lasik, prk, ortho-k, contacts, glasses?

[cvoav8r]

Just wodering what the concensus is among the professional ranks about what everyone thinks about, the new alternatives to corrective lenses.
Thanks

 

[Trojan]

I did LASIK in 2000, FAA and airline approved. No problems since.
Changed my life for the better, but there is always that small chance of problems, so everyone must make their own risk/reward decision. I race cars and motorcycles as well as fly jets for a living, so I had extra reasons, but as long as you answer all the paperwork honestly, nobody holds it against you anymore.

T

 

[skirt]

I also had Lasik in 2000, and have been very pleased. Went from 20/100 on a good day to 20/15. You do need to weigh the risks though. I do know of two pilots who are permanently grounded. Beef up your loss of license insurance! Usually the reasons for problems are poor surgeons (DONT go for the cheap ones) and/or too large pupils. Be sure the correction will cover your entire pupil, or you will end up with halo and starburst problems which makes night flying impossible. There are some websites out there that clearly discuss the potential problems. My procedure was also above board and cleared by the FAA and my company.

I minimized my risks by going to a top dollar doc who had done 30,000 procedures. Also, my eyes were "good candidates" for successful surgery. The minimal remaining risk was worth it for me, as I too had some outside interests (sports) that were very negatively impacted by glasses/contacts.

Skirt

 

[FracCapt]

I had LASIK in late 2000. I could have flown a week afterwards(my AME had given me a release to go back to flying), but I had 3 weeks of vacation, so I didn't fly for 3 weeks afterwards. I had starburst and halos(night only) for about 10 days. They started gradually going away at day 4 or 5. I had 20/400 vision when I went in, was seing 20/30 when I walked out of the office 30 minutes after surgery...20/15 the next morning. I test 20/15 or better with both eyes, and 20/20 or better with each eye. On a good day I test 20/12 with both, 20/15 each.

 

[cvoav8r]

Thanks for the respones on lasik, they all seem like pretty positive outcomes.
Has anyone had PRK? Or used Ortho-K?

 

[Z_Pilot]

If you want to go the conservative route, I would advise you to try the "See Clearly Method."
It involves eye exerscises and progressive undercorrection for the eyes.
They do not promise, nor can you expect to get completely out of glasses, but you can improve your vision without sugery.
However, you will not see much improvements if you don't do the exerscises everyday (twice a day).
Progressive undercorrection involves an optromitist perscribing you weaker lenses over time.
The difficult part of this method is finding an optromitist that will do progressive undercorrection. I tried the SCM and it worked. One eye improved by .25 (contact perscription) and the other eye improved by .50. That was with doing the SCM for about a month with no progressive undercorrection. I then went to my optomitrist and she would not perscribe me weaker lenses because she felt that it was a waste of money. I have not been doing the SCM lately until I can find an optomitrist that will do progressive undercorrection.

On another note, military applicants have claimed that the SCM was the reason that they were able to pass the flight physical...see their comments at the forums at baseops.net.

Z_Pilot

 

[de727ups]

Lasik

I did lasik and am very happy with it. Although I've regressed some and my corena's are too thin for a tweak. I can still see nearly 20/20 in one eye and probably 20/40 in the other. Much better than the 20/200 or worse I used to be.

 

[cvoav8r]

So for pilots Prk vs. lasik? From my understanding PRK although not as popular as lasik is not only safer but involves no cutting of flaps in the cornea. The scary thing is that I have read several studies that indicate that the flap from lasik never really heals, and pose long term problems regarding bulging of the cornea later in life. The drawbacks to prk are the recovery time and post-operative haze and use of steriods. So what about orthokeratolgy, anyone have insight about that?