Ken
My name is Ken. My story with LASIK goes back about a year. I saw and heard a lot of advertising about LASIK. Saw a program on a PBS network. Everyone seemed so pleased and the statistics given seemed so low for failure and high for success. I went to the doctor's off ice and they said I would be a good candidate for the "procedure" and would likely see better post surgery. Seemed like a good and healthy thing to do for myself. I believed in the doctor and the statistics. My prescription ran to -3.75 with astigmatism in both eyes. Convinced myself with the help doctor and advertising that this was a good and easy thing to do. An outpatient procedure afterall. See better as you get off the table. Ride your motorcycle the next day. Easier than going to the dentist. What could go wrong?


Well everything I guess.


Big pupils, rough laser, poor aim by a doctor, apparently poorly sterilized equipment, poor follow-up with poor equipment.


I was given a heavy drug prior to the surgery. The doctor put a holder on my eye and cut. I felt a sharp pain and then it was blurry. The doctor asked me to watch the light and zapped my eye with the laser. Then he said, "Look down." I followed instruction and did so. He did a second zap on the eye. After I went home and about two hours after the surgery, my eyes began to hurt. The most intense pain I have ever felt. I then saw very poorly. It was like wearing a terrible pair of glasses. "Give it a couple of days." the doctor said. So I did. "Give it a week, your eye has suffered trauma." the doctor said. I could tell. My eyes hurt. I started seeing a little better but called the doctor because lights did not seem clear and were doubling up and starring prevented me from night driving. "Give it a month, you're still just filing in gaps." the doctor said. At each step I was told that I was healing and "Going toward 20/20." "Give it three months." Give it six months." "! Give it a year." Now it is "Give it six years."


I suffer multiple images, hazing, starring, halos, ghosts, comet tails, lack of definition, lack of contrast sensitivity, dry eyes, and pain. Glasses do not clear up these problems.


My doctor says "The cornea takes up to six years to heal." When asked for a diagnosis of the specific problem as related to my multiple images, ghosting, starring, dry eyes, lack of contrast definition, blurring, lines in vision, pain both sharp and aching, smoky vision, inability to quickly focus near to far, shifting images, foreign body sensation, kaleidoscope secondary images, diopter changes across the field of vision, etc. my doctor says "I have to get to my next patient." and runs away.


I have seen now 8 different specialists for the cornea and one for the retina in addition to 4 different optometrists. They all kind of shake their heads. Most do not tell me what is wrong at all, and I have had several say "Well, you see 20/20." and proceed to argue with me about what I see and how well I see it. (The gall!) The three LASIK doctors that have admitted they saw a problem have said "irregular astigmatism" and "striations" "clinically insignificant metallic debris" "clinically insignificant decentered ablation" and two said "Sorry, but lifting the flaps will probably cause more irregularity and it is too late to correct the striations. Plus we will probably make you far sighted if we do more oblation." One LASIK doctor did suggest sutures for the striations after lifting the flap. I suspected this would not be a good plan. The non-LASIK cornea specialist said he saw "haze" and "wrinkles" and said "You've got trouble."


Looking at my own records, doing thousands of hours of research on the web, contacting three web MD's and experimenting with five different prescriptions for glasses, three different types of contacts (soft, RGP, and softperm- all of which are very painful to insert and wear) I have concluded that my problems are decentered ablations both vertical (if I move the arms of my glasses way above my ears I see slightly better) and horizontal (from the maps), rough ablation surface (Summit laser with MD revision for astigmatism), interface debris (which the LASIK MD's say I should not see but which I CAN see as two black dots), regular and irregular astigmatism, small retinal tear, haze (caused I think by either bacterial toxins or rough ablations as eye had extensive edema for over a week), small ablation (4.5mm in one eye, 6mm in other with 5.75mm pupils in moderate light, 7.5mm in dim light and larger in darkness) and striations.


I have never gotten an answer for the dry eyes (Pre-LASIK I took sleep out of my eyes every morning and took balls of mucas out two to three times daily) although I think it is a matter of the uneven surface having more area to cover, and a matter the eyes having a need for more nutrients as a result of the traumatic injury suffered and the healing of that injury. Pain relates to both retinal tear and nerve damage to the eyes in my opinion. Foreign body is result of striations and poorly aligned flap in my opinion.


Some LASIK MD's have suggested that a custom oblation program may be the eventual solution; however, I do not know how they intend to keep the flap itself smooth even if there is a way to smooth out the stromal bed.


I kept a positive attitude about my eyes until it became very apparent that they were not getting better on their own and there was no current medical solution. At that point I cried.


My attitude has been soured by doctors refusing to answer logical, well thought out questions with (to me) apparent answers, the disregard of my doctor for my problems (now I paid him for a "screening" and then thousands of dollars for the surgery and proper post surgical care), misrepresentation of the percentage and severity of complications by the LASIK medical community and in advertising, and of course my own lack of quality corrected vision.


Yes I am dissatisfied with this experience. I do not believe that my expression of this dissatisfaction should be construed as "negativity" on my part but rather as "honesty" and "truthfulness" on my part. Maybe that is a more "positive" way for you all to view my "attitude".


I do believe that honesty, forthrightness, and truthfulness are "positive" attributes. I also believe these attributes are somewhat absent in the refractive MD community at this time.


Ken