Laser eye surgery - should I?

[Chipshopflipshop]

Maybe I'm having a bit of a mid life crisis 😂 I'm 39, feel a bit mumsy and frumpy (working on losing some weight) and I'd love to ditch my glasses. I'm short sighted, around -5.5 in each eye, and blind as a bat without my glasses, should I??
I know I'm the only one who can answer this but I'd love to know from people who have done it I'd it's worth it. Especially at my age.

TIA

I had it at 35 and it was life changing but got very light sensitive after 10 years and now at 50 I'm wearing varifocals all the time as within a few months I became both short and long sighted. Wearing glasses is bloody awful, those 15 years of nothing was bliss.

I had it done about 2 and a half years ago and overall I'm happy I did. My vision isn't completely perfect, but it's good enough to manage without glasses. I started from a high perscription (-9) which makes to harder to get perfect vision. Your lower perscription will give you a better chance of perfect vision first time round than I had. I would recommend doing lots of research into techniques etc. I also have dry eyes (and suffer from an eye dystrophy which I was born with), so I opted for SMILE surgery rather than Lasik, as it's less invasive and is associated with quicker recovery times and less dry eye problems than lasik. But it is more expensive (I think I paid £7k in total).

Best thing I did, life changing! I was short sighted and had astigmatism. It was 8 years ago and my vision is still 10/10 (last eye test in August). I think I calculated that I made my money back after 6 years so it was worth the investment.

I had it done in 2008 aged 37 (on St. Patrick's Day so easy to remember), it was one of the best decisions I ever made, I had a prescription similar to yours and only needed reading glasses a year ago, recently got a pair of varifocal glasses because my hobby is crocheting and I was using my reading glasses for that but had to take them off to look up at the TV so while I don't need lenses for distance the varifocal is just for convenience, went to a very good optician who was very impressed with the health of my eyes 15 years after the surgery, I can't recommend it enough, my son had his done at 21, he'd worn glasses since he was 5, he's had no issues but says he misses his glasses!!

Speak to a reputable eye surgeon before you set your heart on it! I didn't and was really disappointed when I found out I wasn't suitable. I think I'd assumed that there was a treatment for everyone if you paid enough!

I'd saved up for it for my 50th - and for various reasons, not age related, I wasn't suitable for either laser surgery, lens replacement or contact lens implants. Eye dryness was one of the reasons - and I'd never thought I had dry eyes! Even after 3 months of eye drops and Omega oil supplements, my tear film was poor quality and surgeon was not confident that my eyes would heal 1-at all 2-comfortably.

I now wear daily disposable varifocal contacts. Don't even need reading glasses.

I

Background: I'm 32, -7.0 in both eyes and have an astigmatism.

I went for a consultation in 2008 and was quoted £4k back then. I couldn't afford it so forgot about it.

Then in October last year, when it started getting darker in the evening, I got myself into a bit of a flap about another winter of miserable night driving, dazzling headlights, starburst effects from traffic lights, etc. I looked for accounts of laser surgery for astigmatism and night driving afterwards, and many people end up with issues they didn't have before.

I then saw my optician to whinge that no matter what I tried (every coating you can think of on my glasses; pricey toric contact lenses; fancy eye drops), driving at night feels like looking through a kaleidoscope. I asked about laser and she said she's not qualified to advise but said (in a "take from this what you will" sort of way) a lot of these issues are caused by dry eyes and a large percentage of people she sees post-surgery have chronic dry eye.

I had lens implantation surgery last year as I’m too short sighted for laser. The surgery is literally implanting a contact lens in front of your natural lens, behind the cornea. Similar to cataract surgery except they don’t remove your natural lens. I believe it has a much lower risk of dry eye because they are not messing with the cornea at all. I did have some halo effect but it’s gone now. It is more pricey though, and fewer surgeons do it.

I now live life without ever thinking about glasses or lenses. It’s fab. At some point I will still need reading glasses but I’m ok with that - as you say, it’s not the same as needing them for everything. If I get more short sighted I can potentially have a small amount of laser to correct, but hopefully my prescription was stable enough that that won’t happen.

Happy to answer any questions if anyone is thinking of this option.

I'm 43. I had mine done about six weeks ago and I wish I had been able to do it sooner, but the technology had to catch up with my prescription! I was -11.75 on the right and -9.25 on the left, with an astigmatism in both and my vision is now completely corrected.

Technically the right eye was out of range for the procedure and we were aiming for as close to perfect as possible, but on the day they were able to correct it completely. I went to a place that uses Wavefront which I'm told was the reason they were able to get it completely corrected, the procedure is more precise. The total cost was around £3,500 for both eyes and that would have included a second procedure on my right eye within a year if we'd needed to do further correction.

I didn't have a problem with dry eye or tear quality to begin with but my eyes are SO much more comfortable now without contacts. I've hardly had to use the artificial tears at all - maybe a bit in the first week and on occasion at the end of the day. It's been totally life-changing.

If you can afford to do it, I would recommend, had mine done many years ago at Optimax, no regrets.

Echoing PPs on here

I had it done mainly for aesthetics and it was the best money I've ever spent, especially when stacked against haircuts, eyebrow grooming, skincare. Getting rid of my glasses was by far the most effective thing to improve my looks.

I had it done last year when I was 36.

It was, I think, about £4.5K total.

It didn't hurt. It was a weird sensation but only took 12 seconds in each eye.

I actually found the preliminary consultation where they test your eligibility much worse than the actual procedure.

The days afterwards were the worst. I took a week off work to recover but my eyes were really sensitive and got tired very easily so I couldn't really do anything like watch TV, read a book etc. I was paranoid about infection so I avoided things like cleaning, cooking or even going out too much.
At night, you sleep with goggles which really disrupted my sleep.
And you have to have a lot of eye drops over the following week, some of which I found really quite painful.
And you have to avoid tap water in your eyes for a while but the eye drops kind of congeal and all I wanted to do was wash my face/eyes.
So it was a pretty shit week with everything combined but I'd do it all again in a heartbeat for the benefits.

DP then went and had his done about six months later.
He had a bit of different experience. He was in a lot of pain immediately following the procedure whereas I wasn't at all.
But he didn't find the eye drops nearly as troublesome as me. And he had nno trouble sleeping.

Again, he'd say it was the best thing he did.

My advice would be to not dwell on it. Just book it in and get it done.

Thanks for all the differing opinions on this, I've been quoted £3600 and that includes lifetime treatment and any follow up lasering that would ever be required
I have a consultation on Friday so will see what that brings, it is a lot of money to spend on myself, trying to figure out if it really is quite self indulgent when I have kids, and a house that needs quite a bit of work 😂
I just know I will love the freedom that comes with being able to see, and no more of that panicked, helpless feeling when you can't find, or break your glasses!
Pain wise, what are we talking, a few of you have mentioned being in pain, is it your actual eyeball? A headache type pain? Stinging, aching?

i didn’t have any pain at all, barely even any discomfort.

For me, the worst bit was when they had to hold my eyelids open to do the operation. It’s not that it was painful, it’s just the natural reaction you get when something comes close to your eyes, you want to fight it.

The operation itself doesn’t hurt, the hardest bit is trying not to think about what the surgeon is doing!

I stumbled upon this post yesterday and saved it as this is something I half considered years ago but then life got in the way and I hadn't thought about it in a long while.

My eyes are getting drier the older I get and last year I ended up with some really bad headaches on sunny days where I'd gone out
wearing my glasses and was frowning due to not being able to wear my sunglasses. Thinking ahead to this summer, I can't see me wearing my glasses all that much if last summer is anything to go by but nor do I want my eyes watering every day due to the dryness that seems to come on now with excessive lens wearing. I've worn lenses for 20 years without any issues have been but the last two years I've had problems with my left eye watering most days which I've been told is because they're dry. Hence I'm tying to wear glasses more.

Like you OP I'm 39 and have kids and a house that could always do with that money but reading the replies here I'm now tempted to make some enquiries as so many people are saying they wished they'd done it sooner.

So where does one start their research to find a good, reliable surgeon? I'm guessing there must be some cowboy firms out there only interested in the money rather than offering personalised realistic outcomes and assessing my long term eye health.

OP please keep us updated ☺️

@TheMindfulMum I know, I have made some enquiries and scheduled a consultation at a well known clinic where I live.
The girl I spoke to on the phone today said I probably can't tolerate contacts after have worn them for nearly 20 years. And she's probably right, we don't know what the long term effects of daily contact wear are on our eyes, I never thought twice about it
I hate not being to wear sunglasses and before anyone suggests prescription ones, what a faff to try and remember them, they don't come cheap either.
So I'm always squinting in the sun too. I suffer from light triggered migraines and I'm hoping this might be the solution to that.

Pain wise, what are we talking, a few of you have mentioned being in pain, is it your actual eyeball? A headache type pain? Stinging, aching?

So I had no pain at all. The protocol was to take paracetemol (and sedative!) right before the procedure, go home and go directly to bed. That's exactly what I did. There was maybe a little soreness of the actual eye when I woke up later that evening to take more paracetemol, and I went right back to bed.

Woke up the next day with no pain, no discomfort, and went straight back to work.

I had mine done almost 25 years ago. I was very very short sighted. Best thing I ever did.
I wear glasses for driving now but that's it and my prescription isn't very strong

I suffer with severe dry eyes (not from refractive surgery) and am in several dry eye groups. Some of the worst sufferers are post lasik/smile surgery. I really would t risk it if I was you.

@Chipshopflipshop are you my twin?! 😂 This is exactly what happened to me last summer after I got myself some specs to try and reduce lens wear. I had a number of days where I had awful headaches from squinting and one ended in a migraine where I was eventually sick so it's on my mind was we inch closer to summer. I was defaulting in my head to wearing my lenses more as sunny days approach but I know that will have a negative impact on the watery eye issue. Oh and I totally agree with you about prescription sunglasses! They would be the last thing on my mind as I am trying to hustle myself and two kids out the house most days!