Discussion Anyone ever have their eyes fixed?

[Imaginos]

Has anyone here ever tried LASIK or PRK? How was the result? I doubt I'll get any answers, but I just thought I'd ask anyway.

 

[summers]

Has anyone here ever tried LASIK or PRK? How was the result? I doubt I'll get any answers, but I just thought I'd ask anyway.

Yes, got LASIK, and was the best money I ever spent on myself. My eyes were around -5.5, one with a bad astigmatism. I have perfect 20/20 vision now. Minimal recovery, no night halos.

Wore contacts about 20 years. Couldn't imagine having to wear them even another day.

 

[Imaginos]

My eyes were around -5.5, one with a bad astigmatism. I have perfect 20/20 vision now. Minimal recovery, no night halos.

My eyes are both +5. In my case, I suffer from strabismus in one eye. A few years ago I read up on this stuff and was ready to go through with it, but I had a couple people tell me that someone such as myself with high + prescriptions are basically fucked. I actually had an appointment with a lady at a clinic (not official lasik, but one that still offered it) who told me point blank that there was nothing they could do for me and that I'd basically wasted her time by even bothering to meet with her at all. I also talked with some guy on the r/lasik subreddit who repeatedly said that lasik/PRK for high+ people like me was a recipe for disaster and that I'd only fuck my eyes up if I tried. According to this guy the best I could hope for would be a couple years of solid vision before it went to shit again. He also said that no doctor worth their salt would preform the procedure on anyone above a +4. In the end I gave up convinced that I'd need to wait years for someone like me to get treatment.

In retrospect, I wish I had just gotten the procedure done. Even if my eyesight diminished again after the procedure it still wouldn't be as bad as where I'm at now. Unfortunately, I'm completely agoraphobic so having to set up appointments and crap would be a nightmare. There's so much other crap going on right now with my family that all this is basically going to be on the back burner until at least the end of the year. I just wish I seized my chance to do this back a few years ago instead of giving up, since after looking it up again it's more +7 and +8 people who are the ones who are fucked. Someone like me with +5 should be good to go.

I'm just so fucking sick of wearing glasses. I've worn them ever since I was a young kid and, nowadays, I literally can't see shit without them. I'm just so fucking tired of cleaning them all the time and having to buy new pairs every now and again. Fixing my eyes wouldn't make me less suicidal, but it would at least slightly improve my quality of life. Truth be told, I actually look a lot better with glasses on, aesthetically speaking, so I'd probably still wear them when I went outside, but more as a fashion accessory as opposed to something that I actually need.

My eyes have been fucked since I was like 3 years old. I actually had to undergo surgical eye surgery once when I was 6/7 and then again when I was like 12/13 to prevent my strabismus effected eye from going blind altogether.

 

[summers]

@Imaginos if you want any more info, on the procedure, which doctor I used, etc, pm or dm me. I will put out there, it costs about $3500, and insurance doesn't cover any of that.

 

[Imaginos]

@Imaginos if you want any more info, on the procedure, which doctor I used, etc, pm or dm me. I will put out there, it costs about $3500, and insurance doesn't cover any of that.

Thanks, I'd appreciate it, but unfortunately I don't think it'd help. If only your eyes were similar to my eyes then the info would be a gold mine, but since I'm hyperopic it means an entirely different approach. In my case, I can imagine the procedure will run me about $7000 total, or god forbid even more. The extra challenge for me is that I can't talk with people over the phone on account of my anxiety, nor can I travel anywhere by myself for precisely the same reason. As it stands, I'm basically fucked. I have the money for the procedure, but I have no way to actually set anything up. That's where my mom comes in, but she's currently dealing with the fallout from my father who's slowly dying from ALS and is now living in a care clinic a couple cities away from us. It's times like these where I desperately wish I wasn't so helpless, but sadly I am what I am. And what I am can't do anything like this, or jack shit anything else for the most part.

I can look up all the information I want, but until I actually get into some clinics and get myself examined again, everything else is pretty much moot. Both those people I talked to years ago were talking about shit like replacing my cornea with an artificial implant. A procedure usually reserved for people in their 60s and 70s who suffer from cataracts. The problem with me is that for hyperopes our corneas are very thin. LASIK works for minus prescriptions like yours because your cornea is thicker than it should be and can therefore be shaved down with the laser until it's at a good level. Mine is too thin for that, so it requires special techniques to be employed to achieve the same effect. I'm just confused what it is that can actually be done for me. From the way I understand PRK I shouldn't be eligible for it, but LASIK's main website states that PRK can be used for +5 patients. It's a real mess of information out there.

 

[summers]

@Imaginos Keep in mind, PRK has a recovery period of about a month or so. It's not instant like Lasik. I have also heard recovery from PRK can be painful. Not trying to scare you from the procedure, but I asked about it compared to lasik. The advantage is that since your cornea isn't cut, it is slightly stronger, and able to withstand impacts. Not a huge issue for 99% of people, but athletes, fighters, and pilots all only get PRK.

I'm very sorry to hear about your dad's condition. I wish you and your family the best in these tough times.

 

[Imaginos]

I have also heard recovery from PRK can be painful. Not trying to scare you from the procedure, but I asked about it compared to lasik. The advantage is that since your cornea isn't cut, it is slightly stronger, and able to withstand impacts. Not a huge issue for 99% of people, but athletes, fighters, and pilots all only get PRK.

Interesting. I actually didn't know that. I was under the assumption that PRK was simply the more "advanced" version of lasik and that it was an all around better, albeit more expensive option. I'll admit that I actually don't really care that much between PRK and lasik preferences wise and I've been just sort of using those terms interchangeably here for the sake of just indicating general eye corrective treatment. As long as I get 20/20 vision I'm happy. But that's precisely the problem. For someone with eyes as fucked as mine are, it's very difficult to knew whether or not I actually can have this sort of thing done or not, or whether it would be even worth it to do so in consideration of what the outcome would be. To be honest, I really wish I had a negative prescription instead of a positive one. Negative prescriptions are so much easier to correct versus positive ones like mine. If I had a negative prescription I could get it sorted out in a jiffy just like that. Positive prescriptions carry way more considerations/complications that those with negative prescriptions simply don't have to worry about. It really fucking sucks. Story of my life.

I'm very sorry to hear about your dad's condition. I wish you and your family the best in these tough times.

Well, truth be told, he was never a very nice person, nor was he a very good husband or father figure. He screwed around on my mom with numerous affairs for well over a decade. Right before he came down with ALS he was literally about to sell both me and my mother up the river and runaway with his most recent affair while leaving us with nothing. Be that as it may, I do pity him his condition, but I can't forget the kind of person he was before and the all horrible things he's done. It was only account of the ALS that he finally became a halfway decent person and last year we managed to make a couple decent memories for a change, but at this point he's pretty much locked to a hospital bed.

Either way, it's causing a lot of stress and related bullshit trying to sort it all out. When it comes to us, my mother and I, we're on our own. There are no friends, supportive relatives. concerned parties. There's literally nothing. My mom has a couple people she can talk to, but that's basically it. Me, I just have this website. In our case, the times have always been tough. Literally going back at least 18 years, there's always been an emergency of some kind that's led to us just barely managing to keep our heads above water. Must be nice for other people to actually have resources to help them. It seems most people's problems begin and end at COVID, whereas we've been dealing with this sort of bullshit, of the same kind or another, for close to 2 decades.

 

[BeansOfRequirement]

My eyes are fixed on death

 

[Imaginos]

Still don't really know how to proceed with any of this. Damn it. Why are my eyes so fucking shit? By contrast, my older brother suffers from none of the problems that I do. His metabolism is better, he's more intelligent, more capable, his vision is perfect, he's a good 5 inches taller than me, he's never struggled with mental illness of any kind, et cetera. It's like I just got all the garbage genetic leftovers from our parents. I really wish my mother had just fucking aborted me. There is no reason for me to have been alive. Nothing has warranted my existence at all.

My eyes are fixed on death

Frankly, I wish my eyes were little thermal detonators that could just blow my fucking head into wet little chunks and thereby spare me one more moment of experiencing my bullshit ridden existence that I have no idea how to navigate anyway. I can't even pick up the god damned phone and talk to someone on an impartial topic like this that's mostly all business. I literally haven't used or dialed a phone for years and in those times I have I've just treated it like a hot potato to immediately pass off to my mom ASAP. Having to figure all this out on my own is the equivalent to an average person trying to figure how to become an expert astro physicist. Fucking hell. I just want to correct my shitty fucking vision, but I'm so god damned useless the odds of that happening anytime soon are basically nil, thanks to what a neurotically useless sack of crap I am. It's a really frustrating predicament to be in when you can't settle any of your own affairs by yourself and are too helpless to do anything like this on your own. When it comes to matters like this, I'm literally on the same level as a child.

 

[Symbiote]

My eyes are fucked too. I think it's -5 in one eye, and -8 in the other. I'm considered legally blind and last time I went to the doctor, they told me I'm at a high risk for permanent blindness after 50.

 

[Squiddy]

My eyes are fucked too. I think it's -5 in one eye, and -8 in the other. I'm considered legally blind and last time I went to the doctor, they told me I'm at a high risk for permanent blindness after 50.

I told myself if I ever went blind, there's a 95% chance I'd try to ctb once I figure out how to blind

 

[Yiyo123]

I have catarat surgery im my right eye. I still have the catarat in my left eye. I have a vitrous detachment in both eyes. Is common after 50. Since my surgery I had 2 retinal tears in my left eye and had laser to seal the tears. Now I see eye floaters all the time. So I visit a retina specialist 4 times a year for checkups (to prevent a retinal detachment, which untreated cause blindness). I see pretty well but mu eyes are extremelly sensibe to light and the floaters are annoying (they were cause by the catarat surgery). And when you have floaters in 1 eye they start to appear in the other eye. They will never diasapear. But you get used to it.

Sometimes i'm really aware of the floaters and become very stressful. But you have to learn to live with it.

Lasik surgery can also cause a retinal tear and consequently the bothersome eye floaters. But if you are young, is rare.

 

[Imaginos]

I'm considered legally blind and last time I went to the doctor, they told me I'm at a high risk for permanent blindness after 50.

Fuck, that really sucks. Although, I gotta say, the idea of me ever living past 50 is quite frightening in itself. Even if my eyes were perfect, I really don't want to have to live that long and suffer more decades of pain, boredom and all around misery. For what it's worth, I also risked going blind in one eye, but thanks to my condition being caught early it was able to be avoided by getting eye muscle surgery when I was very young.

To tell you the truth, I sometimes wish I had died as a kid on the operating table somehow. Like they accidentally gave me too much anesthetic or cut a vital artery or whatever. People die from surgery complications all the time, yet it always seems to be those who actually love their lives and have abundant reasons to live. Sad fuckers like me are always untouched and left to eek out their miserable fucking existences for as long as possible. This universe is fucked beyond belief.

Lasik surgery can also cause a retinal tear and consequently the bothersome eye floaters. But if you are young, is rare.

Yeah, I'm still mostly young, so hopefully it wouldn't be a problem. Although, it does give me the heebie jeebies sometimes when I wonder about how it could go horribly wrong and potentially leave me worse off than I was before. That's partly why I gave up on it a few years back, but I don't know. There must be some available treatment out there by now. I just wish I had the internal fortitude to follow up on it and determine what to do one way or the other.

 

[Amumu]

My sister has problems with regard to her eyes and I saw her cry many times because of that. So I kind of understand your pain.

 

[Imaginos]

Well, after looking into the matter a bit more, it would appear as if it's not entirely hopeless for me. Which, needless to say, is one of the rare times where you could say that about my existence. Hopefully I'll be able to set something up sometime within this year or the next, but, as I've said, a lot of it hinges on my mother's involvement. I'm just glad she's supportive of the idea, but it'd still be a lot more preferable if I could manage affairs like these by myself. Even though I'm a fully grown man on the cusp of turning 30, I'm still largely as helpless as a child.

 

[greebo6]

Had 'Lasik' on both eyes for short sightedness 15 years ago. Worked very well .

 

[Imaginos]

Had 'Lasik' on both eyes for short sightedness 15 years ago. Worked very well .

Yeah, that's what I keep hearing, but it's pretty rare for someone with problems of the kind I suffer from to get their eyes fixed. Anything above a +3 and traditional lasik treatment becomes highly inadvisable. At that point, you're looking at stuff like ICL or LIKE which are both pretty expensive/more involved treatment options. Shortsighted people have a clear advantage when it comes to lasik, since it was basically made to help them in particular. Someone like me is largely fighting an uphill battle here by comparison. Even ICL involves placing a thin contact lens on my cornea, since it's too thin to be adjusted by the laser. People who are shortsighted have thick corneas, so lasik can shave it down until it's where it should be. Someone like me has the opposite problem and is farsighted/hyperopic. There isn't enough of my cornea so they need to build it up somehow.

 

[dandan]

8-10+years ago now I guess, everything cool. Just follow instructions of doctor to the letter post lasik