Laser Vision Correction

[mnealtx 0]

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Computer use does nothing to your prescription.

Your rx is based on the size, shape, and refractive properties of your eye. Using your eyes in any way (computer, sitting too close to the TV, reading in the dark, wearing/not wearing glasses, etc) can not change the physical properties of your eye's structure.

You're just getting old

Hell, I already KNEW that!

I *can* tell a difference, though - my focusing is 'different' (for lack of a better description) after using the computer for a while...almost as if my eyes had gotten "locked in" to one focus plane...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[peregrinerose 0]

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I *can* tell a difference, though - my focusing is 'different' (for lack of a better description) after using the computer for a while...almost as if my eyes had gotten "locked in" to one focus plane...

That's called accommodative spasm. It's normal, not a big deal, and won't change your prescription at all
When you change your focal distance from optical infinity (beyond 6 feet) to near, you have to change the shape of the lens inside your eye. You do that be contracting a muscle around the lens, which allows the lens to change shape

The older you get, the stiffer that lens gets, so the muscle works very hard to get the lens to change shape. Like any other muscle, it spasms. Muscle spasms can take time to relax and go back to normal, but it does go back to normal, it's not a permanant or unhealthy thing.

Eventually the lens gets too stiff and won't change shape at all any more, and that's when the bifocal era kicks in (usually around age 40). All bifocals/reading glasses do is optically change the focus point since your eye can't do it any more.

Using a computer or not has nothing to do with this process, either way, it's going to happen.

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[mnealtx 0]

I appreciate the explanation...that helps me to understand it.

I try to get away from the computer every so often to give my eyes a break.

Edit to add: Dad was far-sighted and Mom near-sighted. I'm the only one of six kids to NOT need glasses by the time I started school.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[livendive 8]

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PRK long term side effects are actually very low... some glare issues, decrease in contrast sensitivity, not as much with dry eye... the worst dry eye with that is immediately post op and improves significantly with time.

How significant is the decrease in contrast sensitivity? Enough to decrease the experience of watching hi-def movies? I've been considering surgery for sometime now. I think my vision is 20/400 in both eyes (stable for 10ish years now with a -3.25). I'm guessing a lazy eye isn't a big deal? Are there any rumblings in the industry regarding major insurance plans covering surgical procedures in the next few years? Cuz if not, I can probably make time this winter when we're not jumping.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[Zenister 0]

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Your rx is based on the size, shape, and refractive properties of your eye. Using your eyes in any way (computer, sitting too close to the TV, reading in the dark, wearing/not wearing glasses, etc) can not change the physical properties of your eye's structure.

i'm forwarding this to my mother.. she wouldnt listen to me as a kid (no PhD) :D

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[Zenister 0]

obviously I cant do a 'side by side' comparison, but being a very visual person ( I think I'd notice if paintings Ive viewed all my life were different) I cant say I noticed ANY difference after the first 30 days..

maybe I just got lucky.. but I still say it was the best money I've spent..


my insurance plan also paid 20% as long as it was through an approved Dr.. (the one I linked above was)

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[peregrinerose 0]

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How significant is the decrease in contrast sensitivity? Enough to decrease the experience of watching hi-def movies? I've been considering surgery for sometime now. I think my vision is 20/400 in both eyes (stable for 10ish years now with a -3.25). I'm guessing a lazy eye isn't a big deal? Are there any rumblings in the industry regarding major insurance plans covering surgical procedures in the next few years? Cuz if not, I can probably make time this winter when we're not jumping.

Lazy eye IS a big deal... no surgeon will touch you. Lazy eye means amblyopia, meaning your brain never learned how to see 20/20 even WITH best possible glasses or contacts. This is completely preventable vision loss if caught in infancy/early childhood and why first eye exams should be before 1 year of age. If you only have one 'good' eye, refractive surgeons won't take any risks like that.

Some people call an eye that turns in or out lazy eye... this isn't lazy eye (although it can cause it)... this is called strabismus. Some people call a droopy eyelid lazy eye... that's actually ptosis. Neither of these is a factor at all with regard to LASIK.

With regard to contrast, you wouldn't really notice much difference on a daily basis. Maybe some slight decrease in night vision, but that's about it. The decrease in contrast sensitivity only really gets to be an issue when you're old and have early cataracts.... so decreased contrast sensitivity from that plus decreased from LASIK and you'll have more effect than someone who didn't have refractive surgery. Hi def movies would be fine.

Some insurance companies offer a discount in refractive surgery (VSP is one), but most don't cover it and probably won't since it is elective. I doubt that's going to change any time soon. Vision companies really don't save any money by covering refractive procedures since people still need yearly eye exams and often still need at least part time glasses (definitely needed once past 40).

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[livendive 8]

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Lazy eye IS a big deal... no surgeon will touch you. Lazy eye means amblyopia, meaning your brain never learned how to see 20/20 even WITH best possible glasses or contacts. This is completely preventable vision loss if caught in infancy/early childhood and why first eye exams should be before 1 year of age. If you only have one 'good' eye, refractive surgeons won't take any risks like that.

Some people call an eye that turns in or out lazy eye... this isn't lazy eye (although it can cause it)... this is called strabismus. Some people call a droopy eyelid lazy eye... that's actually ptosis. Neither of these is a factor at all with regard to LASIK.

I wore a patch on my "good" eye for some time when I was a kid. Now, some people notice it immediately and others never do. I notice it all the time, as my "lazy" eye is never looking at exactly what I want it to. When shooting a rifle, I have to lean all the way over and use my left eye to aim. When reading the exam chart with my right eye, I kind of look at a letter a couple over from the one I'm trying to read, and then make it out using "peripheral" vision...sort of. Although both eyes are using the same correction, my right eye only corrects to maybe 20/50 with a lot of concentration because beyond that I just can't look closely enough at the subject. Basically my right eye is a minor player in my vision...helping with some depth perception & periperal vision, but 90% of my "picture" gets to my brain via my left eye. So is that the kind of "lazy eye" that precludes surgery?

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[peregrinerose 0]

Yep, you only correct to 20/50 in that eye, that's amblyopia... make sure your kids (if/when you have any) get their eyes examined before 1 year of age. That's completely preventable vision loss. If that was caught in infancy and treated, your brain would have learned to see 20/20... it was caught too late and treated too late, so your brain only learned how to see 20/50 (which is better than the 20/400 it would be seeing if it wasn't treated at all).

Vision is learned in the first 2 years of life... the brain has no idea how to see when you're born. Infants see about 20/5000ish. If anything is interrupting a clear image from hitting the retina and being interpreted by the brain, the brain can't learn how to see from one or both eyes. This can be from a high prescription, eye turn (brain ignores the eye that turns to keep from seeing double), congenital cataract, and a lot of other things.

About 1 in 20 kids is born with something that causes amblyopia. Your kids are at much higher risk than that due to genetics.

If whatever is blocking the brain from learning how to see is treated young (glasses, vision therapy, surgery, drops, and/or patching), the brain will learn how to see... the older it's treated, the less plastic the brain and the less visual acuity will be gained.

You would not be legal to drive if something went wrong with the surgery in your better seeing eye. I'm sure you could probably find a surgeon willing to do the surgery, but I'd seriously question that surgeon's ethics. It's not a good idea to have an elective surgical procedure when you really only have one eye keeping you legal to drive.

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[livendive 8]

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Yep, you only correct to 20/50 in that eye, that's amblyopia... make sure your kids (if/when you have any) get their eyes examined before 1 year of age. That's completely preventable vision loss. If that was caught in infancy and treated, your brain would have learned to see 20/20... it was caught too late and treated too late, so your brain only learned how to see 20/50 (which is better than the 20/400 it would be seeing if it wasn't treated at all).

I think my bad eye focuses to 20/20, i.e. the edges of things aren't blurry like when I don't have my contacts in (that's when it's 20/400). I just can't control the movement well enough to aim the eye exactly where I want. With a lot of concentration, I can figure out what letters I'm trying to read, but only to an extent. Looking now at a training notice on my office wall, I can read the words "confirmation notice" quite clearly...but it takes a few seconds of letting my eye wander back & forth over it (as opposed to squinting, when something isn't clear enough). Similarly, when holding my finger in front of my face, shutting my right eye has no effect, but shutting my left eye makes it jump to a different location.

If I remember correctly, the function of wearing a patch on my left eye when I was a kid (age 3-5ish) was to force me to use my right eye...basically to exercise it and make it work harder. I think I also heard that the same treatment has no effect on an adult. True? And there's no other treatment?

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[peregrinerose 0]

Probably the easiest way to explain it is with pixels. It sounds like your right eye may have a slight eye turn. So as an infant, your brain had a choice... see double or ignore the eye. Double vision is extremely disconcerting, so the brain typically chooses to ignore the eye. That's why as an infant it didn't learn to see as well.

With the patching when you were 3-5, you were forcing the brain to start paying attention to the central vision in that eye. Not exercising it... there's nothing wrong with the eye at all, it's the brain that's the issue. During that time, your vision probably went from about 20/400 to 20/whatever it is now. It didn't get to the same clear 20/20 that you see in your left eye because it was treated so late.... 20/20 is learned in the first 2 years of life, the learning of vision slows down after that.

Your brain basically doesn't have the same amount of pixels in your right eye as the left. Everything is perfectly in focus, just lower resolution. That's why it's harder to see, you need to work harder at it, move the eyes around more to translate the image than with the left eye. It's also why the image doesn't look fuzzy like not having contacts in. If you took your computer monitor and cut the resolution in half, the image would still be clear, but harder to see.... same with your amblyopic eye.

It is true that treating amblyopia as a adult is much harder... our brains aren't as plastic as when we were kids. If you patched full time now, you might gain a very tiny amount of vision, but it would take a VERY long time of full time patching for minimal to no gain. Since neurology is still the newest and least understood of the sciences, there really is no other treatment for amblyopia other than the patching and vision therapy, both most effective when done as young as possible.

Talk to your eye doc, find out what your best corrected vision is in the amblyopic right eye. If it's 20/40 or better, then think about surgery. If lower than 20/40 (the magic legal to drive cut-off), you might not want to consider it.

Worst case scenario, if your left eye loses vision due to the surgery, would you be perfectly comfortable living your life with the best corrected vision in your right eye all the time? That's basically the decision you need to make. I can't answer that one for you, everyone is different

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[livendive 8]

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there's nothing wrong with the eye at all, it's the brain that's the issue.

Surprise!

I could absolutely not drive with only my right eye. I need contacts in both eyes to drive as it is. Trying to see out my right eye is totally disconcerting, to the point of making me nauseous. It's also ineffective and frustrating and gives me a headache. I guess I'll stick with contacts and hope nothing ever happens to my left eye.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)