Laser Eye Surgery for Rifle Shooters?

[gc70]

Not to rain on this parade, but any medical procedure has positives and negatives.

Prior to Lasik, I was extremely near-sighted, but had developed presbyopia as I became older. Since I could only see clearly in a range of 0-6" from my nose, the effect of presbyopia moving the focal range to 1-7" from my nose was not noticeable.

Lasik changes the focal length of the eyes outward. In my case, the focal range is 24"-infinity. Yep, I now need reading glasses. Shooting a pistol, a scoped rifle, or a rifle with peep sights is marvelous. Rifles with open sights can be a problem if the rear sight is closer than 24".

 

[Patriot-Brewer]

My right eye focuses apx 6" to infinity now...most people will end up with reading glasses anyway starting around 40 or so, on average.

 

[Rottweiler]

I had Lasik about 2.5 years ago. Went from 20/80 and 20/200 to 20/15 and 20/20 in about as longas it took me to type this. Best money I ever spent. Gon't go cheap on this one. Ask around many people will recommend the doctor they had or will not recommend the doctor they had depending on their experience. Ask the doctor you choose his success/ failure rate. If you think it's worth the risk pull the trigger on this one. I did and I'm extremely happy with the results

 

[BsChoy]

LASIK for me in 2001 with lifetime free corrections as 2200.00 and I would have paid double if need be. I couldn't use pistol or rifle iron sights at all before it now I am the most consistant shooter in my dept and am very good with my milsurps

 

[Thin Black Line]

Had a co-worker get a botched LASIK in Canada.

It's the botch part that conerns me. Kind of a "devil you know is better than
the one you don't." I have fully corrected vision with glasses that don't look
like coke bottles. I have excellent natural night vision and I don't want to eff
that up.

The pain or discomfort, if any, is not a concern. I attempted to pass an 8mm
kidney stone a couple of times before I had it removed. Pain is no stranger to
me.

I'm just looking for a lot of responses from shooters since that would also feed
into other aspects of my outdoor lifestyle. Thanks again.

 

[rbernie]

As I understand things, the military will not issue vision waivers for combat pilots if the laser eye surgury involves a corneal flap as opposed to a surface correction. PRK is very popular for that reason within certain circles - not only is it more stable, it also corrects astigmatisms much better and has little incidence of post-op 'halo' or 'starburst' effect when dealing with point light sources. Think of PRK as wavefront/InterLasik only on the surface instead of under a flap.

The only downside for PRK is that it hurst like the dickens for a couple of days (since the surface of the cornea is abraded by the laser) and the recovery period is significantly elongated relative to traditional or wavefront Lasik.

I had PRK done about a month ago. I'm currently 20:30 in my left eye but my right eye is healing much more slowly and I'm trying to remain patient while it heals. I've been told that it can take up to six months for the cornea to completely recover from the procedure.

It will be nice not to fog my glasses on a frosty morning trying to get a bead on a nice buck.

 

[entreus]

Surgery

I agree with the "Don't go cheap" Had my eyes done 2 years ago and ended up with 15/20 vision. Best money I ever spent.

Plus I can now shoot with both eyes open, since the 15 is in my dominate eye. The higher power in that eye makes it great for aiming, doesn't matter what type of firearm pistols, rifles or shotguns.

I spent $2300 on AllegrettoWave Laser surgery. Kind of cool that if you move at all the laser detects the movement and adjusts.

Just make sure to ask for all the facts and figures......before picking the doctor.

 

[BerettaNut92]

The only con is
1. With aperture sights I experience a little bit of...not sure what to call it but there is a little bit of ghosting or something that makes the aperture appear smaller than it is? Not quite sure if I describe it correctly.
2. Night vision hasn't been the same since I got pepper sprayed.

Everything else says get your LASIK even if you have to sell a gun.

 

[RTFM]

Completely OT (sorry)
Skunk WTH have you been friend?

It's like you dropped off the face of the earth a while ago.
Good to see you out and about again.

***** Now we return you to your topic *****

 

['Card]

OK, let me break this LASIK thing down in simple terms, because the conversation has gotten a little complicated.

There are two primary types of surgery. One is called LASIK, and the other is called PRK, Radial Keratotomy (sp?), or sometimes just e-LASIK.

In the more modern type of surgery, LASIK, they basically cut a circle around your cornea and make a flap that they fold back, which opens up the eye so they can fire the laser inside and fix what's wrong with ya. Then they close the flap and you're done. The upside is that there's virtually no pain, and you can see improvements almost immediately. The downside is that when the flap heals up it will sometimes draw the cornea up a little bit and it can become thinner than what it was before. For most people that isn't a problem and will never become an issue, but if you ever get an eye injury it can complicate things if your corneas are thin, which is why the military doesn't approve this procedure for its personnel.

The older version of the procedure is PRK or e-LASIK. In that one, instead of cutting a flap, they use alcohol to basically boil off the front of the cornea. The cells on the front there get about the consistency of mashed potatoes, and they just scrape them off to the side. Then they fire the laser into your eye, and when it's all done they scrape the cells back on the front. Then those cells have to be held in place with a 'bandage' contact lens for a few days until they heal up. Upside is you get a cornea that isn't any thinner than it was to begin with. Downside is that it hurts like hell while it's healing, and you don't get clear vision for a few days or weeks after the procedure as the cornea heals.

Long term success and improvement rates for the two procedures are nearly identical.

Last but not least - cheap LASIK.

The procedure is pretty much identical no matter how much you pay for it. The difference lies in the detail of scanning they do before the procedure. See, in order for the laser to know how to reshape the inside of your eyeball, it has to have a very accurate map of what the inside of your eyeball was shaped like to begin with. Cheap LASIK is cheap because they don't spend as much on the equipment that does the mapping beforehand. The safety is about the same, but by paying more you get a better map, which means you're more likely to end up with better vision. Instead of being 20/30 afterwards, for example, you may end up with 20/20 or better.

One specific piece of equipment that some of them use that I highly recommend is called a LADAR mapper. In my case, they were able to use that thing to get such a good picture of the inside of my eyeballs that they didn't just improve my vision to 20/10 in one eye and 20/15 in the other, they even made radical improvements to my night vision - which I hadn't expected at all. But facilities that have LADAR will generally cost you a little more.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

There are two primary types of surgery. One is called LASIK, and the other is called PRK, Radial Keratotomy (sp?), or sometimes just e-LASIK.

PRK, radial keratonomy, and e-LASIK/LASEK are not the same procedures. While PRK and e-LASIK/LASEK are similar, radial keratonomy is another animal altoghether.

* PRK: they basically remove the epithelium, laser what's exposed, then let it grow back.
* LASEK/e-Lasik: they try to preserve the epithelium, moving it to the side as described above, lasering, and then replacing it attempting to make the recovering go more smoothly.
* LASIK: they cut a flap in the cornea with a little blade, flop it over, laser, flop it back.
* intraLASIK/All Laser LASIK: they cut the flap with a laser as opposed to the blade.
* radial keratotomy/RK: This is "old-school" vision correction and not done much these days. This is where they sliced a pattern of cuts into the cornea to adjust the shape of the eye.

Now, having done PRK a month ago, I've got to say the difference is incredible.

My advice is to go to a few different doctors to get screened. I had 2 tell me that I should avoid LASIK, but PRK would be ok. Another told me I was a perfect LASIK candidate and that I should check out the special they are having until the end of the month.

Since the screenings are usually free, I think it is worth taking a couple of afternoons off to get some different opinions.

 

[spalit]

As of this time of writing, I'm into the 2nd day of recovery after LASIK. My vision tested at 20/15 after the first day post-op. I spent part of yesterday testing my ability to focus on the black partrige front sight of my revolvers in a dimly lit room; and it was fantastic. I was never able to focus so well even with corrective contacts.

I agree with all the other posters on not going cheap; also you need to find a doctor who has done thousands of procedures successfully. It's cost me 3500 USD for the Intralase + Wavefront laser. As for pain, I had mild pain/burning after the drops wore off. Slept for 3 hrs after surgery and woke up with zero pain, irritation or burning. In fact, as I type this I have to consciously remind myself that I had eye surgery just 2 DAYS ago..!!!

So far so good with the vision improvement thing. I'm going to hit the archery range next week and the rifle range a week later (to avoid getting powder/solvent in my eyes for a few weeks) :banghead: .

I can't wait

 

[sefus]

I've been wanting lasik for a while but didnt have the financial resources till recently to get it. My opti-doc says I'm a perfect canidate for it too. My only question is on the night vision side of things how have you all come out? I've got great NV right now and really dont want to lose it. Thanks!

-Sefus

 

[Thin Black Line]

A dr I've known and trusted had it and he liked it. He hasn't looked back since

 

[entreus]

night vision

I have halos at night. For me they are a small annoyance to day to day life. Not sure how much it would affect shooting at night. For me it's like when your glasses prescription would be a little off, when that happened I'd get little halos around lights.

Hope that helps. It's not perfect, but waking up and functioning without glasses or contacts is life changing.

 

[JesseV]

Do it.

I had Lasik done in Winnipeg in 1997. It was BY FAR the best money I've ever spent. I went from 20/525 left eye-20/550 right eye to 20/15 left eye-20/10 right eye. In addition to the benefits in everyday vision clarity without the aid of contacts/eyeglasses, I figure I've saved about five grand in the nine years since I had my procedure done by not paying for new contacts, eyeglasses, and eyecare products.

I can't recommend the procedure highly enough. I did my research beforehand, and found that despite the low price in Canada at the time ($1000/both eyes vs. $4000+ in the US) they were using a newer generation of laser equipment with better success rates. The best thing to do is ask around at your local vision centers (Vision World, LensCrafters, Pearle, etcetera) and see which ones they steer you away from (obviously, they're not going to RECOMMEND a Lasik procedure, since it cuts into their business!) My wife is an optician who has worked in retail outfits like the ones mentioned above for 15 years, and they have a good handle on who does a good job with Lasik--they get to try to fix the very few "botched" jobs, and they know where the botched jobs are coming from.

Good luck with your prospective Lasik procedure! If you go through with it, you WILL NOT regret having it done.

 

[30Cal]

I had wavefront Lasik about 3 years ago (through TLC--ran me I think $3800 including lifetime corrections). It was the best money I ever spent. The downside was I saw halos at night for about 3 months.

If you're serious about shooting, make sure you tell the doctor that your primary concern is being able to focus on the front sight. Know what that distance is. Otherwise, he's going to assume you want to focus on infinity like everyone else.

 

[brantjs]

I had Lasik about 2 years ago at one of the top surgeons in my area. I researched it intensively and chose a surgeon that had a lot of great recommendations and was using the best equipment available on the market at the time. Bottom line was about $4100, which was middle-upper end for the area. End result: left eye is perfect, right (dominant) eye is 20/20 but with a very slight vertical double vision. The surgeon does not want to try a touch-up, as the vision is 20/20 and has a high probability of getting worse if a touch-up is attempted. I used to shoot competition indoor smallbore when I was younger, and don't feel that I could be competitive with irons in that venue at this point. That said, I do not have difficulty with scopes, or with "hunting level" accuracy with irons or bowhunting. Do I wish it was a better result...yes. Do I feel like I got my money's worth from the surgery...yes. I no longer have to wear glasses or contacts, and feel that my quality of life has improved as a result. For those reading this, don't be discouraged from getting the surgery. Just do your research and be aware that not every result is perfect.

 

[collateral]

I want to get lasik really bad. I work for the YMCA right now and there is an offer for a reduced price of $350 per eye for YMCA employees, I think I am going to take it up haha. I have a lot of trouble with my AK's sights right now and I think it should help.

 

[Fingolfin]

This is a very informative thread.

I've looked at such surgery but was told by my eye doctor that even if I had it I would still have to wear contacts. My prescription is -9.00 in both eyes.

This was years ago, maybe they have a procedure now that can fully correct my vision, or at least maybe one day...

 

[SSN Vet]

going cheap???

My response about Canadian prices was interpreted by some as advocating "cheap" eye surgery. Poor choice of words on my part.

note my opening line.....they've bee doing it ~10 years longer in Canada!!!

Some Canadian Docs have a LOT more experience.

Lower cost doesn't always imply lower quality and Canada isn't exactly the third world.

As far as legal recourse goes, I'm wondering if you guys who have had the procedure had to sign any "risk acceptance" or "liability waiver".

I haven't had LASIK and I don't know.

I think my current eye doc. is awesome!!! One of the best I've ever had and he tells me that all of these procedures have some level of risk for a poor outcome.

I've worn glasses and contacts since grade school and would love to lose the "ball and chain". But since my corrected vision is slightly better than 20/20, my night vision is good and I get along well with contacts when I want to "do sports" (i.e. a fog free day on the snowmobile), my doc doesn't recommend taking any level of risk with my vision.

If I could afford the procedure, maybe I'd consider it. But given my docs advice and my financial situation.....it isn’t going to happen any time soon.

 

[g5reality]

Thank you to everyone who has shared your experiences. I have read the thread and decided to get it done too. I have researched Dr's in my area and through referals I have chosed Dr. Mahoney of Beverly Hills, He's the one on ABC's Extreme Makeover, (our friend was the Executive Producer), in addition he's done some really famous people. He's charging $3,200 per eye and I've decided I'll go with the wavefront technology. Cost is not as much a factor as the quality of the work.

I'll check in as I go through the process and let you all know how it's gone. My wife says my nose is not straight. Lookis like I need to find a lefty to give me a good swat to straighten it out.

Thanks again for sharing your experiences I can't wait to actually see the clock on the nightstand clearly.

 

[Northslope Nimrod]

Worth every penny

The main REASON I had the surgery was for hunting. I hated dealing with glasses and contacts while hunting. Glasses were terrible. Sun would glare off the dust that would settle on my glasses. I left my glasses in camp one day. :banghead: That was the last straw. My eyes have been great since surgery.