Okay kids I am seriously considering Lasix on my left eye only. It has astigmatism and my right eye is 20-20 a gentic flaw in all the females in my family.

If your or anybody you know who has had LASIX that had astigmatism could you please let me know what your experience was with the surgery. Thanks!!!

Hope it works out for you!

My cousin had it done 3 years ago.

She sees better than 20/20 and totally recommends it.

I had it done on both eyes about 15 years ago. Best thing I have ever done for myself. Love it!

Do it and let me know. I'm ready to get out of the glasses I've been in for 29 years.

It's LASIK - not LASIX. If someone's going to cut on your eyeball...you probably want to ask for the right procedure.

And it doesn't work very well for astigmatism. (It could resolve it...or it could make it worse.) You might want to read this...

http://www.usaeyes.org/la...matism.htm

We have three dr's here who specialize in nothing but Lasik with astigmatism.

My boss has it so bad she will need both eyes done at one time and it will cost her $4,000. I don't know if she will have it done first or me. She can't even drive after dusk anymore but I still see well at night.

I am not even thinking of doing this until Feb or March 2009. And I will be reserching this throughly and getting 2 opinions as well. My Dr. said my astigmatism was not bad at all compared to some cases he has refered for surgery. I currently wear a toric soft lens in my left eye only.

Stymie said:

Im sick of contacts.

I'm the only one who's stuck with bad eyes.
There's no 'fix' for lazy eyes

I wish I could have lasik surgery. My eyes are so bad that I would still have to wear contacts or glasses at all times anyway if I had the procedure.

My only hope is getting cataracts so I can have the lens implant.

Arieal my left eye is "lazy", I wore an eye patch for yrs at night time only.

rachel3 said:

Both my eyes are 'lazy', but one of them is really bad. And they are only getting worse, because I refused to wear glasses.
I'm wearing glasses now, but I hate it. I hate being dependent on glasses or any other tool, in order to go through life.

ArielB said:

I have terrible eyes. I'm legally blind in my right eye after having 5 retinal surgeries. I'm very nearsighted with astigmatism in my left eye but it's correctable with a lense with prisms.

It sucks to have bad eyes

JuliePurplehead said:

I'm not a good candidate for it, either. I have dry eyes - and one of the potential complications is even drier eyes.

But beyond that, I don't want to run the risk of losing my near vision. I do a lot of sewing - and one of the nice things about being nearsighted is that I can take off my glasses to do close work. I can work black-on-black and read uncorrected.

If I get LASIK, that's gone - forever. It's just not a fair trade.

rachel3 said:

I had this done two years ago, and I love it. I too, had very bad astigmatism in both eyes, and started wearing glasses when I was 6 years old and now my eyes are doing great. I am seeing at 20/15 now! I couldn't even begin to tell you how bad my eyes were before.

The surgery part was a piece of cake! I opted for the surgery that was all done by lasers. It truly was one of the smartest things I could have done for myself.

Imago said:

I had it done 8 yrs ago...im glad i did. it was a bit nerve wracking as i am very sqeemish(sp) & they had to slice a flap of your eyeball..well all i could think of was that meat slicing machine at the deli...

i use to have VERY thick lenses & it was awful waking up & not being able to see anything (without reaching for glasses)

I dont need reading glasses yet..but may..i have some dollar store ones just in case. also at nite i do get a mild "halo" effect on street lights. good thing i dont drive~

Ghost or Double Vision After Lasik
Complication of Lasik and similar vision correction surgery often relates to healing response, undercorrection.

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Temporary doubled vision or ghosting images during the normal six-month healing period after conventional or wavefront custom Lasik tend to be caused by an irregularity in the cornea.
Monocular or Binocular Diplopia
If the ghosting occurs with only one eye open it is called monocular diplopia and is usually related to edema, astigmatism, epithelial defect, or incision wound healing. If the ghosting occurs only when both eyes are open, the problem may be binocular diplopia, an aberration in the alignment of the two eyes.


Surgery Induced
On more rare occasions, ghosting can be due to an irregularity in the application of the excimer laser energy used for conventional or custom wavefront Lasik, All-Laser Lasik, PRK, LASEK, and Epi-Lasik. Examples of complications due to irregularity in the application of excimer energy would be decentered ablation or central islands.

CK has a unique healing process that can induce temporary ghosting. Read our detailed CK article.

If the patient had RLE or P-IOL, the ghosting can be caused by a misaligned lens or incision wound healing.

Edema, Epithelial Defect, Astigmatism, Dry Eyes

Dry eyes will almost always exacerbate ghosting, and can be the sole cause of the ghosting.

Probably the most common cause of temporary surgery-induced ghosting is edema. All types of refractive surgery are an insult to the eye and swelling of the cornea is a common response. As the eye heals, edema is reduced and the corneal irregularity is resolved. With the resolution of the edema, the ghosting disappears. Edema seems to be most pronounced with PRK and All-Laser Lasik, although all eye surgery can cause edema.

Epithelial defect causes ghosting primarily with PRK, LASEK, and Epi-Lasik, but the process of creating a corneal flap for Lasik and All-Laser Lasik can damage the epithelium too. Fortunately the epithelial cells are the fastest reproducing cells in the human body and within a few days to weeks can cover the cornea, thicken, and smooth to preoperative levels.

Longer-term ghosting may be caused by astigmatism, which can cause multiple focal points. Astigmatism after surgery may be preoperative astigmatism that was not fully eliminated. With Lasik, All-Laser Lasik, PRK, LASEK, and Epi-Lasik, it is possible that astigmatism was induced during surgery by an inaccurate laser ablation. P-IOL and RLE require an incision at the edge of the cornea to insert the lens. This incision and subsequent stitching may induce astigmatism.

An easy test for astigmatism is to put a small hole through an index card then look through that hole with one eye while covering the other eye. Be sure to do this in a dimly lit room. As you move the hole around you will probably notice that the ghosting is gone.

Worse in Low Light
Ghosting is often worse in low light environments and can disappear completely in well lit environments. When you are in a well-lit environment, the pupil is smaller and is not letting the light that is passing through the irregular component of your cornea reach the retina. The multiple focal points are still there; they are just not reaching the retina and being “seen”.

Central Islands
Central islands are formed when an area of the Lasik, All-Laser Lasik, PRK, LASEK, or Epi-Lasik treatment zone does not receive the full amount of laser energy. Wrinkles in the flap (striae) may provide multiple ghost images. Central islands are much more rare than astigmatism, edema, or epithelial defect.

Check with your doctor to determine the exact nature of your problem. If the ghosting is caused by your remaining astigmatism, ask your doctor about the possibility of an enhancement to eliminate your residual astigmatism. Or just see if a good pair of glasses or contacts do the trick. If ghosting is caused by swelling, you need to wait for healing. Since dry eyes can cause and exacerbate ghosting, you may want to visit an article on dry eye treatment. Depending upon the nature of the striae, a flap lift may be necessary. We have an article on striae resolution too.

If you are ready to choose a doctor to be evaluated for conventional or wavefront custom Lasik, All-Laser Lasik, PRK, LASEK, Epi-Lasik, NearVision CK, RLE, or any refractive surgery procedure, we highly recommend you consider a doctor who has been evaluated and certified by the USAEyes nonprofit organization. Locate a USAEyes Evaluated & Certified Lasik Laser Eye Surgery Doctor.

If this article did not fully answer your questions, use our free Ask Lasik Expert patient forum.

http://www.usaeyes.org/la...osting.htm

FDA advisers: Clearer LASIK warnings needed
CNN Story Highlights
NEW: FDA advisers urge more explicit warnings about LASIK risks

About 5 percent of patients who have the surgery are dissatisfied, FDA says

Agency, eye surgeons doing study on bad outcomes and other complaints

7.6 million Americans have had some form of laser vision correction



WASHINGTON (AP) -- A panel of medical advisers -- mostly eye doctors wearing glasses -- listened to tales of woe and wonder Friday from people who sought to get rid of their specs through LASIK surgery.


Not everyone is a good candidate for LASIK surgery, and some suffer adverse side-effects.

What was clear by day's end: The vast majority of people undergoing laser eye surgery benefit and are happy, but a small fraction, perhaps fewer than 1 percent, suffer serious, life-changing side effects: worse vision, painful dry eye, glare, inability to drive at night.

Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration heard about a dozen of those stories Friday -- including a father reading his son's suicide note -- and then concluded that today's warnings for would-be LASIK recipients should be made more clear.

Another lesson: Choose a surgeon carefully.

"This is a referendum on the performance of LASIK by some surgeons who should be doing a better job," said Dr. Jayne Weiss of the Kresge Eye Institute in Detroit, Michigan. She chaired the panel.

About 700,000 Americans a year undergo the elective laser surgery. Like golf star and famed LASIKrecipient Tiger Woods, they're hoping to throw away their glasses, just as the ads say.

But about one in four people seeking LASIK is not a good candidate, and the FDA agrees with eye surgeons' studies that about 5 percent of LASIK recipients wind up unsatisfied. Now the agency is trying to better understand how many of those people are badly harmed, and how many just are unhappy they didn't get as clear vision as they'd expected.

"Too many Americans have been harmed by this procedure and it's about time this message was heard," David Shell of Washington testified, holding up large photographs that he said depict his blurred world, with halos around objects and double vision.

"I see multiple moons," he said angrily. "Anybody want to have LASIK now?"

Colin Dorrian was in law school when dry eye made his contact lenses so intolerable that he sought LASIK, even though a doctor noted his pupils were pretty large. Both the dry eye and pupil size should have disqualified Dorrian, but he received LASIK anyway -- and his father described six years of eye pain and fuzzy vision before the suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, man killed himself last year.

"As soon as my eyes went bad, I fell into a deeper depression than I'd ever experienced, and I couldn't get out," Gerard Dorrian read from his son's suicide note.

Matt Kotsovolos, who worked for the Duke Eye Center when he had a more sophisticated LASIK procedure in 2006, said doctors classify him as a success because he now has 20-20 vision. But he said, "For the last two years I have suffered debilitating and unremitting eye pain. ... Patients do not want to continue to exist as helpless victims with no voice."

The sober testimonies illustrated that a decade after LASIK hit the market, there still are questions about just how often patients suffer bad outcomes from the $2,000-per-eye procedure. Explainer: All about LASIK »

Meanwhile, FDA's mostly glasses-wearing advisers recommended adding more clearly worded warnings about the risks to the brochures that every would-be patient is supposed to receive, and to the agency's LASIK Web site:

• Add photographs that illustrate what people suffering certain side effects actually see, such as the glare that can make oncoming headlights a huge "starburst" of light.

• Clarify how often patients suffer different side effects, such as dry eye. Some eye surgeons say 31 percent of LASIK patients have some degree of dry eye before surgery, and it worsens for about 5 percent afterward. Other studies say 48 percent of LASIK recipients suffer some degree of dry eye months later.

• Make more understandable the conditions that should disqualify someone from LASIK, such as large pupils or severe nearsightedness.

• And spell out that anyone whose nearsightedness is fixed by LASIK is guaranteed to need reading glasses in middle age, something that might not be needed if they skip LASIK.

That's a big reason that Weiss, the ophthalmologist, won't get LASIK even though she offers it to her patients.

"I can read without my glasses and ... operate without my glasses, and I love that," she said. "The second aspect is I would not tolerate any risk for myself. ... Does that mean LASIK is good or not good? It means LASIK is good but not for everyone."

LASIK is marketed as quick and painless: Doctors cut a flap in the cornea -- the eye's clear covering -- aim a laser underneath it and zap to reshape the cornea for sharper sight.

The FDA agrees with eye surgeons' studies that only about 5 percent of patients are dissatisfied with LASIK. What's not clear is exactly how many of those suffer lasting severe problems and how many just didn't get quite as clear vision as they had expected.

Health Library
MayoClinic.com: LASIK eye surgery
The most meticulous studies come from the military, where far less than 1 percent of LASIK recipients suffer serious side effects, said Dr. David Tanzer, the Navy's Medical Corps commander. That research prompted LASIK to be cleared last year both for Navy aviators and NASA astronauts.

"The word from the guys that are out there standing in harm's way, whose lives depend on their ability to see, are asking you to please not take this away," said Lt. Col. Scott Barnes, a cornea specialist at Fort Bragg who described Army troops seeking LASIK after losing their glasses in combat.


No one's actually considering restrictions on LASIK -- but the FDA is pairing with eye surgeons to begin a major study next year to better understand who has bad outcomes.

"Millions of patients have benefited" from LASIK, said Dr. Peter McDonnell of Johns Hopkins University, a spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmologists. "No matter how uncommon, when complications occur, they can be distressing. ... We're dedicated to doing everything in our power to make the LASIK procedure even better for all our patients."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/H...erecommend
[Edited 4/27/08 2:44am]

I heard LASEVEN is better.

I think it costs a little more though.