Common LASIK Misconceptions

I spend a lot of my time answering questions about LASIK. That's fine...I'm the guy to ask! I'm not a surgeon, but we comanage LASIK and I actually had LASIK in March of 2007.

I've blogged about this before, but occasionally its okay to re-blog, right?

The big misconception that I most often hear from patients about LASIK is...for whatever reason they're unhappy with their CORRECTED vision and they think that LASIK will make them see *BETTER* than they've ever seen before. This is just simply not true. Most people see about the same after LASIK as they did through their best glasses Rx. LASIK just removes refractive error. That's it. If your retinal receptor spacing is such that you've "never" had clear vision (or vision that you're satisfied with), even with brand new glasses & contacts on...you will also not have clear vision after LASIK. It will likely be the SAME vision, and it could be WORSE. My vision is actually *very slightly* worse after LASIK than it was before (through my best set of glasses). It is most certainly not better. I'm okay with that because I knew that was a possibility, and the convenience of not having glasses or uncomfortable contacts was worth it to me. But for people whose MAIN GOAL & desire is to SEE BETTER than they've ever seen through glasses...LASIK is not the answer. There probably isn't an answer.

The other big LASIK misconception is that LASIK permanently makes you glasses-free. This is not true because eventually (after 40) everyone needs some form of reading correction because of presbyopia.

And lastly, LASIK does not fix anything other than refractive error. If you see blurry because of amblyopia, cataracts, macular degeneration, etc etc etc...LASIK will not help you.

Comments

  1. What do you think about SMILE. Would you choose LASIK or SMILE?
    Do the complication happen often?
    I know that you have LASIK but if i am not wrong you do not perform operation, so you don't need perfect vision to do your work. in case something went wrong you still can practice medicine.
    Would you do LASIk if you would be eye surgeon?

    ReplyDelete
  2. well SMILE is not commercially available yet so none of us have any experiences with it. it sounds great ON PAPER but really nobody knows yet. and yes, I know many surgeons who have had LASIK. it's very safe

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. rly? in Europe SMILE is from 3-4 years right know

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