The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Patrick A on June 18, 2015, 08:58:25 AM
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The wife may be getting Lasik soon and we are reading & studying up on it. Anyone here have good/bad experiences, tips, thoughts for us as we do our research?
Thanks!
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Previous discussion:
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/should-i-get-lasik/
(There's others, but that was the longest thread on it.)
Reading that will give you lots of opinions/info.
I'm considering getting LASIK overseas at some point. Seems useful.
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Following, because DH is considering it.
I hear pricing can be quite variable based on deals, groupons, who you know, where you go sort of thing. How much did people pay for their Lasik is my add on question?
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I've been thinking about it for a few years as well...really tempting.
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I got it about 6 years ago, and it cost around $2k. I was utterly blind without correction before the surgery, and have perfect vision now. I consider it EASILY the best $2k I've ever spent.
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I had mine done a year ago this month. I paid 4k, after discounts for having a certain vision insurance (that didn't actually cover anything) and paying cash. It was quick, easy, and worth every penny. I highly recommend it to anyone!
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My wife had it done a little over a year-and-a-half ago. She loves it. Here are my tips. Pay cash and ask for a discount. I think we got around 25% off for that. Submit your health insurance (or vision if you have it). Some insurance companies have deals with Lasik providers. I think that was good for another 5-10% off. The third thing to do (which we didn't) is look for referral discounts. All the discounts stacked at our provider.
I did an ROI calculation compared to the contacts that my wife used and the payoff was around seven years (cost of contacts and solution). However, it saves time and effort for her as well. She loves it.
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I've had a great experience with Lasik.
I had it about 3 years ago, and the quality of life improvement has been pretty great, and worth it for me. This was pre-mustachianism for me, so I can't say for sure that it was the most financially prudent move, but I'm still glad that I did it. I did get a pretty nice 5% discount for paying cash.
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$2800 this year using FSA money and a $300 or so discount for having vision insurance (which as another poster said, it doesn't actually cover anything...just having the card, I guess). Done at a place considered one of the best in the area and a place that never did the Groupon thing.
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Oh yeah, forgot the price. I paid $3700 in actual physical cash. This was for the most advanced Lasik available (and I'm now 20/15 in one eye and 20/20 in the other).
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Had mine done at the London Place Eye Centre in BC years ago. They'd been doing for way longer than local (WA state) clinics and cost less (at that time). BEST MONEY I EVER SPENT! Total cost including follow-ups was $2K.
I was developing vascular intrusions into my corneas from decades of contact lens wear and it was either glasses all the time or surgery.
Glasses @$200+/year (and rising due to Rx changes) x 16 (how long ago I did it) = $3200. Not having to find my specs to find the bathroom, priceless!
At the time of surgery, I was warned that I was probably gonna need readers soon (age 37 @ that time) but only in the past couple years have I had to use the low-power readers at the grocery store and then only when I'm tired or in poor lighting.
YMMV but I heartily endorse this procedure!
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I probably said this in the thread Arebelspy linked - but this was the best $3,000 I've ever spent.
Glasses drove me insane and, after 10+ years of wearing them, contacts were also driving me crazy and becoming painful. Waking up and being able to see the clock in the morning without fumbling for glasses still amazes me from time to time.
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I would absolutely love to do this, I've even booked consultations before then chickened out.
At some point my annoyance with glasses/contacts is going to outweigh my fear of people fecking around with my eyeballs...but not reached that point yet.
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Did mine back in 2000.. Went from 20/800 with bad astigmatism to close to perfect.. not quite perfect in one eye.
Sadly I now have to wear glasses in poor light as my eyes have deteriorated again.
Man it was an incredible improvement for a few years though.
I paid $2k back then
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Did it about 3.5 years ago, best $3,600 I've every spent. Went from terrible, asymmetrical vision to 20/20 in both eyes, got rid of my extreme light sensitivity (could hardly go outside without sunglasses before), don't have to deal with contacts/glasses every day, and wake up being able to see clearly every morning. A++ would do again.
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Your eyes may not be the place to save money. I went with the best doctor I could find (Slade & Baker in Houston), paid about $4,000 and let the spouse do it first as a trial, haha. In my case, results were mixed. I have 20/20 in one eye but about 20/40 in the other. I prefer to use glasses when driving, especially after dark. Lasik reduces your night vision and, if you are currently nearsighted, means you will need reading glasses around the age of 50 which you would not otherwise. I was a bit surprised to experience how invasive the surgery is. The laser part if fine, but chopping apart your outer corner before the laser is rough. They need to find a way to do lasik without cutting up your eyeball.s
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I hesitated for so long that I developed cataracts and so had the corrective surgery fully paid by insurance. So great to be able to see without glasses.
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Got it about a year ago. It cost me $4500. No insurance discount for me (and most people), but you can pay for it with pre-tax dollars (HSA or the like). Went from legally blind to 20/20. Best money I ever spent. I honestly wish I had done it sooner.
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I did it about 3 years ago. Did a living social deal for the doctor I wanted to go to anyways. I think I paid $2-3k. So worth it, I hated glasses and contacts.
The first eye was no big deal, the second eye hurt like crazy. They gave me a stress doll to hold onto and I squeezed the life out of that thing. They told me it's uncommon but not unheard of. Apparently for some people their brain figures out by the second eye that something is wrong and sets off the nerve response. Thankfully it only lasts for a few seconds. And it was so worth it I'd do it again if I had to. Can now see 20-15.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Sweet, thanks everyone for the info and other thread links. I am forwarding on to her to have a read through. Her consult is tomorrow and we will be deciding after that.
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Mine was ten years ago. I echo the comments about it being some of the best money I ever spent. I was pretty nearsighted and had bad astigmatism. The gas-permeable contacts I tried were too irritating no matter how I tried to ease into wearing them, and the weighted soft lenses didn't work. Glasses suck when trying to play sports, eat soup, or be vain.
The day after I had it, I went to my optometrist and after he looked at my eyes with his instruments, he said he couldn't even tell anything had been done to them. He was amazed. It didn't even look to him like I'd had the surgery. I had 20/20 vision in both eyes for years, and no astigmatism. If anyone hasn't mentioned this yet, do expect that your eyes will continue to change after you have Lasik. It corrects for your vision at the time of the surgery, but it can't stop time. Ten years later, now I'm at the point where I'm slightly nearsighted again, but don't need corrective lenses yet most of the time. I just need the lowest strength readers for close-up vision. I only just started using readers this year, so I had almost ten years of perfect vision.
Other notes: the actual surgery was freaky. That's the only word I have for it. They use little doodads to hold your eyes open. My providers talked to me during the procedure, telling me things like: I would now have very blurry vision, now please look at the red light, now make sure to keep looking in the same direction, and now your vision will go black for about 45 seconds, but don't worry, it's expected. It was freaky. And I wasn't given any Valium or anything.
Four hours later I was allowed to take off the bandages, and for the first time since I was eight years old, I could see perfectly without any corrective lenses. It was amazing. All I used was Tylenol, too. It was a breeze.
I was given safety goggles to wear the first night to guard against any inadvertent bumps to the head during healing. It seemed unlikely, but I wore them anyway, just in case. Am I glad I did. My then-husband, who was normally a calm sleeper, somehow managed to clock me right in between my eyes during the night with his elbow. Wham! That never happened any other night of our 20-year relationship. So if they give you goggles to wear, I recommend it.
Good luck, and enjoy the results! The quality of life improvement is fantastic.
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I had PRK (slightly different technique) last year (couldn't get Lasik due to thin and irregular cornea), paid $5K.
Although expensive I don't regret at all. My vision is excellent and love life without prescription glasses.
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I had it done 10 years ago. All good experience.
If you're young, I recommend doing it sooner rather than later and you will reap the rewards longer. If you're middle-aged, you may need readers sooner than you would have otherwise (so I'm told...I don't know how to prove that).
I started to really need readers at about age 45. Now, I cannot read without them. But my driving and far-away vision is still close to perfect. It's wonderful.
I'm thinking about mono-vision now just to get rid of having to carry glasses around again. We'll see.
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I had PRK done about 2-3 years ago. Cost about $4000 and it was absolutely worth it.
I got PRK instead of Lasik because it heals more completely. Verify this with your own research, but my understanding is that the flap they cut for lasik never heals 100%. Lasik disqualifies you from certain professions (pilots, military) and is not recommended for certain activities (anything where your eyes might take a hit, especially if far from medical care.) PRK has a much longer and more painful recovery, but heals completely. The long painful recovery time was worth the peace of mind to me.
The only problem I have is star bursts around lights and reflective objects at night. It makes night driving a little annoying, but having good distance vision without glasses or contacts is worth it. My vision is about 20/15 after a couple years. I'll probably need reading glasses eventually, but needing glasses occasionally for reading or close-up work seems a lot more convenient than needing glasses all the rest of the time. And in the mean time I get a decade or so of perfect vision all the time.
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Had it done about 4 years ago. Highly recommend it.
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I had it done in December. Did it at 10 am that morning, and by that evening I felt well enough to DRIVE to a holiday party. In the dark. That's after sleeping most of the day and a good bit of pain in the first few hours afterwards. The rate of improvement was incredible. I could almost feel the healing happening.
It was a really good decision. I had sensitive eyes and contacts were really bothersome. Now my eyes are a lot less irritated and I think they're healthier overall. No night halos or glare at all.
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I got PRK instead of Lasik because it heals more completely. Verify this with your own research, but my understanding is that the flap they cut for lasik never heals 100%.
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source needed
Lasik disqualifies you from certain professions (pilots, military) and is not recommended for certain activities (anything where your eyes might take a hit, especially if far from medical care.)
source? the military pays for LASIK now. I know people who have had it done while on active duty. I think your info used to be correct but is no longer accurate.
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Got it done 4 years go. I had poor night vision and halos for a couple months, but now my vision is perfect. I can't imagine having to go back to glasses and contacts. I'd pay for it again in a heart beat. It was about 4k funneled through our FSA.
The cost/benefit analysis that compares cost of glasses and contacts to the cost of the surgery totally misses the quality of life improvement.
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Lasek seems to be preferred these days overseas :? If people are into the medical tourism aspect
Not sure how much the pro or con is but here is a list comparing lasik, prk, lasek but link makes prk seem the best of the three
http://www.allaboutvision.com/visionsurgery/lasek.htm
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If you aren't ready for lasik I recently figured out disposable daily contacts are far more comfortable then bi-weekly or monthly contact lenses. Also last year I paid approx. $470 for a year's supply of Focus Daily contacts. This year I realized if you can actually wear them far more than 1 day before they go "bad" (I change them every 2 weeks and notice no problems). Which means my year supply now costs about $60, not included solution.
Next year will be my first year participating in an HSA which I plan to use for lasik once I've accumulated a reasonable amount.
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source needed
source? the military pays for LASIK now. I know people who have had it done while on active duty. I think your info used to be correct but is no longer accurate.
Honestly, the references I can find in a 5 minute search don't look like trustworthy sources. Such as this: http://www.lasikcomplications.com/flapdislocation.htm (http://www.lasikcomplications.com/flapdislocation.htm)
Modern Lasik is probably fine. However, since the only downside to PRK is a few days of pain, I'd still choose PRK over Lasik if I was doing it again.
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I said this in the other thread too, but add me to the list of satisfied Lasik people. I had it done ~18 months ago at age 21. My prescription had been stable for years.
The only issue I had was that at my screening appt, the doctor said my eyes were dry, and that was a (temporary) dealbreaker - she put me on Restasis drops, which dealt with the dryness well enough that when I went back a few months later she approved me. I'm still on the drops, though I'm going to try to wean off them this summer. Just be aware that if you have any issues with dryness, Lasik will not fix it and might make it worse. But I will happily take a couple of eye drops per day over the hassle of contacts!
As for cost, my parents paid as a gift to me, and I believe it was ~$4k for both eyes. We went with the surgeon that my regular eye doctor recommended.
The surgery itself was fast and painless. They did give me Valium but I would have been fine without it.
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I went to a consultation several days ago, and the doctor said that I am not a good candidate for surgery because of the shape of my eye (too flat) :(
On the positive side, now I don't need to worry about cutting the part of my eyes :)
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I had mine done last week. I did not get a discount for paying in full, with cash. I went with who is suppose to be the best around and with the best procedure. It was $3500. No regrets. Just take something like a Tylenol PM as soon as you are home and get yourself to sleep and you will feel like a million bucks when you wake up!
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When my husband got his LASIK done, I found a groupon for a place that a lot of my coworkers went to. And we asked the place if we could get the groupon deal through them since we didn't know if my husband qualified for LASIK. He qualified, we got our discount, and we used our FSA for it. Also I found out that the place had the groupon deal because it was summertime and they said it was their slow season.
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Wait… Not only do they put a pointy thing in your eye, They put a pointy thing in your eye when you're awake? And then you wear glasses again 10 years later? And you can't see as well at night?
Good thing I like my glasses okay.
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Lasik done Dec 2013, $3200 cash.
Now 20/15 right eye, 20/20 left eye at distance.
For up close work, I use grocery store readers (3 pair/$8 at WallyWorld).
Best Christmas present I've had in years, and should pay off for years to come.
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Wait… Not only do they put a pointy thing in your eye, They put a pointy thing in your eye when you're awake? And then you wear glasses again 10 years later? And you can't see as well at night?
Good thing I like my glasses okay.
As an added bonus, they gave me a Valium first, so I really could have cared less.
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LASIK has changed my life for the better
I don't care if its more expensive than yearly contacts. To not be scared if I break my glasses or run out of contacts, to not be blind when I wake up, to have perfect vision is a dream. I couldn't see the big E befors, and now have perfect 20/15 vision in both eyes, a year later. Hiking the pacific crest trail with no vision worries is great. LASIK yes yes yes!!! $3600/for both eyes and a year of follow up appointments. Pacific LASIK and cataract, wonderful.
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I have had LASIK for almost 7 years. I got it done at 30. I wish I had done it sooner! I LOVE it! Seriously is amazing! We just researched our state and went to the best with unlimited touchups. So far no problems!
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Has anyone done the permanently inserted contact lenses right over your corneas (aka Implantable contact lenses)? That's what I intend to do, within another 10 years or so.
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I had lasek sixteen years ago. It cost $4400 at the time and was well worth it. I had difficulty with night vision for six months to a year, because I could see so WELL that it was distracting. The contrast between lights was a bit overwhelming, especially neon lights. I had some halo effect that first year too, but that went away.
Eleven years later, when I was about 41, my eyesight began deteriorating again, slowly. I now wear glasses (about 20/80), and while I can see up close, I'm going to need readers soon. I'm debating having lasek again instead.
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Best thing you'll ever do I had mine done in August of 2007. After 8 years I may need to have it redone on my left eye. But I was only 20 and so my eyes likely weren't done changing.
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Lasik pays off the most during travel! It SUCKS packing a pair of glasses, contacts, extra contacts, solution, and being afraid you'll lose one of the necessary items! I was so fed up during my last trip with a friend who had just had lasik that I booked my consult when I got back. Easy peasy.
My friend had PPK and she said the pain during recovery was terrible. I couldn't believe she was taking hydromorphone!
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Many of my friends have had it in their 40's & 50's. A few years later they all needed reading glasses but it worked for long distance sight. Only one person had a bad outcome & became legally blind after the surgery.
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I have heavily research this as I am -3.75 and -4.75 in my eyes. A few different consultations have said I am a great candidate though my eyes are slightly dry. I didn't do it for two main reasons, both of which tie back to me being risk-adverse (aka a wuss).
1) Multiple surveys of thousands of lasik patients indicate 98% of participants say their quality life improved after lasik. While high, given the downsides, I don't find it high enough. I would not fly in an airplane even if it was a 99.9% guarantee I wouldn't crash. Given the volume of flights, this would be several crashes a week.
2) Folks with dry eye previously have a higher likelihood of having long-term poor outcomes.
Now, all people I know who have had the procedure (Lasik or PRK - an alternative) have had excellent outcomes. However, I probably know 12 people that have done it. With 98% of thousands surveyed having a good experience, the odds of even 1 of my 12 having a bad experience is extremely low. However, as with anything in life, it's a personal risk/reward decision, just as riding a bike to work. I'd just encourage people to do their research and separate the advertisements from the studies (I read a few from the FDA).
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I have three friends that I know have done it. Two complain of starbursts at night. Night driving gets harder with age and I don't think that will help.
I've been on the short end of long odds too often to risk my only pair of eyes for elective surgery. Yes, I'm a wuss.
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Only one person had a bad outcome & became legally blind after the surgery.
Can I ask what went wrong?
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I got it about 6 years ago, and it cost around $2k. I was utterly blind without correction before the surgery, and have perfect vision now. I consider it EASILY the best $2k I've ever spent.
I got mine a while back and also consider it the best money I ever spent....well....right after seeing my Dad the last time he got sick....that was the best money I ever spent, since he passed away shortly after.
But I thought the surgery was going to freak me out more than it did...it was quick and I started laughing in the chair because I could read the clock on the wall and hadn't even noticed it when I walked in there.
Do it!
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Only one person had a bad outcome & became legally blind after the surgery.
Can I ask what went wrong?
I'm guessi....ah....ah....achoo!
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Has anyone done the permanently inserted contact lenses right over your corneas (aka Implantable contact lenses)? That's what I intend to do, within another 10 years or so.
Are you talking about anterior chamber lens implants? My husband had his done, (by the best opthamologic surgeon in the area) and it was great for around fifteen years. Then he developed bullar keratopathy in one eye. (Cloudy cornea.) The doctor said it was just a result of the manipulation of the eye years ago. The fix would have been a corneal transplant, which my husband was not interested in pursuing. A couple of eye drops helped with comfort, but didn't improve the vision. Vision in the other eye continued to be fine. Vision in the affected eye deteriorated to where he could only see the big E on the eye chart. No pain, but he complained a lot that it felt like "something is in my eye" in the affected eye.
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My daughter had LASIK in her 20s, paid for by her dad. (We are divorced--I was not involved.) She was one of those blind-as-a-bat kids, so I would have said she seemed like a good candidate. The perfect visual acuity allowed her to pass the physical for the good federal job she has. However, she has low night vision and sees halos around things at night. So a mixed bag.
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Someone asked what went wrong with the person I knew & as it was a number of years ago I actually don't remember. My Mom had cataract surgery on 1 eye & although the doc was highly rated & had done a ton he screwed up her eye. She had pain that she never had before & could no longer drive at night. She never got the other one done. There is a certain amount of risk to everything & personally I would not take the risk with my eyesight no matter how small.