I have a very fortunate outcome with my surgery. I have no night vision problems as they refer them as "halo effects" where you see glare of lights. I do hear, however, LASIK patients have this aftermath from time to time.
U.S. LASIK surgeries are more expensive than what Canadian surgeons will charge. Even back when I had the surgery done, Canada was only charging $1000 an eye. Since it's my own "window of soul" (what they call eyes), I rather spend the money and have my surgeon where I can reach him when I needed him post-op immediately.
As for waiting longer for research statistics, LASIK has already been around for more than 10+ years! I believe the clinical results and outcomes are pretty solid and reliable. Just last month, I read about some new, more accurate & precise Excimer Laser (3rd generation) came out that was used by Opthalmologists now that produces even higher statistics of success rate. Just like any health professional, Opthalmologists probably have their own colleages perform on them instead of them performing on themselves.
Having the LASIK surgery done consciously is the most amazing surgical experience that I have experienced (I also had my 3rd molars extracted wide awake with only local anesthetics). There is about 2-3 seconds where you are actually blind during the LASIK surgery when the surgeon is creating the corneal flap. The surgeon actually told me this....
"Alright Andy, you'll go blind for about 2 seconds here....(as the room turns pitch black)"
and then you can see like 50Xs better immediately after the surgery! The entire actual surgery under the laser machine takes about 5 minutes. The entire surgery (prep, surgery, etc.) only lasted about half-an-hour.
You're able to see immediately, after a week, your vision returns to just about 90%. Of course everyone recovers differently, but in general, you're able to go about your normal routine right away. No need to take off work. Only exercise that was prevented were swimming related activities. Showers were fine. Also, my surgeon recommended and did only one eye at a time. My two LASIK surgeries (one for each eye) were scheduled a day apart to minimize complications.
Again, you got the funds and you've been granted a "green light" for surgery, then I say GO FOR IT!!
Dragonfly:
Can you believe that you're almost finished with first year? Things are going very well down here in FL for me so far. Lots of exams just like every other dental students out there. That's too bad that your pupils are so LARGE which prevents you have the surgery done (they're still beautiful though)!!!! Alright girl, study hard and keep us updated!