Pros and contras of Lasik Surgery?

Question

I'm considering to do the Lasik surgery but I will like to know a little bit more about its risks; I'll give 10 points to the best answer

Answer 1

The risks are 'small' but there. Vision impairment wise, you could develop night vision problems, which for some people makes it impossible to drive at night even with glasses. You could experience a decrease in your best corrected visual acuity. In rarer cases, this loss can be drastic. The new cut corneal flap created with the surgery is far more fragile than your cornea otherwise would be, putting you at increased risk of severe damage in the event of eye trauma. Damage from the surgery, rarely, can be severe enough to warrant a corneal transplant.

The most dramatic and life-changing side effect, in my opinion, is the risk of becoming one of the people that the dry eye doesn't go away for. In some cases, the dry eye can be extremely severe. My dry eye is not caused by lasik, but I know many lasik-induced dry eye patients who experience as much or more difficulty with their eyes. Which doesn't sound like a big deal, right? Wrong.

My 'normal' day managing my dry eye involves using eye drops 30 or so times a day and still feeling bone-dry (which adds up, by the way, because preservative free drops cost 10-20$ for a 20 or 30 pack, ie, a day or less supply)- to say nothing of the prescription drops that make the pain so bad you'll want to curl up, washing my eyes, scrubbing my lids, using heated rice bags, using cold bags to help the pain, using painkillers when it gets bad, wearing swim goggles or special moisture chamber glasses all the time, no matter what, consuming my flax supplements in the hopes it might do -something-... every single day, for the rest of my life.. knowing that no matter what I do, no matter how well I take care of my eyes, it's going to hurt... and the pain, well, unless you've had an eye injury you cannot understand how horrific dry eye pain can be. On a good day, it's not so bad- 24/7 burning, dragging lids, feeling like there's sand grating my eyes. On a bad day, on a really bad day when I forget to protect my eyes at night and open them too quickly... well, childbirth is far more gentle and comfortable in levels of pain.

That is the risk. It is not that common. But THAT IS THE RISK. Spending the rest of your life feeling that. Vision loss, if it happens, well, you'd live with that and you'd adjust and you'd move on. But you cannot move on from pain you can never quite control. You cannot 'move on' from spending so much time involved in trying to care for your eyes that you wonder what else there is. You can only 'move on' from the guilt of the fact that YOU let a refractive surgeon do this to you, and forgive yourself. But the rest... you live with it.

Answer 2

As already mentioned by the first poster, one of the most common adverse reactions is dry eyes. I know someone who had this procedure done more than a year ago and she has to regularly use Restastis brand eyedrops. It's a prescription eyedrop that I also use for dry eyes although my condition was not caused by this surgery.