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Topic: Laser surgery; effects on moviegoing
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 07-22-2007 11:47 PM
I had this chat with my optodoc just a couple of weeks ago. For people like us, Brad's concern is an obvious one. I also fly at night, which the same issues would effect.
Lasic will treat your near/farsighted conditions. As Paul indicates, laser cutting makes it less likely you'll have problems, but that's not guaranteed.
Lasik won't do anything at all about presbyopia, the "post-40" tendency to have near-focusing problems. You'll have great far-vision, but you'll need simple magnifying 'readers' as you grow older.
My wife and oldest daughter had terrible vision. They both had lasic & have been generally satisfied. Cindy (my wife) never had great depth perception, and avoided night driving. She still does. The procedure seems to have worked better for Cheryl. Some 5 or 6 years later, both are considering "touch-up" procedures.
Based on that, I've stayed with contacts and progressive specs. Even though my case is a relatively mild one, I'm still dealing with paranoias about a hack doctor screwing up my eyesight permanently, and that means bye-bye to being able to focus a screen from 250 feet away, not to mention putting a serious dent in flying.
In any case, I'd still need readers, having crossed over to "that" age group! ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!
Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 07-23-2007 01:20 AM
As an alternative to surgery, I suggest looking into vision therapy. It has worked great for me.
I've always had pretty good vision - 20/20 near and 20/15 distant accuity when I was younger. In my mid-twenties I noticed a difference developing between my eyes - the left one beginning to go soft at distance compared to the right one. Enough so that when flying and looking down at a runway, the right eye could see the centerline paint stripe, the left one could not. Turned out the left one had slowly slipped to about 20/25 distant while the right one was hanging in there at 20/15.
Surgery was out of the question at the time (early 1980's) since neither the FAA nor the airlines were down with that, and I was an active professional pilot at the time. An article in ALPA Pilot magazine put me on to vision therapy. In 1985 I began doing the therapy regimin after my FAA medical examiner told me he wouldn't be able to sign off on my vision to first- or second-class standards anymore unless I started wearing glasses. Pilot hiring has always been extremely competitive - wearing glasses would not have been disqualifying, but it would be a mark against me compared with other younger candidates.
By then I was living in SoCal and was able to find a local behavioral vision therapist to work with. The therapy consists of office visits for evaluation and the beginning of eye exercises and feedback - at first these visits were weekly, then dropped off to once every six months. In addition to the office visits there's lots of different home exercises, plus wearing training lenses when doing these exercices or when doing extended periods of close work like studying.
The results were pretty good. When my next six-month FAA medical exam came up I was able to breeze through the eye exams without any struggling. My doc wanted to know what I had done and I told him about the vision therapy. I continued to do the therapy thing, mostly at home, right up until I stopped flying altogether in 1995. I was 40 at that point and still had 20/20 near and 20/15 distant accuity without glasses.
I'm 52 now and still wear the training lenses for reading and close work. The only difference now is that I sometimes need the lenses for close work, whereas before I could do without. Other than that, I still don't need or use glasses.
The vision therapy approach worked for me. It's a lot cheaper and a lot less risky than any surgical procedure, even the non-invasive ones. Here's a link to read up on vision therapy and finding a local behavioral vision therapist:
The College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD)
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Will Kutler
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1506
From: Tucson, AZ, USA
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 07-23-2007 03:05 AM
I have had LASIK, and how has it changed my life!!!!! I wore glasses since the 1'st grade, as I had severe Myopia and Astigmatism. My eyes were to the point where glass lenses were literally Coke bottle bottoms, and I could not keep frames with glass lenses on my face without a Geek Strap!
I currently do not need glasses to function, but do have a very slight Rx that sharpens up my vision.
I was also able to have one of the BEST physicians perform my LASIK, a person whom my family has known for many, many years...Jeffrey Katz, M.D., F.A.C.S. of the Eye Institute of Southern Arizona http://eyeinstituteofaz.com/Meet_Doctors.php
As with any surgery, complications can arise. The WIKIPEDIA article on LASIK is pretty good. Luckily, except for dry eyes, I have had no complications and my "flaps" healed perfectly. Dry eyes are cared for by using over-the-counter eye drops.
As I said, as with any surgery, complications can arise. There have been some well publicized cases where airline pilots careers have been ruined due to complications....such as halos or starbursts around light sources at night.
It has been more than half a decade since my LASIK, and the slight Rx that I require has stayed constant.
Regards
Kutler
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David Stambaugh
Film God
Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 07-23-2007 11:59 AM
I've worn gas-permeable contacts for about 20 years, regular hard contacts before that. When I had a consultation with these doctors about laser and implants, I found out I would have to stop wearing the contacts for a long time in order to permit an accurate refraction prior to surgery. I've been wearing glasses, no contacts, for like 10 months now and I'm really getting tired of them. ![[thumbsdown]](graemlins/thumbsdown.gif) I need to shit or get off the pot with regard to having the surgery done.
Anyway when I had the consultation they sent me home with a whole bunch of reading material about the benefits and risks. They've got the procedure down pretty well now and risks are minimal, but not zero. They also say flat out that if you expect a perfect outcome, you probably shouldn't have the procedure. By "perfect" they mean you expect 20/20 or better and never need glasses for anything again and don't have halos, etc.
Google it, you'll find a lot of forums etc. with patient experiences. Some are scary, most are favorable.
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