One other caution. Do make sure that your eye pressure is o.k. before you try Lasik. Incipient or actual glaucoma is a violent "No, no!" for this procedure. If you are dumb enough to try it, you run the very strong risk of blowing your vision to Hell and gone. I've worn glasses since I was in the fourth grade, and that was a loonnngggg time ago. I would love to do without glasses. I don't even wear contacts because of eye irritation in our lousy air down thisaway. I was saving money up for the procedure when my opthamologist, who was a pioneer in karatotomy checked my eye pressure one day and about lost it. My glaucoma is under good control not and my vision is as good as it will ever get but my dreams of reshaped eyeballs are gone for good. Sigh!

If you want to watch a video of the entire procedure for both eyes, with no editing, go here and click on video:

http://www.eyetechlasik.com

The entire procedure takes around 11 minutes for both eyes, so invest 11 minutes and check it out.

Until I turned 43 years old I had 20/10 (left) and 20/13 (right) vision. Light many pilots I was a compensated hyperope. That means I was naturally far sighted, but my eyes compensated for close vision.

I now wear bifocals. The bottom lens is for close work and reading. The top lens is for middle distance because I only see things sharply with my uncorrected vision from 50 yards on out.

I thought glasses were going to be a total pain in the ass. I feel differently now. They do fog on occaision. They do protect my eyes also. God bless Ben Franklin.

I think there is a lot of value to the procedure if your eyes are a mess to start with. The secret is in carefully selecting your surgeon. I would try to avoid the ones who are trying to make a gazillion bucks a year, and have the fancy radio and TV adds. A good (and smart) surgeon will tell you exactly what type of a candidate you are, and what the expectations are for an outcome.

If you are a myope (near sighted), and don't have a huge amount of astigmatism (irregularities in the surface of your cornea), I would recommend taking a look at having the procedure done.

If you are a hyperope I would wait another few years until there is enough experience with surgeons correcting that problem.

In about five years there will be a new procedure available that will allow your eyes to accomodate again. That is one I will definitely be doing.

JCN

I had the procedure done in February of this year, 9 months ago.

My vision now is 20/20. My vision with contacts before was 20/20. My vision was better before the surgery. Here is why.

After the surgery, I noticed a BIG floater in my right eye, and numerous floaters in both eyes. Now, being a nearsighted person, I have had floaters since about 21 at least, so I knew what they were. When out duck hunting, or looking at a white wall, etc., I would notice a few spots and hair like things floating in my vision (maybe 4 or 5 in each eye). We even talked about it duck hunting when things got dull and looked for them, so I had a pretty good idea of what was int here. Well, after my surgery, I had ALOT more. Like amybe 30 in each eye (pretty much impossible to count, too many and too mobile). My surgeon and his co-surgeon say there is no way these could have been caused by the surgery, but both 2nd opinion docs I have saw since said though it is rare and not a "proven" complication of the surgery, putting a suction ring on your eye for up to a minute and raising your internal eye pressure to 60-100 (it is typically around 20 or below) could possibly casue breakdown of the vitreous gel in you eye and lead to some Posterior Virteous Detachment and floaters. Well, I did a 2 eye experiment, and for me I have no doubt. Now, I see a ton of these things moving in my vision at all times, and in many light conditions, almost worse at dawn and dusk. Inside under flourescent lighting, I see them move as clear chunks, almost like chunks of plastic are floating there, distorting light and calling glare. Gives me headaches.

As for "typical" LASIK complications, I had wavefront LASIK, and in my left eye my "higher order abberations" (the problems wavefront tries to fix) are twice as high as before the surgery, while in my right eye they are the same. I see a slight double image in my left eye at night, particularly with green and blue light, and kind of a wierd starburst off lights in the distance. I don't really have dry eyes, but I do have a reduced tear output, which sometimes makes my tear film get too oily, or my eyes a bit dry, blurring my vision and causing glare. I used to have to blink to clear my contacts sometimes, now I have to blink more to clear my tear film.

If I honestly look back on what I had before, I would have stayed with contacts for sure. If I could not have had contacts, I would have to think about it. I am a person that HATED wearing glasses, so if I had went from glasses to what I have now, both had their positives and negatives.