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Tom Lucas said:
> Perhaps I've hit the nail on the head then? The British culture is much
> less about looks, particularly once middle age sets in, but you live in
> the land of face lifts and eternal youth. It stands to reason that
> things that age you such as reading glasses or grey hair are dreaded.
> Admittedly our class divide is more defined and middle to upper class
> women would be more likely to take the American approach.
The reasons are also to the individual. Besides wanting to look
younger, they find reading glasses more inconvinent than distance
glasses. Also its the lifestyle, most people spend hours reading and on
the computer, so why not keep the mild myopia? Ive seen several lasik
stories of people who regretted not asking to be undercorrected. One 58
year old man was -6 and a computer programmer. He didnt think of asking
the lasik surgeon to undercorrect him to -1.5 so he wont need readers
most of the time. As a result, his dependancy on glasses wasnt reduced
much, it would have been reduced much more if he was undercorrected.
His and many other people's lifestyle is based on near work where being
myopic means *less* dependancy on glasses than being plano!
> I was speaking to a girl at work the other day and was suprised to find
> that she still believed that men preferred the sterotypical magazine
> model. I pointed out how much better long hair is (I've never found a
> guy who disagreed) and apparently girls don't know about this. One of
> the reasons guys are frightened to get married is that most girls cut
> their hair short the day after the honeymoon.
A few do, but most dont. Women in magazines look airbrushed, fake and
artifical. They resemble manquinn dolls rather than real humans! I like
women with long hair as do most men.  If a man gets married, he needs
to tell her NOT to cut her hair!
> I don't think that that is unrealistic. If I can get better sight with
> an enhancement then I'd be crazy not to.
Thats up to your surgeon if he feels an enhancement is warrented. Many
surgeons here wont enhance less than -1 or better than 20/40. The other
thing is I was talking about some people being happy in spite of a
complication, but they would be ten times happier if their lasik went
perfect.
> They still have to pay his salary for three years and the cost of the
> surgery is a hefty sum. If 1 soldier in a 1000 gets stuck in the
> backroom then it might be worth a risk but if it is really 2 in 100 like
> the doomsayers say then they would throw the idea out immediately.
I guess here they offer lasik to new recuits and the costs of lasik is
low. Reason why lasik costs so much is profit, but in the army, they
dont work for profit, they work to serve the country and help the
soldiers.
> There is a risk that has been calculated that all the people who are
> qualified to assess the risk agree on - the FDA (and NHS) assessment.
> All the other quarrels and protests are from people no more qualified
> than you or eye to assess the risk and from people who have a vested
> interest in overplaying it.
How does the FDA and NHS know exactly? Ive seen several bad lasik
stories where the person said his/her surgeon refused to submit the
results to the FDA. One lady said her surgeon reported her as a success
even though her lasik sucked and her vision was terrible. Her surgeon
removed her from the list of success stories after she threatened to
sue. People with bad lasik results claim the true risks are vastly
under reported. I understand they are not qualified so they can only
speak about their own bad lasik results but cant speak for anyone else.
Still there are so many bad lasik stories on the internet, its
disturbing 
> Pretty unlikely. It is statistically almost impossible. There is more
> likely to be a common factor like same clinic/surgeon or both not giving
> enough respect to the aftercare procedure. i.e "Oh I forgot to do my
> drops today", "You'll be alright, I quite often miss mine" or some such
> thing.
Thats possible. All that I know is this lady wrote in her story that
she warned over 50 people and two changed their mind, got lasik and
ruined their eyes. Could be an incompetent surgeon, which in this case,
he should be sued and his license terminated. Could be anything, the
story didnt mention except the fact those two women had a bad lasik
experience.
> But you have to wait a very long time. A dice is 1 in 6. The odds of
> serious problems are way way lower than that.
Ive read its about 3% but some insist its much more than that. There is
a long list of complications and even though the odds are small, thats
for each complication and you can have several. Its like rolling many
different color 100 side dices and if you roll enough different dices,
theres a chance one of those dices will land on a one.
> I don't believe in omens and it is far more likely there is a common
> factor amongst them that has damaged their surgery. We are not talking
> witchcraft here, if you warn enough people one day you will get someone
> who is not happy - conveniently ignoring the 1000's you warned who are.
The factor was not mentioned. I dont know what went wrong with their
lasik or what type of complicaton they have. People have the right to
warn others and those warned have the right not to heed the warning. If
someone wanted lasik bad enough, hes not gonna care what others think,
say or warn. Its those scared away who werent really serious about
lasik anyway and all it took was a little push or warn against to scare
them off. Frankly this is what many of those say in their bad lasik
stories. They said they only heard good things about lasik and knew of
no bad results. If they knew of a few or even one bad result, they
would have not gone thru with lasik. They were uninformed of the risks
and what could go wrong.
> Woah fella, come back from the edge! There's no magic and sorcery going
> on in this tale. Firstly, is it even true - it's not so easy to be sure.
> Assuming that it is true then had all fifty had surgery then 48 may well
> have turned out fine. If all fifty had problems then I might agree that
> you were onto something but it is still highly unlikely to be a
> supernatural premonition/curse/alien abduction scenario. Remember
> Occam's Razor - the simplest solution is normally the correct one. I'm
> certain that that is not the full story and their complications are all
> related.
Only 2 out of the more than 50 she warned had surgury. I dont believe
there was any curse, id chalk it to dumb bad luck and coincidence.
Maybe if the other 48 changed their mind, most or all of those would
have a good result. Just because this lady warned others wont change
the odds, everyone has an equal small chance of a bad result. All the
warning did was make those people think long and hard if it was worth
the small, but real risk. 48 of them decided it was not worth it, two
took a chance and ran into bad luck, simple as that. They had a good
chance of successful lasik but luck wasnt on their side.
> I've had many people warn me against it online but I've never found
> anyone in reality who would recommend against it - even after short term
> complications.
How many people do you know who got lasik and do any have permanent
complications?
> No one wants a friend who whines at you constantly and once I'd made my
> decision I would expect them shut up about it even if they didn't like
> it. Actually, knowing my friends they would always go the opposite of
> what I decided anyway, just to be awkward ;-)
Ask them to talk to the wall if your mind is already made up
> The only accurate method of knowing is with an eye exam so I can only
> advocate that method of linking the snellen to the refractive index for
> that individual.
There is a correlationship between diopters of myopia and snellen
score. It will vary slightly depending on the individual but one thing
is constant, more myopia means more blur. Im not talking about
something like -3.25 vs. -3.5 where the difference is small or even
none due to other factors. Optometrists keep things as constant as
possible and eliminate the biggest factors so they get a very good
ballpark with only minor varience. Comparing diopters of myopia for
*that* particular individual is what matters most. That particular
individual can get a ballpark idea and estimate by comparing others,
but he can find out exactly by having it measured himself. Some
individuals ask the optometrist to undercorrect them with different
trial lenses to simulate different amounts of myopia and how well they
see with the following. A -5 myope could ask the optometrist to show
him a -2 trial lens to simulate how well he would see as a -3 myope.
This will give him an idea of how well he will see as he improves his
-5 vision down to -3. Others put reading glasses over their glasses to
simulate. I have simulated many, many different prescriptions including
what it would be like to be farsighted(which sucks big time!) Ive found
that reducing my -5(or near that) myopia(in my worse dormant eye) to
-3.5(or so)(using a -1.5 trial lens) makes a *big* difference in how
much less blurry everything is. I would be happy if I can improve to
even -3.5(or less is better!) as its so much better and I wont be so
"blind" without glasses. Thanks for your replies, ive learned so much
and anyone lurking and reading this will obtain swarms of knowlege
I sent you an email again, did you not recieve it? Reply to that email
with your AIM screename. I have provided mine in the email. I will be
online almost constantly and will check to see if you are on at 4-5pm
my time.
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