Hello, I was wondering if any of y'all had considered Lasik before medical school or during. any specific reasons to do so or not? Also, what is your degree of myopia? I am only at -1.75, so its not bad at all, but i still need glasses/contacts to be able to see clearly beyond arm length. I'm 22 and my vision has been stable for 3 years, so as far as i can tell from my research online i would be a decent candidate. I looked for other forum posts here and the only other one was from 5 years ago, has the tech for lasik improved much since then? I already see starbursts or halos at night, so i don't think that would be much of an issue if it happened.
One of my relatives works for an ophthalmologist, and he said there was no way that he would recommend Lasik for someone going into medicine with as low of a prescription as mine, because if i do have it done, then i will need reading glasses like everyone else when i'm 40ish. However, he says that if i do not have it done, then my vision will get better and i will go through a period where i do not need glasses, and then can go till i'm 50 before i need reading glasses. He said that it would be much better for doing surgery if i do not have to wear reading glasses. I have two questions about that.
1) how does the getting good vision work? because as i understood it, the reason people needed reading glasses was that the lens became stiffer as people age so it was harder for the eye muscles to reshape it to focus on closer objects. However I don't see how that would affect your far-sight abilities at all. Seems to me that if you are nearsighted, you will just be "no-sighted" your abilities to focus close up goes away (thus needing bifocals). Now, objectively i see if your perscription goes from negative to positive, then you will pass through zero, but i haven't been able to figure out how that works precisely. I suppose if your eye actually reshapes itself then that would make sense, but could someone enlighten me on this one?
2) looking at it from a logical perspective, if i have lasik now, i will have approximately 18 years of good vision before i need reading glasses. If i do not have lasik, then (assuming that my vision starts changing at 40) i will get at most 10 years but probably less of good vision. Not to mention i think i would prefer to have my good vision when i'm younger rather than in my mid 40's. At least i think so.
TLDR: i currently wear contacts every day, and i would rather not if i had the option. Most of the research i've turned up has said that 90+% of patients are satisfied with their surgeries (most figures from >5 years ago though), but one of the eye doc's i know said don't do it. Opinions?
One of my relatives works for an ophthalmologist, and he said there was no way that he would recommend Lasik for someone going into medicine with as low of a prescription as mine, because if i do have it done, then i will need reading glasses like everyone else when i'm 40ish. However, he says that if i do not have it done, then my vision will get better and i will go through a period where i do not need glasses, and then can go till i'm 50 before i need reading glasses. He said that it would be much better for doing surgery if i do not have to wear reading glasses. I have two questions about that.
1) how does the getting good vision work? because as i understood it, the reason people needed reading glasses was that the lens became stiffer as people age so it was harder for the eye muscles to reshape it to focus on closer objects. However I don't see how that would affect your far-sight abilities at all. Seems to me that if you are nearsighted, you will just be "no-sighted" your abilities to focus close up goes away (thus needing bifocals). Now, objectively i see if your perscription goes from negative to positive, then you will pass through zero, but i haven't been able to figure out how that works precisely. I suppose if your eye actually reshapes itself then that would make sense, but could someone enlighten me on this one?
2) looking at it from a logical perspective, if i have lasik now, i will have approximately 18 years of good vision before i need reading glasses. If i do not have lasik, then (assuming that my vision starts changing at 40) i will get at most 10 years but probably less of good vision. Not to mention i think i would prefer to have my good vision when i'm younger rather than in my mid 40's. At least i think so.
TLDR: i currently wear contacts every day, and i would rather not if i had the option. Most of the research i've turned up has said that 90+% of patients are satisfied with their surgeries (most figures from >5 years ago though), but one of the eye doc's i know said don't do it. Opinions?
