[Atlas Sneezed]

I had Lasik about 10 years ago for moderate nearsightedness, and will always regret it.

I suffer the stars and blurs at night, and everything is soft focus in any fairly dim room.

I told the doc that I was very picky about my vision, and he made plenty of promises.

The first shot was the wrong correction in one eye. The second led to some growth under the flap, and required a third.

For crappy results.

Some are delighted to go from a Yugo to a Camry. I want from a Bugatti (with correction) to a Camry.

The key problem is that I have larger pupils (at night) than the area they correct, so some of the light is uncorrected, causing the blur. The a$$hole doctor could have easily tested for this and advised, but didn’t.

These days they have better systems (”Waveform”?) So don’t hestitate to pay whatever it takes to get the best.

Because I lost some critical vision in one eye for presusambly unrelated reasons, I am not a good candidate to have the remaining eye upgraded.

When in doubt, don’t do it.

[Atlas Sneezed]

I should add to my woes that I still require glasses at all times.

The wise post above that those who are the worst will like it the best is the best summation.

[steve86]

Supposedly my maximum pupil size was comfortably under the limit yet I still get poor low light vision. I know part of this is due to internal glare when there is a point source of light somewhere, yet when the light is uniformly dim and vision is poor, it must be the uncorrected light around the periphery causing problems as you say. It makes me think they were too liberal on pupil size allowance, presumably because this would have cut into sales too much.

At least for me, glasses with a one or two diopter correction let me see at night pretty much like other people (other than some glare). Without the glasses it is a joke, and I had better than average night light sensitivity before the procedures. I am a sometimes-amateur astronomer, and while vision through the eyepiece is fine, trying to locate stars without the glasses is, as I say, a joke. Fortunately, daytime vision is quite good still.

I've yet to see hard data comparing the efficacy of the wavefront LASIK to a standard procedure. I suspect some of the talk is just sales hype.

[steve86]

This is an interesting quote from Wikipedia concerning wavefront LASIK (hadn't heard the contingencies before):

"The goal is to achieve a more optically perfect eye, though the final result still depends on the physician's success at predicting changes that occur during healing. In older patients though, scattering from microscopic particles plays a major role and may outweigh any benefit from wavefront correction".

I guess the particles they are talking about are "floaters", which I have plenty of (unrelated to the procedures). The way tissue heals is pretty much a crapshoot -- sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't. Scar on posterior ==> doesn't matter. Scar on Jennifer Anniston's nose or my eye ==> it does.

[steve86]

Another factoid in the Wikipedia article is that the laser tends to undercorrect more the further it moves out from the center of the visual zone. This also helps to explain the poor night vision.