Many acquaintances dating decades back to high school days have gone through LASIK.

They were lucky enough to be happy at first (not everybody is). Long term, they all regretted it.

The statistics agree. I would personally not consider LASIK.

> The statistics agree

Citation? It’s hard to find independent studies on LASIK since it’s big business, which is indeed a good cause for suspicion, but every follow-up survey I can find indicates net satisfaction in the 80-90+% range after 20 years, and the technology has massively improved so I’d expect the rate to go up even more over time.

If we’re doing anecdotes, my father got very early LASIK and is extremely happy he did, over 20 years later his vision is just starting to degrade again and he had only extremely minor halo issues (which are also less prevalent today due to the use of lasers instead of a knife to cut the eye open, leading to less scarring).

I’ve been considering laser eye surgery soon and it seems that all available technologies are decent. Based on my survey, SMILE>PRK>LASIK in terms of outcomes and risk, but SMILE works on a much more limited range of eye issues and PRK requires a somewhat lengthy and uncomfortable recovery period requiring time off work and caretaker support, so LASIK is still a good fallback option.

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SoftTalker 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I know only two people who've had LASIK and they both had not-so-great results.

One had severe "dry eye" feeling (described as "sand in my eyes") for a long time and needed to use drops.

The other had distorted vision and needed multiple follow-up "corrections."

I'm staying with contacts and glasses, personally.

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ajford 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

LASIK is well known to only be a short to mid-term solution. The eyes age like the rest of you, and any correction will eventually be outpaced by the natural weakening of your ocular muscles to the point where you can no longer pull focus and require glasses. Further correction is possible, but from what I remember being told by my doctor and my own reading, the bounce-back from the surgery is rougher as you age.

I know a few folks from college who got it done and a bit over decade later they're going strong. My own surgery is just about hitting a decade (couple of months shy). That said, I have a family friend who had bladed LASIK done in their 50s (late 2000s) and their outcome was bad with total loss of sight in the affected eye. The result on their other eye was barely an improvement but plenty of scarring lead to halos and starbursts.

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jonplackett 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What went wrong and in what timeframe?

	▲	zdragnar 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'm not who you asked, but my family and one of my friends were all the same. My mom sees halos around lights at night, so much so that she can't drive after sunset. Her eyes are so dry that she gets plugs inserted into her tear ducts to help retain moisture. My friend who had it done also has severe dry eyes, to the point that he constantly uses eye drops. In all four cases I know of, the good vision only lasted a few years. Eventually, glasses will be needed again to keep 20/20 vision.
	▲	rtkwe 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's pretty common for your vision to revert somewhat back to needing glasses over the span of a couple years. Usually it's still better than it was but often natural aging and a bit of regression combined means you still wind up needing glasses. Took my friend about 5 years until he started needing some corrective lenses again.