<p>D1 has been in glasses from a very young age, and her most recent exam showed a power of about -9.5 in both eyes and also astigmatism. One of my coworkers commented that both he and his wife had quite bad eyes and have never regretted the surgical option. I’ve heard good like this, and bad as well - one person commented she has problems with opposing traffic at night while another said her power kept shifting, but my sample is very small. I’d love to hear from anyone who is better informed. We may perhaps decide to look further if she’s a candidate based on our research. I also assume, like everything else, there’s a wide range of services, perhaps different types of surgeries with their risk/rewards, and of course a wide range of prices, and I’m not sure where to start.</p>
<p>S1 had LASIK surgery when he was 21. I think there is a minimum age for having the surgery. It might be 21,not sure. S has been very pleased with the results of the surgery (2 years later) and has no regrets.</p>
<p>BIL is opthomological surgeon; he believe minimum age is about 24. He recommends going to the eye clinic at major university hospital–the kind of place that fixes eyes when others’ surgeries don’t work out. If they say you are not a good candidate (as they told me), don’t go to one of the commercial/high volume places that will do it anyway.</p>
<p>There have been several threads on this in the past (although not a lot of discussion of the age, more parents considering it):</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1074234-lasik-surgery.html?highlight=lasik[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1074234-lasik-surgery.html?highlight=lasik</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/828378-what-expect-after-lasik-surgery.html?highlight=lasik[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/828378-what-expect-after-lasik-surgery.html?highlight=lasik</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/410852-lasik.html?highlight=lasik[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/410852-lasik.html?highlight=lasik</a></p>
<p>I had LASIK in 2002. I had very bad vision…very bad astigmatism.</p>
<p>The surgery went very well…I don’t need glasses/contacts anymore for regular things…driving, etc…</p>
<p>However, it doesn’t correct “the over 40 reading issue”…so I do keep reading glasses on hand.</p>
<p>I, too, was very nearsighted. I needed glasses for everything EXCEPT eating and reading and would have to remove my glasses for those activities so my glasses were on and off, on and off all day. A major pain! I tried contacts but they didn’t work for me and I really disliked wearing glasses all the time.</p>
<p>I had lasik in 2003 just on one eye and it’s the best thing I ever did! I’m in my late 50s and I do wear reading glasses (just the cheap drugstore magnifiers) much of the time when reading and have recently started to wear glasses at night when driving (my doctor told me I would need to do that at some point) but most of the time . . . no glasses! </p>
<p>I was VERY careful where I went to have it done (I have friends who went to the high-volume places and have had problems)</p>
<p>I am very nearsighted, more so than your D. I wish I could have good vision, but I am not willing to take the chance, no matter how small, with Lasik. I have learned to cope very well with contacts and glasses. It seems the amount of people who have a problem after the surgery is very small, but with my vision as bad as it is, I don’t want to make it any worse.</p>
<p>I am always happy to read success stories, but for me I am not willing to risk what I have.</p>
<p>D1 had it done at 22 years of age. I was under the impression it was more about how long your eyes have stabilized, meaning you have to not have had a prescription change for a certain number of years. So if at age 25, your prescription is still changing (albeit slowly) they will wait until it stays the same for at least a couple of years.</p>
<p>D2 is very, very pleased with hers. She does have dry eyes, but she also had those before surgery due to always having contacts in (she was probably around a -8.0 or -8.5). Her surgeon has done literally thousands of them. He says the worst thing that could happen is someone would need an eye transplant, but none of his tens of thousands of patients have ever needed that.</p>
<p>DH is an ophthalmologist. Above poster is correct - rx needs to be “stable” before having the surgery. In girls this is usually around 18 - later for boys. My husband has the same rx as your daughter. He has not had the surgery because he feels it is critical for him to have the “perfect” vision he now enjoys with contacts to be able to operate. He is going to let our 19 yo son and 16 yo daughter have it when there vision has stabalized. His brother and my sister have both had it and are glad they did. Do go for quality over price when picking your ophthalmologist (my DH does not perform vision correcting surgery).</p>
<p>I had it done in 1999. My eyes were getting so bad that I was told contacts would soon not be able to correct them and I have seriously bad luck with glasses. So I went to the same guy who did Tiger Woods and a lot of the Redskins. In and out in no time and even with the drops in I could see better than I had in years. Since then, I’ve had a little regression but only to the point where I need glasses for low light situations – like a 3-D movie where I wear the plastic glasses over my own. Thank God it’s dark in there!</p>
<p>What they had me do is not wear my contact for several months (6?) prior to the surgery to let my eyes return to their natural shape. Apparently some contacts act like retainers. </p>
<p>If you like to snorkel, visit the beach, ski, or anything else where getting a bit of grit in a contact-occupied eye is a worse than usual situation, consider LASIK. I will be signing my D up for it as soon as she can because she does most of those things, and swimming too.</p>
<p>novelisto - I think most surgeons now recommend not wearing the contacts for about a week now, prior to surgery.</p>
<p>This is interesting since DS2 is -4.0. I had also heard that the worse your eyes were the longer you should wait (ie the range from 18-24).</p>
<p>DS2 says ‘no way’ right now. He’s happy with his contacts, but he’s only 15. Maybe his view will change and that can be his gift for college graduation :-).</p>
<p>I want to do this, too. My combination of nearsightedness and astigmatism is such that my contacts don’t provide the clarity I want. But I will only do it one eye at a time with a decent interval between the two. I don’t know how providers will feel about that.</p>
<p>I had LASIK about ten years ago. (I was startled to realize this.)</p>
<p>It was life-changing. I can travel without taking two spare pairs of glasses. I can wake up in the middle of the night without wondering where my glasses are.</p>
<p>I’d never liked hiking or going on boats–after the LASIK I realized that my problem with hiking was my glasses (always sliding up or down or falling off or fogging up) and my problem with boats was my astigmatism. </p>
<p>I’d thought my vision issues were trivial. I mean, so what if your glasses fog up and contacts make your eyes hurt? Not a big deal, right? It turned out it was a big deal. Not having astigmatism meant I could join my husband when he went scuba diving, and not needing glasses meant I could find a snorkel mask that fit right… and so I learned to snorkel and then scuba dive, which I love. Not needing glasses has made bicycling much more pleasurable. I like hiking and walk regularly regardless of the weather. I read more.</p>
<p>Yes, I still need reading glasses–but they are simple magnifiers and non-prescription. Part of the impetus for LASIK was that I had just started needing bifocals… and I couldn’t walk in them, so I was carrying two pairs of glasses, one for distance, one for reading. I kept a third pair next to the computer, set for that distance. It was maddening. </p>
<p>I went to a LASIK specialist who had done 14000 procedures and kept careful records of his complication rate. His disclosure on complications was seven pages long and included his rate and the average rate.</p>
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<p>I’ve known people who have done it this way. It’s the only way I would do it. I would want to make sure there were no complications with the first eye before proceeding with the second one. </p>
<p>Recently I was at the drugstore looking for eye drops because my eyes have been dry from indoor heating and there, on the shelf at Walgreens, were eye drops labeled ‘especially to treat dry eyes from Lasik surgery’. Evidently, it can be a real and chronic problem for some Lasik patients.</p>
<p>Dmd77 – Eyesight <em>is</em> destiny. I never liked any games with throwing or catching when I was a kid. A) breaking my glasses was so not an option when my mom was squeezing every penny and b) I couldn’t see the bloody thing when it came at me which did not make me a popular player. Now, though I’ll never be an athlete, I can throw a ball and catch it, getting pretty good at frisbee, and can ride a bike without worrying about my glasses falling off or getting dust or grit in my eyes or losing my contacts. </p>
<p>Not to mention that my DH is thrilled that he no longer has to get on hands and knees to search for those little bits of plastic!</p>