Would be great if you could share your experience here
@TraumaLlamaMD
I was in a place where I needed correction all the time during the day, but contacts could never get my vision quite as good as my lenses. Being nearsighted, though, I'd take my glasses off to read and they had a bad habit of getting sat on or left behind (though less so as my vision got bad enough I would notice right away if I tried to walk out of the room without them!). I preferred my lenses, but even with the astigmatism correction brand, they weren't perfectly crisp, and I had more than one dumb moment where I'd want to stay out overnight but hadn't prepared with solution and a case in my purse. In retrospect, trying to be on call overnight in contacts would have been a nightmare, and glasses have their own issues in surgery (mine liked to slip down my nose a bit and it's hard to adjust them once you're sterile).
Once I decided to go for the LASIK, the process was really easy - I think it was a single screening exam (I'd been worked up for it a few years earlier but they had advised I postpone since my vision was still changing at the time) before I scheduled the procedure. They did ask me not to wear my lenses for about a week before the surgery to prevent any scratching. I got there the morning of the procedure and took the benzos they'd prescribed, waited a bit for them to kick in, and then went into the room. It was overall a pretty relaxing experience (as much so as it could be!) - they put my playlist of choice on the stereo, laid me back on the table, and asked me to look straight up at the green light above. I was awake for the experience and remember it to some extent, but never felt anything more than a small bit of pressure on my eyes.
After it was over (I wasn't with it enough to know how long it took, but it was probably 30-45 minutes) they let me sit with a blanket in this lovely leather chair. I looked over at the nearby table and noticed a bowl of candy. My first thought was, "awesome, they left me M&Ms" - my second thought was, "holy crap, I can read those candy labels." I'd read the brochures where past patients claimed they had some "aha!" moment where they suddenly realized they could see, and I was skeptical the difference would be so striking, until it happened. I went home, took a nap, and was able to go out to dinner with my family later that evening with pretty good vision. By the next day at my followup appointment I was seeing 20/20. I had drops to put in my eyes a few times a day for about a week, and that was it. I had follow up the day after, a week after, a month after and 6 months after, and my vision remained consistent.
I had a pretty great experience, but there are a few caveats: my vision pre-surgery was at the point where I couldn't function at all without lenses or glasses. If you can get by without them sometimes, or if your vision is still changing frequently, it may not be worth the money to you right now. I definitely find my current situation more comfortable than either lenses or glasses, but some people don't mind wearing them as much as I did. Finally, while my vision is great now and I don't have the "light halo" effect that some people experience at night, I do find that over the last year or two if I'm driving for multiple hours at a time, one eye or the other will get a little "tired" and my vision won't be quite as crisp until I rest for a bit. I have no idea if that's related to the LASIK or just a function of getting older (!), and it hasn't happened to me with extended near vision like during long surgeries or when reading.
Honestly, it's the small things that I appreciate most - being able to stay up watching TV without worrying about falling asleep in my glasses or with my lenses in, being able to see and read labels in the shower/pool/beach, playing sports without lenses shifting after I rub my eyes, not having to worry about an unexpected lens tear in the middle of the day leaving me half-blind until I can get home and change it out. It was definitely worth it to me, but YMMV for sure.
