Lasik Eyes Surgery - Patient's Vision Permanently Ruined by LASIK

Author

Patient's Vision Permanently Ruined by LASIK

Eye

2005-11-19, 5:59 pm

Two days after walking out of the office in Ft Lauderdale, I was able
to drive a car without my glasses, something I was NEVER able to do
before (with 20/400 vision). In the exit interview at TLC I mentioned a
bit of double vision in my right eye, but was told that would go away
in a few weeks, as they had mistakenly shopped the flap of my right eye
completely off and gave me what they called 'a standard clear contact
lens' to put over it to keep my flap from falling off my eye. For 2
weeks I was so impressed by the change in vision prescription I told
everyone I knew about it. Of course, this was only temporary elation.
After the elation subsided, I came to the determination that I could no
longer see anything after dusk. At first I thought I was just imagining
it, as I thought to myself, "Why would LASIK cause night blindness?".
After all, prior to the surgery, I had no idea what night blindness
even was. You hear about it from different people, but to actually know
what happens to those people you can never imagine. Well, for me it is
now a livable reality. Since my LASIK surgery, I feel myself squinting
in the slightest of diminished light conditions. If the sun isn't
shining and the street isn't aglow by streetlights, I might as well
shut off my headlights. I still have no idea what what nightblindness
looks like to other people, but for me it is like everything is at half
glow. A 60watt bulb might as well be a 30watt bulb, as it does nothing
to help me see a room clearly. Since my eye surgery, I have married,
and now my wife drives us most of the time at night, as I don't feel
safe driving at night. My wife can read signs before I can even see
them and outside on my porch at night, I have to get within 6 inches of
everything in order to focus on objects my wife can see perfectly clear
from 5 feet away. Even the tradeoff for nightblindness, I would have
been okay with LASIK, as seeing 20/80 (it was once 20/30, but has
slowly been reverting) is a vast improvement from my old 20/400 ways.
That is not the case, though, as in addition to the nightblindness I,
to this day, still see double vision in my right eye. Need I mention
that starbursts are a huge problem? They are. Prior to surgery I told
them I saw starbursts and they promised that would go away completely
with LASIK, well it has been 6 years now and they are worse than they
were without LASIK. I have recently been fitted with contacts as my
eyes have slowly been reverting back to nearsightedness (20/80 so far
and counting) and I am able to drive and ride a motorcycle again
without worry of missing an exit because I cannot read those big
lettered road signs on the highway. The contacts cannot put my vision
back to 20/20, though, as doing so magnifies the double vision in my
right eye, so I am trapped at 20/30 in order to not give myself
headaches when reading. Unfortunately they don't yet make contacts (I
say that tongue-in-cheek, they never will) that can correct my loss of
vision at night, my double vision in my right eye and the fact that
every light source looks about 20 times it's actual size. My eye doctor
also said there is a large amount of scarring where TLC chopped my flap
clear off, presumably from when the doctor tore it off while doing a
post op exam the day after surgery. The same exam where they said
everything would be fine in a couple of weeks, knowing full well I was
there on vacation and would be long gone by then. Considering they
promise a lifetime re-do guarantee, I have been tempted to have my
right re-done in hopes they can fix what they have caused, but risking
more loss of night vision and ruining my left eye as well just seems
like I'm taking a risk no man should even have to take. My eye doctor
agrees, as shown by the look on her face the second she began her
examination of my right eye. I'd imagine there are worse outcomes, and
I truly feel poorly for those people suffering from them, but this is
lifelong sentence that I was somehow asked to pay $4000 for. Oh, and
did I mention? The TLC center I went to found it prudent to dialate my
eyes PRIOR to my reading their 'terms and conditions' contract, so I
was unable to see my hand in front of my face, let alone read their 8
pages of fine print. A secretary in their office read it to me and
pointed my hand where to sign. Post this letter, make an ad campaign, I
could care less, just get the word out that your eyes are too valuable
to put into any corporation's hands. When money is a factor, your
health should not be involved. Edward Webber Charlotte, NC

serebel

2005-11-20, 1:01 am

Oh blah,blah,blah.

Pretty long winded bedtime story.

Ace

2005-11-20, 10:59 am

How true. Loss of night vision is a concern for many. I read somewhere
that half experience a noticeable decrease in their night vision, but
most who do dont have it too bad. One needs to make sure the ablation
zone is not smaller than their dilated pupils. His pupils may have been
large. TLC is infamous for alot of the complaints and some people are
avoiding them totally.

I still have a question for you eye, how well do you see now? 20/30?
What was your pescription before lasik and were you corrected to 20/15
with glasses? How large are your dilated pupils and how large a zone
did you get lasered?