It's a Smoke & Mirrors "FOR PROFIT" Operation, and Results Are Greatly Skewed~BEWARE!!

Initially, I had excellent results! Everything went according to plan. 'Til it didn't....

I was an excellent candidate. Excellent cornea thickness, nice sized pupils, no dryness issues, stable scripts, and only 29 years old, and in good health. Was told from the script they use that side effects are "rare" and "treatable". (< you will hear these terms repeated often if you start asking hard questions. This is a lie!!)

I initially had excellent results and had never seen better before in my life than "initially" after lasik. I was -2.5 & -2.75 and 1 eye had a very slight astigmatism that was easily fitted with a regular Toric soft contact lens. My cornea health and thickness was great so I qualified for the regular cheaper standard lasik procedure, but opted for the more expensive "advanced custom wavefront" because in my research people would get side effects at night from their pupils dilating past the slice line, but the advanced custom wavefront was supposedly a larger corrective area to avoid this, and less cornea removed from the surface so a better heal (all bs marketing I'm sure). I also paid extra for the lifetime enhancement guarantee. At every follow-up they kept asking about dryness and kept seeming SURPRISED that I said no, and would ask "Really? Are you sure? Not ever?" I thought that was weird..but the dryness I was experiencing was so mild it didn't even compare to wearing contacts. I was happy with the results and eagerly looking forward to crystal clear vision for my tattoo career!!
Within a few months afterward, my vision slowly started to regress, in my dominant eye especially. This caused a gradual strain because when my eyes would try to focus on something my dominant eye would take over and make things less clear. It was very annoying, and I knew that I had to wait til the 1 year assessment to see if I qualified for an enhancement. In the meantime, as a tattoo artist, I was getting more and more frustrated. I'd especially notice when trying to do daily things like eyeliner..one side was great but the other I'd have to keep trying.. By the 1 yr follow up my local optometrist informed me that both eyes had regressed, & I now had a larger astigmatism in BOTH eyes than the slight one I had in one eye presurgery. (I'd been told lasik would 100% correct my astigmatism no problem at all, they do it all the time). I then had to book with Lasik MD so that THEY could do my 1 year follow up so they could also see that my vision had regressed (which I think I was charged another $100 for, for them to tell me what I already knew). While there I had an irregular topography (eye photos) and they didn't know why, so they had me go back to the waiting room and put drops in every 30 seconds for about 10 minutes and then redid the images to see if it was just dryness. Normally they'd just ask to see me back in a week but I live far away so that's not easy. It was still irregular, and I was told I qualified for an enhancement because of my new prescription, and that there were many extra risks I could get from the enhancement (while presurgery I was told an enhancement, if ever needed in the future, wasn't even a real surgery because there's no new cut and it's no big deal, just a slight touch-up to the original, so no real risks). Now that I qualified for one I was told about elipithial ingrowth that can happen, and what they have to keep doing to clear your eyes of extra cells if that happens. Basically they reopen the flap, and when they try to put it back down the edges are often "ruffly" from being reopened, and can curl under and continue to grow outward, or inward depending on how the edges re-sit. Sometimes they continue to grow around the pupil area and have to keep getting reopened to keep clearing it out!! I was told to just book the new surgery date, and on that day they would do all my tests again and EITHER reopen for enhancement OR do some kind of B12 drops treatment where they put drops on and shine uv light or something (known as Crosslinking) . The surgeon would just basically wing it on the day of surgery based on my new topography he sees that morning. .........um....WTF!!!!! (No doctor is just going to wing it with my f@#king eyes thank you..)
I said I was NOT comfortable with some surgeon just randomly making that kind of decision with my only set of eyes on surgery morning, without even knowing what was happening with my topography. They tried to push by saying the longer I wait for an enhancement the higher risk it becomes, and they usually like to do it after a few months. Of course I was scared at that point and didn't know how to make the best choice for my eyes, but had an awful feeling about the enhancement or crosslinking options, and wanted to learn more about it...so I went back online and desperately tried to find absolutely any other information I might have missed before.
Out of sheer luck I found a facebook page called LASIK Complications FaceBook Group. I tried to take what I saw there with a grain of salt, but saw story, after story, after story, AFTER STORY of all sorts of awful complications people have had not only following their surgeries, but also after enhancements. And people posting memorials for loved ones after post-lasik suicides, where patients could no longer handle the constant pain they were in, or the loss of being able to provide for their families. These people gain no profit from sharing their experiences, and I took a serious pause to regroup and look at my situation objectively...my script had regressed less than 1 whole point, so was it really worth the risk, even with the eye strain and discomfort while drawing at work? I decided to wait and consider maybe going back to contacts instead. Some of these patients have fluctuating prescriptions where they have sever different eyeglasses they trade off during the day, and no hope of correction. Others spends thousands upon thousands getting fitted for hard custom saline-filled scleral lenses that cover the entire eye surface....does that sound better than soft contacts? I think not!! But they can no longer achieve vision with regular lenses.

At about the 1.5 year mark post-surgery I was using eyedrops increasingly and seeming to go through them very fast. I was buying from costco or stocking up on multi-packs. I was at the point I had to have them on my night stand and most mornings or in the night would have to reach for the bottle with eyes closed and try to open my eyes enough to get a drop in each so they could even move around and open.. :( Finally one day when I realized I had a bottle of Refresh Tears in nearly every room I occupy on a daily basis I went to the optometrist to see what I could have for options of reducing the strain, correcting my vision and getting ahead of the dryness. He started me on some preservative-free drops right away ($39), and when those weren't enough tried gel drops ($52) as well as 10 minutes every morning and evening warm eye compresses (eye mask $40, but diy one was better). I now use both drops (about $100 or more per month, plus eye dr visit costs) and am on high doses of Omega 3 fish oil. I would love to be able to just throw in a set of plain old soft contact lenses and suddenly have perfect vision.. But guess what..my NEW eyes have such a great astigmatism in BOTH of them now that my optometrist had to special order some (uncomfortable) trial lenses, because he didn't have any in stock that would be FLAT ENOUGH for my new eye shapes!! :'( And even with them in they don't correct the increasing issues I'm noticing around lights at night, little spear like protrusions orbing outward as an obstruction. Driving through a windy mountain range my eyes became so strained and tired from the oncoming light and strain that I couldn't identify a safe area on the side of the road to be able to pull over safely to even switch drivers!!!! So scary, and I will be sure to not be in a situation like that again now that I know my effects are increasing in those ways, and now have those limitations.. But wait!! What about the "advanced" surgery I had having an increased larger corrective area than my pupil?? Well, after desperately trying to obtain my records from the lasik clinic I finally received PART of them, that shows, guess what....the corrective area is smaller than the measured width of my pupils...................................................!!!!!! :o GAHHHHH!!! I literally sat down with the surgeon before doing the procedure where he assured me face to face that my pupils were not an issue and that the corrective area was larger. It is even mentioned in the notes of my paperwork. I am living in constant fear of when my career might be compromised or terminated from this awful ELECTIVE choice I made.. :(

On the facebook support page I was lucky enough to find I even saw the story of another girl only 1 province over who had an enhancement soon after surgery, and several others, followed by corneal detachment, pupil death in one eye, constant unrelenting pain, people at work calling her names like cyclops and other hurtful things, and eventually she made the awful choice to have her eye REMOVED for a chance at pain relief!!! :o :'( There are other stories of people who had absolutely perfect vision with 5 or ever 10 years, and then suddenly all the irreversible post-lasik issues started. The very small window of elated vision you MAY (or may not!!) get is just NOT worth it!! There are over 5000 members on that page, and the stories are absolutely heartbreaking! And even the man in charge of the original FDA approval of this surgery was lied to, and is now a strong advocate for BANNING this surgery.

So NO!! I absolutely do NOT recommend this surgery, or any other so called "new and improved" surgery they market every few years to make you think you're getting something more advanced. The procedure itself is flawed, and there is NO safe corrective incision slicing through all of your delicate nerves that can be made for vision correction. PERIOD!! If you can not handle the feeling of an inside out contact lens 1 point below your prescription in your dominant eye, left in for days on end with no removing for brief relief, and another of perhaps slightly better inside out in your other eye, then this surgery is not right for you!! Or anyone you care about..

Sincerely,
~Nearly 'perfect' vision, but still can't #$*%ing see properly!!

PS- please take a long hard look at the clear moon tonight for me...I miss it :(