Originally Posted by sameness
Again, not to be the hapless contrarian here, but I had a friend go completely and PERMANENTLY blind thanks to complications from Lasik surgery. Granted, this occurred in the early years of the procedure, and I'm sure that much in the way of the variables have been eliminated from the equation by now, but for my money, there's just no way I'm gonna roll the dice with my vision.
It is really not like rolling dice. There are certain parameters that dictate the extent of success, for example your cornia(?) thickness. Around 2001/2002 the german company that makes the lasik machine had a 'upgrade' and the lasik procedure has been perfected for quite some time, especially in canada (US is only catching up now). There is only one step that is manual and good experienced hands are a must, that is in cutting out the circular region of cornia (with some sextant type device) and opening the cut out layer like a lid, so that laser can zap inside. The lid will be closed after the procedure and healing begins immediately. I have heard of compilcations with lasik, but in most cases it was evident that the doctors over-sold the procedure and operated on eyes that were not really suitable. Do your research and you will find that lasik, when performed on suitable patients, has very high success rate. Atleast the success rate was high enough to convince me (and I am really paranoid when it comes to my vision). I cannot imagine now how I lived for 15 years with those annoying glasses and contacts.