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  • From: Jeremy Portzer <jeremyp AT pobox.com>
  • To: jim AT neuse.net, "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: RE: [internetworkers] Lasik Surgery
  • Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 16:41:51 -0400

On Mon, 2004-08-16 at 16:43, Jim Ray wrote:
> A buddy of mine got the surgery and showed
> up at a meeting with reading glasses. I got bifocals recently myself yet
> have entertained the possibility of letting someone laser etch my eyes.
>

As Jan Nichols said, LASIK does not affect "presbyopia" which is what
causes almost everyone to require reading glasses or bifocals starting
about age 35-40. Most people's distance vision problems
(nearsightedness) and astigmatism has stabilized about age 20; so Tarus
shouldn't really need to worry about this changing unless he's a lot
younger than I thought. :-) But of course your own situation may be
different, which is why I'd recommend seeing several optometrists and
getting multiple opinions. Jim, your friend likely needed bifocals
beforehand so LASIK only corrected the distance vision problem.

I'm leaning towards getting LASIK from TLC Laser Eye Center in Raleigh,
but I'm not sure I can really afford it right now, so I might put it off
for that reason. It's going to be about $4300 for both eyes (I'm not
going with the el-cheapo version for sure). I've done quite a lot of
research; the best reading is the patient information booklets provided
by the laser manufacturers. You can download these from
http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/LASIK/lasers.htm .

In my case, one consideration was that my pupils are slightly larger
than normal. This apparently is an issue with some lasers that treat a
smaller portion of the eye; at night when the pupils grow, they could
become larger than the area of the cornea that's been corrected. This
results in distracting haloing effects. TLC uses the "Alcon
Laboratories, Inc. LADARVision® 4000 Excimer Laser System" (see the web
site) which is supposed to have much better results in people with large
pupils.

Note: I also had an eye exam/consultation done by LASIK Plus in
Raleigh. They made no comments about how they were going to address the
fact that I have large pupils, and when I asked about it, they dimissed
my questions condescendingly. "It won't be a problem, don't worry"
doesn't cut it without more information in my book. So I'm definitely
going there if they won't even answer questions in a forthright manner.

Regards,
Jeremy Portzer
(still not sure whether I'll have it done or not)

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