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November 04, 2009
BehindTheMedspeak: Laser eye surgery is NOT a good thing
How strongly do I believe this?
So much so that if Lasik surgery were free I wouldn't get it.
Wait, I'll go even further: I wouldn't get it if you paid me $100,000.
Why?
Very simple: the chance of a disaster, while small, is not zero — and a disaster can permanently destroy your vision.
A complication from Lasik isn't like a bad scar after a cosmetic procedure: it's potentially catastrophic.
I remarked on this subject before, but not in recent years.
I wouldn't even have mentioned it again except that yesterday's Washington Post republished a Consumer Reports survey which sounded like it'd been ghostwritten by an eye surgeon, to wit: "3% said they regretted having the surgery, a very small number considering the side effects."
Huh?
1 in 33 is a "very small number considering side effects," which in "less than 1% ... included problems such as disabling or permanent vision loss?"
Ask Kathy Griffin or Abby Ellin or Virginia Postrel about their Lasik procedures, they'll give you an earful or two.
"Less than 1%," is that 1 in 200?
Would you really pay for something that offered a 199/200 chance of letting you get rid of your glasses with a 1/200 chance of losing your vision?
Not me.
As we say in the locker room, no matter how low the risk of complications, if you have one, your risk is 100%.
November 4, 2009 at 04:01 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Lasik doctors get away with blinding people!!
Posted by: llluuutttt | Nov 6, 2009 1:21:47 PM
I agree. Never risk your vision, especially from this terrible bread of unscrupulous doctors that call themselves LASIK surgeons. More reasons why to stay away from LASIK for the long term damages outweigh the short term benefits:
www.LifeAfterLasik.com
www.LasikComplications.com
www.LasikNewsWire.com
www.LasikAdvisory.com
Posted by: Dean Andrew Kantis | Nov 5, 2009 11:14:31 PM
Thanks, Joe,
How brave of you to extend your advice outside of a professional consultation situation. You may have saved someone from making a great mistake.
Posted by: Kay | Nov 5, 2009 12:56:03 AM
Besides the fact that I don't think I'd recognize myself without glasses, I'm rather risk adverse, when the risk is more or less blindness.
Posted by: Rocketboy | Nov 4, 2009 11:13:14 PM
I had epi-lasik in 2004. I have NO regrets. I paid LOTS more to go to the top surgeon in our area. He has done thousands of procedures. I had 20x425 vision before and have 20x20 now (practically legally blind). I would NEVER go to the places that charge a couple hundred per eye. I paid $1500 per eye and it was worth every penny.
Posted by: Michael | Nov 4, 2009 9:26:55 PM
Oh I can just type any old f*****g thing I want here because this will never make it anyway - oh, the freedom! I'm a driverless truck, a runaway something, I don't know, something that's runaway and gone wild!!!!! Take that, you annoying f*****g damn shi**y comment posting thing! The hell with you, electronic or whatever kind of demonic entity you are!!!
Okay I can't imagine ever wanting to do away with my horrible myopia -- it lets me take out my contacts or take off my glasses and suddenly I'm in my own little world, all cocooned in a warm horizon of vague fuzziness where I can read a book with the page 2 inches from my nose. When I wake up in the morning there's no annoying damn detail assaulting me -- I can't make out faces or anything and the only way I can tell which cat is curled up on me is that one is all black and the has a large-scale pattern. I know nobody gives a sh*t but I just had to extoll the potential virtues of crazy-bad nearsightedness.
One more: Take THAT, and THAT and THAT THAT THAT you stupid brainless comment thing!!!!
Posted by: Flautist | Nov 4, 2009 7:53:08 PM
LOL, the Ads by Google (Lasik), they have no idea what the content was....LOL....
Posted by: Joe Peach | Nov 4, 2009 4:57:17 PM
For those of us that can't do without glasses, these sorts of things are a godsend.
I would take the risk in a heartbeat if I didn't have a disease that creates scarring even under the best of circumstances.
Beyond that, almost all the complications come from the mall doctors. The ones that don't schedule return visits and offer $500 An Eye!@!@! The statistics say stay the hell away from those like nothing, beyond that, don't deal with doctors that rent their machine by the hour. A lot will have a new machine flown in for a day or two and then they go off and do other things for a week or two and then make their quick bucks this way.
The stats aren't bad when you minimize the risk...
Posted by: clifyt | Nov 4, 2009 4:45:43 PM
And THAT, is precisely the reason why I wear contacts and will continue to do so even though lasik exists. I don't want to risk going blind.
Posted by: Milena | Nov 4, 2009 4:42:24 PM
