Zugg Software :: View Entry

Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 6:30 pm

And to see, I'm sure ;)

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 6:19 pm

Zugg How are the eyes 2 months post LASIK? I asked because I just blinked and notices how dry my contacts were. The whole world seemed to refocus. Your blog got to me to considering the procedure.

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 8:13 pm

I actually had my 2-month post-op yesterday. Nothing much has changed in the past month. I still have 20/20+ in my left eye and 20/20- in my right eye. I obviously still need reading glasses for computer and reading work, but I knew that going in. I actually got a pair of prescription computer glasses ordered yesterday just because I spent so much time in front of the computer screen and want to reduce eye-strain as much as possible.

I'm not having any problems at all with "dry eye" or anything like that. I probably only use drops in the morning a couple times a week now. Even without contacts, if your eyes get dry your vision will get blurry. That's when I use the eye drops. But I'm not seeing any difference in the frequency of this from before the surgery to now. But I understand that other Lasik patients do tend to have problems with dry-eye in many cases.

If you are considering having Lasik, go talk to your eye doctor asap. If your eye doctor can't test you for Lasik qualification, then research the Lasik centers around your area and go to them. I think it's important to find one that does the "IntraLase" or total-laser procedure where they cut the initial flap on your cornea with a laser instead of a blade. I also think it's important to find one that does the "custom Lasik" where the laser creates a 3d map of the surface of the eye and uses that to fix the vision. Also find a place that has a lot of experience in Lasik...you might need to shop around a bit. Don't just go for the lowest price.

Any good Lasik center, or even your own Doctor, can perform an "orb scan" to map your cornea to see if you qualify for Lasik. The orb-scan is just a light that you stare at for a few seconds, so it's a trivial test. It determines the thickness of the cornea, which is important to find out if your cornea is thick enough to allow the Lasik procedure to remove a small layer on it.

But finding a Lasik center and doctor that really knows what they are doing and who you are really comfortable with is very important in my opinion. Lasik has become an easy way for certain people to make a lot of money since it's not heavily regulated yet. Your own eye doctor might be able to make a recommendation, but definitely check them out yourself and research them on the Internet.

The difference between wearing contacts and Lasik probably won't be as huge as the difference for me since I was wearing glasses. With contacts you don't have the rims of glasses to worry about and get in the way, and you don't deal with getting your glasses smudged or fogged-up, etc. You might still have dry eyes even after Lasik. They will usually test the quality of your tears as part of the qualification to make sure you don't have excessively dry eyes. The big difference between contacts and Lasik I think will be just that you don't need to worry about taking your contacts off and on, and you'll have good eye-sight at night when you might not normally be wearing the contacts. You might also add up the expense of your current contacts and all of the stuff that goes with them to compare with the cost of Lasik to see how long the "break even" point is from a cost perspective.

Given your location, I expect it to be pretty competitive. I paid $3590 here in Denver for both eyes and all of the pre and post-op visits. And that was for the modern IntraLase custom-cornea procedure. So that gives you a ball-park figure.

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 9:12 pm

Yeah, I think in New York so finding a good place shouldn't be too bad. I've also consider ortho-keratonomy. I believe I'm saying that right. Basically you wear a hard lens at night while you sleep and it designed to reshape your cornea, think pressing a 20/20 vision mold out of the corneal tissue. It doesn't do any permanent damage to eyes. If you stop wearing them, your vision reverts to normal, with maybe a slight improvement. My little brother did this with success. It's almost like braces/retainer for the eyes. You can get to the point where you only sleep in them 2 - 3 nights a weeks and you have perfect vision the rest of the tame.

Of course that has its own ups and downs.

It'll be a while before I actually do it though. I recently decided to get braces. I don't really need them, but it would be beneficial. Plus as my gf put it, if you have the means and insurance why not go ahead and do it. Of course, she's in health care.

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 10:28 pm

Newbie Joined: 27 Nov 2009 Posts: 1

This is a wonderful site related to LASIK SURGERY. I got a lot of information related to these new coming medical therapies. Thanks a ton...
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(Edited by Zugg: Link removed. NOTE: This is NOT a place to advertise places that perform LASIK. This forum thread is ONLY for sharing personal experiences. You get one warning before you get banned from this site.)