Anyone had laser eye surgery?

[TimberWolf]

Can you elaborate? Painful, or more like the dentist where it doesn't actually hurt but you spend the whole time scared it's about to?

A topical anaesthetic numbs the eye, so no pain is felt during lasering. When this wears off in a couple of hours you may feel some pain for a few hours, but not too much and for too long. With LASIK, a flap is also created and this involves the use of a suction ring and even though your eye is numbed you will feel a great deal of pressure. That is the most unpleasant part of the experience IMO.

[TimberWolf]

Spot on !! Laser surgery is only temporary. So many people seem to think that they will have perfect vision for ever after.

The results are permanent, but the eyes still change with age or disease as normal.

[d000hg]

With LASIK, a flap is also created and this involves the use of a suction ring and even though your eye is numbed you will feel a great deal of pressure. That is the most unpleasant part of the experience IMO.

Reading that on wikipedia made me feel slightly uneasy - especially when it says that when the flap is moved you effectively go blind until they replace it.

[NotAllThere]

Wifey had it done last year - femto-lasik or whatever it's called. She still gets visual distortions like halos at night, and still uses eyedrops, but it's getting better all the time. She had a bout of eye infections early on as well, but none for the last six months. Her eyes are better than 20/20, and she's very happy with the results, no regrets at all.

I, however, shall remain a speccy four-eyes. No way, no how, not ever am I ever ever ever going near laser surgery. The way I look at it - no pain, no pain.

( TBH, if I was going to spend any time in countries where it might be difficult to get replacement glasses, I might consider it. )

Her surgeon reckoned that a really thin flap produces much better results. "They say I'm mad, but I will show them AHAHAHHHHAAAAHHAH", he said at the first consultation. Really.

[TimberWolf]

Reading that on wikipedia made me feel slightly uneasy - especially when it says that when the flap is moved you effectively go blind until they replace it.

Yeah, the cornea does a lot of our focusing. A flap is around 100 microns thick (a fifth of the cornea's thickness) but with Intralase (All LASER LASIK) the flap more closely follows the contour of the eye, so doesn't affect the eyes refractive properties as much as flaps created by the older mechanical blades. The replaced flap only adds a little to the structural strength of the eye though, so I think its worth people knowing about the surface techniques that have become common again. These involve very little tissue (around 16 microns per dioptre) so have less or no long term consequences for the eye. Flaps give little problem too, though they never really heal in the conventional sense and add little to the structural integrity of the eye afterwards.