optima 38) landed on my doorstep from New York. My ideal contact lens would be a new zero 6 every week, if I could afford it! These sites are invaluable for people considering the surgery now with dry eyes.

[Maenad1]

Zarla, I couldn't agree with you more. About five years ago, my eye doctor tried to convince me to get Lasik. I had the measurements taken, the big sales pitch, etc. I had no idea, at the time, that Lasik wasn't a good idea, especially for people like me with a prescription in the -13.00 range. I just knew the very idea of eye surgery gave me the willies, and it was expensive. So I decided to refuse the surgery and stick with contacts. A few years later, the doctor was saying to me, "Well, the current advice is for highly nearsighted people not to get Lasik." I reminded him that he tried to convince me to get it previously, and he said that was the prevailing wisdom at the time. This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence in this doctor's judgment, but at least he's not pushing Lasik on me now. I had always heard Lasik could cause dry eyes, but I had no idea it had done so much damage to so many people.

You are right, this site is a great resource; I'm so glad I found it.

[Lucy]

When I had lasik in January 2000, they were highly advertising the procedure for "up to -14" and the like. I was -9.75 and this didn't look bad compared to -14!! Turns out like you said, they are no longer recommending lasik (and possibly other RS) for such high myopes. I didn't know it, but I was at the edge of it not being a good idea. They also didn't include dry eyes in the informed concent at that time. As my doc says: "we didn't know it then."

Little do people know that "mistakes or accidents" like this can affect their life for a long time to come and in ways they never thought possible. I was found to have cataracts just a little over a year after my lasik. I waited 5 years and had one cataract fixed and because of the prior lasik, it makes fitting the correct strength iol very hard. Instead of the targeted plano to -1.0, I ended up with a -4.3. Half-way back to what I was prior to lasik. Three years after the cataract surgery, I still have the other eye needing the surgery, but I am terrified of what I may get this time. No one ever mentioned these possibilities to me.

Lucy

[Rebecca Petris]

When I had lasik in January 2000, they were highly advertising the procedure for "up to -14" and the like. I was -9.75 and this didn't look bad compared to -14!!

There was a window of time in 2000-2001 (ish) AFTER the post-broadband 3rd-generation excimer lasers had been widely adopted but BEFORE wavefront aberrometry became readily available (...to objectively measure the massive amounts of spherical aberration, i.e. halos/starbursts/bad contrast, being caused in high myopes). During that window many of even the most highly reputed surgeons were going out of their way to court us very high myopes.

Not too many months after my mid 2001 surgery, the AAO came out with a statement that they considered anything over -8.50 (if I remember right) higher risk.