That seems like a long time ago. I had LASIK done in Sept. 2004, and it was pretty good in my right eye. My left eye was the problem - I had a wrinkle in the flap that took some time to go away. Dry eye was a big problem, and I had another procedure done after 7 months on the left eye. At least that time the doc could use the wavefront machine, although my pupil had to be dialated to get the instrument to work. It's only been in the last month or so that I feel like it's all been worth it. Mainly it was the eyedrop Restasis that helped get rid of dry eye.

I feel like I lost about 5 years of good near vision with this procedure. I didn't need bifocals, and could read fine print before. Now it's hard to read a road map without cheaters. The good parts are you can see the bikinis at the beach and no fogged-up glasses while skiing.

 

sorry to hear about your problems with lasik there Spikedog. Was your problems dealing from the doctors skills or a just bad coincidence.

Ivan I had my lasik done 06/03/2004 and I have not looked back. I had what they call the custom lasik done. This is where they take several mappings of your eyes right before the procedure. Once done, they then procede with the best possible and most recent information to do the lasik on your eyes.
This equates to which would you feel safer using a map made ten years ago or one you just pull off of mapquest.

Now I have not had any problems from the surgery. Occasional dry eye but I work in a massmail facility that deals with tons of paperdust. SO I had that before too.
I would recommend getting the best you can afford on the doctor scale as this is something you wanna do cheap.

 

I had the laser surgery done almost 8 years ago and my eye sight is still 20/20. I had a bit of a scare because I got an infection in my left eye. The doctors got the infection cleared up right away and every thing is fine. I had to spend an extra week but that was a small price to pay. I went to a clinic "A" that was 200 miles away insted of the new clinic that was 30 miles away because of the reputation of the doctors in clinic "A". A choice I do not regret. By the way the vision in my left eye is a little better than the right eye.

 

I'm just curious here as to what this procedure costs. I had heard $1500 per eye but the cost was going to go down as the proceedures were refined. Is this true?

 

I think the price is holding at about $1500 per eye. Since it's a cosmetic procedure, the insurance companies don't get involved and therefore it's more of a supply/demand balance. I used a local eye doc for postop, so I got a break from the surgeon - still ended up costing me $3500.

rywegh - I went with the latest technology - laser flap cut and wavefront - but I think I may have had dry eye before the surgery. Wearing glasses cuts down on wind (even like the defrost breeze in the car), so I didn't notice as much.

 

I guess it would depend on how cheap the doctors place was if they were bringing down the price. Yeasterday I was quoted $1500 per eye for the lasik and $2100 for the new wavefront laser. I see coupons in the paper every now and then for $399 a eye but don't know if I would trust those cheap places.

 

You get what you pay for. You don't get new eyes if you mess up the ones you have.

 

Mike my procedure ran $3699.

As the new procedures come out they keep the same rates.

 

How long did it take to recover?

 

What I can say is....go to a University to have the procedure done. While the skill (knowledge) of the Dr. is important, the person who calibrates (maintenance) on the lazer is critical as well as the atospheric conditions the equipment is placed in 9including humidity control). Additionally, the mfg's recommend replacing the "blade" (lazer) every 10 procedures......not all physicans in private practice do this.....University's change their blades more frequently which increases the precision. I would absolutley ask as to when the "blade" was last changed.....even pay extra for an early replacement...cheap insurance.

Now for a little bit of history......
Back in the 1950's Russia and China were both doing surgical vision correction, although done with a surgeons hands. While initial there were tremendous successes, it took 20 years in most cases for the initial failures to show, almost 40 years for the real results to be obtained....which were far from successful. One of the US physicans who traveled several times over several decades to conduct R&D/follow-up was Dr. Clarence Albaugh of Los Angeles. Up through the 1980's, he still would not recommend the procedure for anyone whose vision could be corrected through conventional means.

 

4 hours and I could see. When I woke up the next day All was good.