Thread: Fed up of wearing glasses, thinking of eye surgery!

I would be keen to hear more on this too.

Originally Posted by Gullible

Hi,
I have been wearing glasses for a couple of years as my eyes are deteriorating with age. Getting fed up of buying new lenses every year and swapping from reading glasses to waking around glasses, so I was thinking of eye surgery.

Any one tried it? would you recommend it?
What did you have done?
What options are out their?

I cannot answer the specific question as I was assessed as not viable. However, the assessment was free, without commitment, so what is there to lose but an hour of your time?

As your eyes continue to degrade, you'll need glasses again at some point. Better for young folk who can get a couple of decades out of it IMO. If you have the money and you hate glasses that much though, go see them for a consult - As John says, it's free, no obligation to get the testing done and they'll be able to give you a much better idea on how long you may get out of it.

I've worn glasses for more than 40 years without issues so I'm probably not about to run out and try it myself though.

I discussed this with my doctor - you will have to pick whether you want to read or see long distance, you will not be able to do both. So if you want to see long distance you will still need glasses to read or if you you want the surgery to fix reading you will need glasses to see distances but most dont worry about that.

So most people get their eyes done so they dont need reading glasses and just carry long distance glasses if they really need them - sorry there ain't no free lunch.

Also as mentioned the eyes continue to change so further work down the track will be needed.

Garry

Oh PS - glasses are a PITA especially when you work on cars.

The missus had her eyes' lenses fixed because of rapidly advancing cataracts. A bonus was that she used to have bad astigmatism and the new lenses totally fixed this. Colour perception was amazingly better too. She doesn't need expensive ($200+) prescription glasses any more, just some cheap low magnification eyewear from the chemist or discount shop for reading. Not having to wear glasses for driving means that she can use ordinary sunnies too. Healing time for each eye was around 4 weeks with the two operations a month apart. All in all a happy experience.

I had laser surgery about 20-25 years ago. I was very short-sighted (-7).

It worked well for many years but I do have a bit of haze with the light from oncoming cars at night. The type of laser surgery used back then abraded the surface of the eye. It's different these days.

In about 2008, I had three detached retinas in short succession. On the third, the Dr. was unable to see properly into my eye to repair the detachment, owing to clouding from a cataract, so he had to remove the lens. I was aphakic Aphakia - Wikipedia for about 6 months. After that, I had another operation to fit an artificial lens. One problem was that the replacement lens is an approximate focal length as they didn't have the original lens in my eye to work from.

I am now slightly long-sighted in one eye and slightly short-sighted in the other. The brain adapts quite well.

Over the past few years my eyes have changed a bit so I now prefer glasses to read but, at my last eye specialist review (two weeks back) I could still read, without glasses, the second from bottom line of the eye chart.

The surgeon believes that laser surgery increases the risk of retinal detachment.

I still have a cataract in my right eye that's not bad enough to need surgery. One odd thing is that white in the left eye is white but in the right eye, because of the cataract, white is light beige.

G'day.
About four years ago I had developing cataracts on both eyes so I had artificial lenses in both eyes a year apart.
They are excellent but I have to put up with what is called dry eye and the eyes tend to water and run, this means that I have to put systane drops in both eyes every day.

Some people with these lenses suffer with the feeling that they have sand in their eyes, I was lucky.

They put in two different lenses, one for mid range and one for long, this is the standard procedure, which means that one eye is always slightly out of focus depending on what you are looking at.
No good for reading so I got prescription readers, this worked well. It was a nuisance driving with these lenses because they seemed to be slightly out of focus, certainly not a dangerous condition but noticeable.

Last year I decided to get new prescription glasses, these are called progressives and they cost me $707 as I wanted to have the best all round vision that I could get.
These progressives have three equal features that are not visible to the naked eye.
At the bottom section is for close up reading, the middle section is for mid range and the top long range.
They are excellent and I have no problems focusing on anything with both eyes adjusted.
It takes a couple of weeks to get used to them and focusing at different distances.

I would never have anything but progressives again and nor would anyone else that I have spoken to who has them.


The added benefit is that I had them coated to help prevent blue light eye strain. They are so good with this that I don't need to even think of wearing sunnies when out and about.
Looking at them you cant see the coating.

I hope this is helpful.

Cheers.

i had laser eye surgery about 5 years ago.
best thing ive ever done in my life