Considering lasik surgery to help sight alignment and focus, share your thoughts please.

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I have known and see people affected both good and bad by lasik and other eye surgeries. It really comes down to your level of risk tolerance.

Personally, I can't take that risk, as I only have vision in one eye to begin with. That being said, there is a wide variety of competency out there when it comes to the people making and fitting eyeglasses. A good pair will correct your vision to the best possible level, and a bad one will do more harm than good.

Don't get too hard on yourself when it comes to visual acuity, you can overcome so much in your shooting with proper eye wear. Even with vision in just one eye, I can hit the mark with very good accuracy. Find a good eye doctor, and a good optician.
 
there is a wide variety of competency out there when it comes to the people
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For any medical proceedure a "second opinion" is always a very good idea!

As I said earlier, my wife's long term eye doctor was pushing her to do lasik, I had her visit my eye docker and he said no way in about 5 minutes. After a through exam and 3 or 4 months without wearing contacts (glasses only) he agreed her vision was stable enough that he would do the much more invasive PRK. Its been a life changer for her as she was legally blind without glasses before.
 
JohnKSa said:
The one wearing glasses will be able to see items that are up close more clearly than the one with lasik correction.
The person with lasik correction will need reading glasses before the one using glasses will need bifocals.
The person with lasik correction will need more correction for reading/bifocals than the person using glasses.
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This sounds more favorable to me than wearing glasses all the time, which is what I do now. I'd rather be inconvenienced by putting on glasses to read a book than run over a child because I lost my glasses in the woods.

My eye doctor told me he thought I'd be a good candidate for lasik. I think I'm going to schedule an appointment for a consultation and see what they have to say.
 
Be very careful. I know two people who had lasik surgery. They lost significant sight. One had some kind of pebble eyes and should never have had lasik done. Dr. did not see this. I think I heard that cataract surgery was most difficult if you had lasik done. Best check that out and not rush into something. If you are older, consider it well.
 
Did it in 2004/5 when I worked for the government. Retired 06. Not for astigmatism but to correct my vision in general. I researched greatly and found an ophthalmologist who also did other surgeons eyes and chose him. The exam takes longer than the procedure. Painless and quick. The only con I had knowing going into it was my "reading" vision was gonna take a hit. I had better than perfect reading vision. Walmart, Dollar General reading glasses work just fine though I wish they weren't needed. Seems like today's technology might not sacrifice the far-sightedness.

I did everything wrong post-op. Badly wrong. My own fault and stubbornness. Went back next morning and had gone from 20/200 each eye to 20/20. A week later 20/15. Two weeks later 20/10 which is where I am today. Just don't go "low bidder" and you'll have a nice new world before you. Follow the doctor's orders.
 
cowboy77845 said:
Be very careful. I know two people who had lasik surgery. They lost significant sight. One had some kind of pebble eyes and should never have had lasik done. Dr. did not see this. I think I heard that cataract surgery was most difficult if you had lasik done. Best check that out and not rush into something. If you are older, consider it well.
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37 years old. I will consider very carefully.
 
OP, progressives are so good seeing distance and close, that they should be considered. Between sunglasses, safety glasses, reading glasses and cycling glasses I almost always have to be wearing glasses anyway. What good would Lasix be for distance, If I always need to wear glasses anyway. Progressives for close and far vision with light darkening Transition lenses gives me a one pair solution for nearly everything. Progressives are not yucky like bifocals at all. They don’t show and are very easy to use.

Actually I’m going to keep on doing the same thing when I get my cataracts corrected over the next several weeks. I will wear one pair of Progressive Transitions with a planar 0 correction upper region and + reading lower region and the light darkening lenses. For shooting I will have the same thing in a safety frame with colorless Progressive lenses. It just isn’t worth the extra bucks to try to get all the corrections in the replacement interocular lens. I would still need the sunglasses, reading glasses and safety glasses. What would be the point.
 
460Shooter said:
I am getting tired of wearing glasses to see my dang targets, and I'm starting to even have a hard time aligning my sight picture without RX glasses. I shoot a lot of handguns and a lever action and semiauto carbine also.

I know I need eye protection of some sort, so lets skip past the safety talks.

I'm finding glasses really irritating when I have my cheek touching a rifle stock. They just get in the way, but most importantly, if they drop down my nose a bit and I'm looking over the top of them, EVERYTHING becomes blurry. I could still hit a target at 20 yards, but it will be terrible shooting, and not my idea of what I aspire to.

Handgun shooting is a little easier because my glasses are less likely to slide down at all and blur the image.

If you've had lasik surgery, can you share your experience on how it helped or hurt your shooting please. Is this a waste of money?

My eye doctor told me my eyes are unlikely to get much worse in the next few decades. I'm 37 years old and I know some folks who have had it done and have had to do it a second time, and others who have needed no updates.

Let's please skip the gory details of exactly what occurs, and no gross eye surgery pics. I'm weird about my eyes, and I'm trying to get past the mental aspect of what will occur if I do this. Hell I don't even like when snow flakes get near my eyes.

Honestly though, I really just hate being reliant on glasses. I don't mind wearing them, but depending on them is just getting to be not ok in my mind. My close vision is fantastic, but if I have to wear glasses for anything, I'd rather wear them to read than to drive my truck. Bifocals? No thanks...........

What has your experience been?
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What's your Rx? I can tell you the usual experience for those with similar Rx's.
 
One of several reasons why LASIK is beneficial. Startled from a deep sleep with noises inside your home. Anxiety through the roof. Where's the glasses? Grabbed and dropped the glasses. It can happen. Risk aversion works in many ways. When life is at risk, it's normally at distances greater than a book at less than arms length.
 
imashooter said:
One of several reasons why LASIK is beneficial. Startled from a deep sleep with noises inside your home. Anxiety through the roof. Where's the glasses? Grabbed and dropped the glasses. It can happen. Risk aversion works in many ways. When life is at risk, it's normally at distances greater than a book at less than arms length.
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Yep, that's one that occurred to me the other day. I can see well enough without glasses to hit a target in my home, and I live alone so collateral damage is unlikely. But every advantage can be crucial in that situation.
 
imashooter said:
One of several reasons why LASIK is beneficial. Startled from a deep sleep with noises inside your home. Anxiety through the roof. Where's the glasses? Grabbed and dropped the glasses. It can happen. Risk aversion works in many ways. When life is at risk, it's normally at distances greater than a book at less than arms length.
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That's a very good point , one that I hadn't thought of, but it's true. Our noisy cocker spaniel, Ruger (with ears better than I could ever hope to have) has awakened my wife and me on several occasions since I got my eyes fixed. I never reach for my glasses like I used to every time Ruger "alarmed." I just reach for my 1911. Thankfully, it's always just been a coyote, or an owl, or the wind, or a stray cat that knocked something over on the deck, that upset our nervous Ruger dog.:)
 
ATLDave said:
Have you tried contacts?
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Bingo. The most significant question.

Way back in the early '80s when RK (radial keratotomy) for surgical correction of eyesight was fairly new, way before Lasix, my employee health care plan was paying for it. Then we got a notice that after a couple more months it would be considered discretionary and the coverage for the procedure would end. So I decided to decide before the end of the freebie: did I want it or not. It was time to either do it or let it go. I called an ophthalmologist friend I had grown up with and asked his advice. He said his practice wasn't performing the procedure yet, but he was not against it. Then he asked me why I wanted it done. Was I dissatisfied with my contacts? I told him I had never worn contacts, and that I didn't mind wearing regular spectacles. So then he asked me the ultimate question: if I didn't mind wearing spectacles, why would I let someone cut on my eye to avoid it.

'Nuff said. That put an end to that.
 
I finally learned to wear contacts a few years ago (in my late 30's) after years of exclusively wearing glasses, with shooting being the primary motivation. I just didn't want to have to double-layer eyewear or pay huge bucks for wrap-around prescription lenses or fight the issue of having my glasses slide out of alignment with my pupil and sights and etc., etc., etc. I still wear glasses most days, but if I'm going shooting or doing other outdoors/sports stuff, I put in the contacts.
 
ATLDave said:
I finally learned to wear contacts a few years ago (in my late 30's) after years of exclusively wearing glasses, with shooting being the primary motivation. I just didn't want to have to double-layer eyewear or pay huge bucks for wrap-around prescription lenses or fight the issue of having my glasses slide out of alignment with my pupil and sights and etc., etc., etc. I still wear glasses most days, but if I'm going shooting or doing other outdoors/sports stuff, I put in the contacts.
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Contacts aren't going to happen. I'd sooner just deal with the glasses forever.
 
That was my attitude for many years. The idea of touching my eyeball on purpose... I had to work just as hard to overcome my flinch/blink reflex as I did when I was learning to shoot handguns. But it was worth it, to me. There may be many good reasons for you not to do contacts, but don't dismiss them too readily.
 
I sat in my optometrist's office for 2.5 hours learning how to get them in. And for the first month or so, it might take me 30-45 minutes to get them in, and I usually had to get my wife to take them out for me at the end of the day. It was definitely an exercise in sheer stubborn persistence. But I really, really enjoy being able to ditch the glasses for outdoor/sports stuff, including shooting. And being able to buy sunglasses with good lenses without having to pay a million dollars. And being able to leave my glasses at home on vacations. Just as I enjoy being able to go uncorrected most days in the office, with my glasses off and no contacts in for reading on screens and paper.

If I can learn to do it, anyone can.
 
I view my eyes as basically two grapes in my skull that if touched will explode goo and eye juices and I'll be blind forever. I never even thought about lasik before, but when you look at the success of it overall, I am trying to put my squeamishness aside and accept that it's a common procedure now. However, I do not have any desire to touch my eyeball on a regular basis. Honestly I get nauseated thinking about anything coming near my eyes or touching them, or thinking about eye surgery, and the little puff of air typically makes my head snap back about a foot.

Pain isn't a big problem. I've sat through something like 22 hours of tattooing sessions, many of which were over bone and not much meat. But I'm just a big baby about my eyes. It's one of my "isms".
 
I had PRK performed about 6 years ago. My prescription had been stable for years, and was bad enough to warrant the effort. I did not seriously consider LASIK, since I did not fancy the corneal instability that follows.

My results were mixed; I was back in glasses within a year (although my prescription is ~30% of that it once was) and I had significant corneal hazing in one eye that took four/five years to clear up completely. My astigmatism also returned. On the positive side, there is no doubt that my vision is far better than it was.

At the time that I had the surgery performed, I had more than 40+ years of experience with glasses in front of my eyeballs. Once the surgery was done and I no longer needed to wear glasses, I found that having my eyes exposed so completely to wind and dust made me VERY uncomfortable. I actually debated getting zero-correction glasses made, just to get me back to the level of eye protection that I had grown accustomed to having. Moving back to glasses, once it became clear that my prescription was not stable, was actually a relief to me.
 
460Shooter said:
I view my eyes as basically two grapes in my skull that if touched will explode goo and eye juices and I'll be blind forever. I never even thought about lasik before, but when you look at the success of it overall, I am trying to put my squeamishness aside and accept that it's a common procedure now. However, I do not have any desire to touch my eyeball on a regular basis. Honestly I get nauseated thinking about anything coming near my eyes or touching them, or thinking about eye surgery, and the little puff of air typically makes my head snap back about a foot.
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You've pretty much given the same description I gave of myself for 30+ years. I had eye doctors (or their assistants) give up on the gluacoma puff test because I was so flinchy about my eyes. I know exactly how you feel. Do as you see fit, but know that all of that is overcomeable if you decide. I eventually decided to try, and it was worth it. I like having the option to wear contacts. And when my prescription changes, I don't have to go get another expensive procedure... I'll just buy another box of disposable lenses.

Anyway, I'm not trying to talk you into anything, just letting you know that your aversion is not unique or even unreasonable, but that, if you chose to, you could get past it.
 
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