Getting LASIK never made sense to me given the risks.

Essentially, take a very very low risk of permanent eye problems to not have to wear contact lenses.

I'd rather pay for contact lenses forever, put them in, and take them out every day than risk anything to my vision.

Obviously contacts have risks as well but infinitesimal if used correctly.

Risks for both contact lenses and LASIK are incredibly low, but with that said strictly from a quantitative perspective, contact lenses carry a higher risk of permanent vision loss than LASIK. The issue is that the risk of LASIK is almost entirely front-loaded whereas the risk from contact lenses causing an infection that results in significant to total loss of vision accumulates little by little.

	▲	noisem4ker 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Including daily disposable contact lenses?
	▲	fsckboy 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		does it actually accumulate (memory), or is it a Poisson process where if you go a day with good luck, you start fresh for the next and every day, same unaccumulated risk?

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

Exactly the opposite for me. I would never tolerate contacts and hated wearing glasses too. I had Lasik, 18 years ago now, and absolutely glad I did.

For me the only significant downside is dry eyes (it damages the nerves that sense dryness so you don't produce as many tears), but that's manageable with eyedrops. I do notice my night vision getting slightly worse now in my late forties, but hard to tell if that actually had anything to do with Lasik or if it's just normal aging. No problems with driving at night yet, and eye exams tell me everything is normal.

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

> I'd rather pay for contact lenses forever, put them in, and take them out every day than risk anything to my vision

Same same same. Soft contacts are pretty freaking great in the grand scheme of things -- go read contemporary accounts of what it was like to suffer from severe myopia even just 50 years ago. The hype surrounding LASIK when there is a cheaper, non-invasive, lower risk, minimally inconvenient and widely available alternative never made an ounce of sense to me.

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odie5533 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm a candidate for LASIK. The upside would be I don't have to wear glasses. But that's just not that big of an upside given the risks.

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

My eyes are naturally about diopter 12.

I found the risk/reward ratio of surgery* acceptable.

* Lasik is only used up to about diopter 6ish; I had ICL surgery.

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j45 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Permanent changes can't be undone for newer advances and options that come out in the next 30-50 years.

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IAmBroom 4 days ago | parent [-]

That's an advantage of ICL over Lasik: the surgery is minimally invasive, and completely reversible (assuming no catastrophic accidents during surgery itself).

A 3mm-long slit is made at the very edge of your iris, and the lens is inserted, then unfurled in place. Reversing it involves pulling the little sucker back out, easy-peasy. I've had that done, during cataract surgery.

It's not risk-free, but it's ostensibly MUCH safer than Lasik. We don't have enough data to make that a stronger certainty, though.

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j45 4 days ago | parent [-]

Sweet, thanks for the name of it, when I was learning more about it, I was trying to think of what this was called. I'm surprised it isn't more common like PSK/Lasik.

There's some interesting Infrared/LED light stuff coming out about eyesight repair too.

	▲	IAmBroom 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		For one, the US only legalized ICL surgery in the 2000s. Lasik had a big headstart.

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someuser2345 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, not to mention that LASIK will degrade over time.