Laser eye surgery not so great after all?

[Terralthra]

I was considering LASIK for a long time. I was wearing contacts, just waiting for my eyes to stabilize: they just seemed to keep getting worse, I had chronic eye fatigue. Then I switched optometrists, and was finally correctly diagnosed. I had had esophoria for basically my entire adult life, and the eye fatigue was due to that, not due to worsening myopia. Even if I got LASIK, and it put my eyes at 20/20, I'd still need glasses.

So, massive waste of money, says I.

My friend who had LASIK done is happy with his vision, though. Highly individualized results, I guess.

[Broomstick]

Thanks for posting this article Mike. I'm also contemplating Laser Eye Surgery at the moment, and was wondering what the long term side affects are. Olrik, Broomstick, do you guys have any useful links that I can use for further reading? Or anyone else for that matter?

Here is the FDA site on LASIK, which includes a page listing contraindications and a checklist of items you should go over thoroughly prior to surgery.

There used to be a site called Surgical Eyes started by people with bad outcomes from all sorts of refractive surgery, but they are undergoing a major reworking. Nonetheless, I include their site, Vision Surgery Rehab Network as it gives some very explicit accounts of how badly wrong this surgery can go. Please remember that bad outcomes are a minority of patients, and from what I've read a significant number of these people were poor candidates who should not have had surgery in the first place - if nothing else it will encourage to very thoroughly research this decision.