Just had LASIK. Wow.

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

Jason_G

Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2007
Messages
1,874
Location
Louisiana
I've had to wear lenses of one type or another since I was a freshman in high school, and I recently got the opportunity to have LASIK done for free. I had been thinking about PRK or LASIK for quite a while, but really couldn't afford either, so when the opportunity to have this done came, I felt like I ought to go ahead and do it.

I was -2.50 in both eyes, which is not terrible compared to some folks, but it meant anything past about arm's length was pretty blurry for me, and the blurriness increased with distance. I also had halos around lights at night.

The worst part is that I have eye allergies when it comes to pollen, mold, and other common particulates in the air, and those allergens get trapped on contact lenses, meaning I'd get goopy nasty eye boogers whenever I would wear contacts, and that stringy mucus crap would actually lift my contacts up under my eyelid when I would blink. Also, when aiming a rifle at a distant target that required me to hold my eye open for more than a few seconds, the contact lens would start to dry and haze over. Basically, contacts for me were a total PITA when trying to shoot. I hate wearing glasses, too, even though I know I will eventually have to go back in them.

So, I had the surgery done yesterday, all went well, and at my followup this morning, I had 20/15 in both eyes! I haven't seen this well without lenses since I was a kid. I actually see better now than I did with my prescription lenses.

I even started pulling out all my guns yesterday evening to see how much better of a sight picture I could get than before.

Needless to say, I can't wait to go shooting. It will be the first time I've shot without any sort of corrective lenses since I was a kid.

I can only speak to what my experience has been so far, but as of right now (only one day in), I would do it again in a heartbeat.



Jason
 
My wife's experience was the same. She found a lot more enjoyment shooting after the procedure healed up.
 
I have horrible vision.. always wondered if this would help.

My vision keeps changing for the worse.. every 2 years I have to go in and get a new pair of prescription glasses because I have trouble at 300 yards with iron sights. (I have ~20/400 vision in my right eye, I'm blind as a bat without glasses)

My eye doctor gets frustrated with me because on the last few "better/worse" flips, I'll take about 15 minutes to make up my mind. She goes "you know we're just splitting hairs at this point", and I say "yeah, I do long range shooting - this part of the process is VERY important to me.

I've returned glasses within 2 days of receiving them because of artifacts at the rifle range. (vertical doubling of targets > 300 yards, etc)

Thought a lot about laser surgery.. but I know a guy who had it done and it reverted; leaving him worse off than he was to start. Kind of nervous about it.

Contacts are a no-go for me, right is is too sensitive for them (left has no problem).

Also, contacts aren't "precise" enough for long distance shooting, IMHO.
 
If you don't mind, where did you have it done, We have the Rand eye institute down here in South FL, they are supposed to be right at the top, I am curious as I have heard good and not so good. Also what kind of numbers are we, looking, "no pun intended" at?
 
If you don't mind, where did you have it done, We have the Rand eye institute down here in South FL, they are supposed to be right at the top, I am curious as I have heard good and not so good. Also what kind of numbers are we, looking, "no pun intended" at?
Click to expand...

I don't mind. I had it done at the Steen-Hall Eye Institute. Sorry, i guess I'm not sure what you're asking about as far as numbers.

Jason
 
do a search. there are several threads about lasik over the years as it relates to shooting. not all are good. and you do give up some things with it. overall, my experience has been fantastic though
 
Age seems to factor into the results.
I had it done at age 50, 4 years ago, and it's been great. Had to have a slight enhancement 2 years ago but I go once a year for a checkup for $75-85 and any future enhancements are covered kinda like a warranty.
I need reading glasses but I was at the point of needing them anyway.
I really like being able to hunt in the rain with no foggy drippy glasses sliding down my wet nose.
 
I have thought about it, but I read that I have to wait until my eye sight stops changing to get it done. My eyes are always getting worse, though. If this continues, I will have 1/2 inch thick lenses by the time I'm 30 years old. I cannot see gun sights without glasses unless they have white on them, and even then I can barely see if they're lined up.
 
Switchblade;

Same here. I'm 35 and my prescription is changing fast enough that every 2 years, like clockwork, I have to get a new prescription, or I can't shoot with iron sights accurately past 50 yards.

I like to shoot with iron sights out to *300* yards. So when my groups start opening up and I can't make out a clear target, it's time to go to the eye doctor...
 
Price varies quite a bit by locale and region. You should look for personal recommendations and referrals from folks who had been to that specific doctor.

However, be aware that what you are shopping for is the after-op care. LASIK is usually performed be a LASIK technician who likely does procedures for many doctors...last I checked, there were only 3 in my town.

Another thing to consider. Do you really want to go cheap on a procedure where they are going to take a laser to remove portions of your eye
 
Definitely get a second opinion, my wife's optometrist was pushing her to have Lasik because she was hitting the limits of what contacts could do for her refraction and astigmatism. A second opinion, immediately ruled out Lasik!

He did an ~10 week workup to get her eyes to "rebound" from a lifetime of "leagally blind" without them contacts, before he finally decided he would do PRK (much more invasive and about 10 weeks to full recovery) but the outcome was fantastic she is 20/30 and 20/25 and only needs reading glasses for close work. Lasik would have been a total disaster for her!
 
I have thought about it, but I read that I have to wait until my eye sight stops changing to get it done. My eyes are always getting worse, though. If this continues, I will have 1/2 inch thick lenses by the time I'm 30 years old. I cannot see gun sights without glasses unless they have white on them, and even then I can barely see if they're lined up.
Click to expand...

I'm 32, and my vision was about the same. I could line up night sights in a pinch if I had to, but it would have been more like "get back, while I run away" type of shooting than precision shooting.
do a search. there are several threads about lasik over the years as it relates to shooting. not all are good. and you do give up some things with it. overall, my experience has been fantastic though
Click to expand...
Yep. I weighed the pros and cons, and there are some cons, but I thought it would be a good idea overall, and so far I am very pleased.

These are some of the more major cons that played on my mind before pulling the trigger, and how I ended up justifying the surgery anyway:

  • Dry eyes for a variable length of time post-surgery, possibly chronically.
  • I can deal with dry eyes a whole lot better than that mucus crap that I would get in my eyes from allergens sticking to my contacts. Even if the dryness is chronic, this was not a big price to pay for good vision sans lenses, at least for me. They also can embed little tiny pieces of plastic next to your lacrimal glands to increase tear production if it is that bad.
  • Weakened cornea. It takes about two years for the corneal flap that they make with the laser to fully heal, and even then, it is never going to be as strong as it was pre-surgery.
  • This was probably the biggest mental debate for me, and the reason I was weighing PRK as an alternative. I enjoy being active, and although I really don't play any contact sports, I had been wanting to take up some form of martial arts. I decided I could get some of those protective goggles you see some basketball players wear, if it came to that. Nerdy, but I can deal. This might be a deal breaker for some folks that live in the boxing gym or dojo though.
  • Halos or starbursts around lights, especially at night.
  • I had some haloing anyway, made worse by my contacts, so I figured it couldn't get a whole lot worse. I didn't have any haloing with my glasses, but I would get the reflective glares on the lenses sometimes, which was even more distracting to me. I figured no biggie here.
  • Decreased depth perception at night.
  • This one kind of scared me, but I read it's a fairly rare side effect, so I basically had to roll the dice here. I'm happy to say, I have not noticed any change in my depth perception. My night vision is far better than it was before, but again, I had no idea whether it would be that way going into the surgery.
  • Surgical complications.
  • This is again one of those areas where you have to play the odds, and hope you are in the vast majority that have no complications.
  • The long term prognosis is unknown.
  • Not much to say about that. I figure whatever it is, it's better than being blind, but I read that there could be a small possibility of complications during cataract surgery from previous LASIK surgery.
  • Presbyopia is going to set in regardless of whether you have LASIK or not.
  • I figure, I'm 32, so I ought to get in a good 8-10 years or so of being absolutely lens free before having to pick out some readers, but at least I probably won't need to go to bifocals, which are the bane of most middle aged shooters.

Jason
 
I have been considering that procedure for a few months. How bad should a guy let his eyesight get before taking this step?
Click to expand...

If your prescription is changing every year, I would not do it.

Mine have been stable for about 4 years now. That was one of the biggest reasons I decided to go ahead with it.


Jason
 
I was told to wait as long as possible, as the eye changes every few years and you will need adjustments again in the future. I am ok right now other than reading. My distance is fine, and I do have a slight astigmatism in both, which bother me more with depth perception at night.
As far as money goes I would only go to the best, that's why I looked at The Rand eye institute in Ft lauderdale FL.
 
I am still a bit leery of this procedure. The long term unknown problems that will tend to appear still bother me enough that I am waiting for a while yet. If one can always go 30 years with nothing more than a minor touch up then I will go for it at that point. Might be too cautious but that has served me really well in the past.:) YMMV
 
I had LASIK in 2007 and took a 12 hour concealed carry course 2 days later. I was putting 4 different drops in my eyes at different times and I shot poorly at the time because I was still adjusting to my depth perception changes, but almost 5 years post-op I am doing great, it was one of the best choices I have ever made.
 
Haven't had LASIK, but just got my eyes fixed. I was blind as a bat, -12 in one eye and -9.5 in the other. Between that and the curvature of my cornea, I wasn't a candidate for LASIK. I had a real good optician years ago who was following a study on implantable lenses that she thought would be best for us (her eyes were a tad worse than mine and she refused to do LASIK or PRK). Well it was finally approved about 6 years ago and I got to looking into it a couple of years ago. Had some concerns about it and the lenses approved for use didn't correct for astigmatism.

Ended up doing a clear lens extraction (cataract surgery without the cataracts). WONDERFUL results. Ended up 20/15 in one eye and 20/20 in the other eye. Surgery lasted 10 minutes and I could see as soon as I woke up. Spent about a week sleeping with an eye shield and took drops for about 4 weeks, but that's about it. I had the correction done for distance in both eyes as I was wearing reading glasses with the contacts anyway. Only need them for things up close, arms length is no issue. Pistol sights are fine and I use a reddot and scope on my rifles and haven't noticed an issue with that. Cost was about half of what I expected too. I'd highly recommend it.
 
Some years ago I was in charge of the personnel unit for a small police department (100 sworn authorized max) and regularly dealt with young folks wanting to get into police work. Since our civil service rules specified a particular vision range we'd occasionally recommend that one candidate or other consider corrective surgery for their eyes if they wanted to be considered. We had a few candidates that did just that and one or two of them are still police officers today. I never had to make that choice myself, and have heard of folks that didn't have good outcomes, but it seemed to work out very well for the folks I dealt with.

As always with surgery type stuff, get a second opinion and think long and hard about any potential downsides....
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

D
  • Locked
Has anybody tried Ortho-K or CRT contact lenses?
Replies
3
Views
627
Justin
Justin
wally
  • Locked
Lasik and shooting revisited....
Replies
13
Views
1K
Joey_the_Wolf
J
lionking
  • Locked
Eye care
Replies
21
Views
1K
rpenmanparker
rpenmanparker
S
  • Locked
WOW!! I Just Got New Eyes.
Replies
18
Views
1K
Old Ranger
O
Zaydok Allen
  • Locked
Considering lasik surgery to help sight alignment and focus, share your thoughts please.
2 3
Replies
73
Views
3K
Batty67
Batty67
Back
Top