I decided not to go with LASIK just because it doesn't seem worth the tradeoff. Contacts take me about thirty seconds per day to insert and remove, not a big deal. Just making up the LASIK recovery period would take a long time. Plus the risk of permanent side-effects. Contacts have those too, but it can be substantially mitigated by using them properly (always washing hands, never sleeping in them, always changing them at the appropriate time, etc.).
I totally understand why people might see the tradeoffs differently, of course.
1. Peripheral, especially when driving.
2. Uncomfortable, pinches nose, laying down on side with them on.
Also: Modification of scale of things. Makes things smaller the further they are from my eyes. Not a big deal, but I always feel kind of satisfied when I go back to contacts because of accuracy of perception. I suppose if I can get glasses with thinner material this might be less of an issue.
Keeping them clean and smudge free isn't that big of a deal for me, I just wipe them with my shirt, and normally it's not bad enough to bother me. Fogging is slightly annoying I suppose, but goes away quick.
I also seemed to have an ever-increasing strength of prescription. The last time I had them checked was in 2010, and my optometrist changed my brand from Coopervision to Acuvue because I was refusing to take mine off at night, and the Oasis is supposed to be more meant for that. I then had two bouts of some sort of pink eye (after nights of heavy drinking, but still didn't happen with my Coopervision even then), and also in general my eyes would feel drier in them. They had these slits that would become uncomfortable fairly quickly.
I switched back to my old Coopervision prescription from 2008 or 2009 and they have been working fine for me. From my own anecdotal experience, it's my theory that the constant stronger prescriptions are what makes your eyes worse. I've also heard anecdotes from other people about them just stopping wearing eye correction and their eyes get better.
I have a hunch that optometrists tend to slightly overprescribe the strength. Every time I would get a new prescription, I would walk out with superhuman vision, but than after a few days my eyes would adjust. At my last visit to the optometrist, I actually requested a lower strength and they obliged. And while I might have to squint here and there to read something really far away, I spend a good chunk of my time in front of computer, so I prefer the lower strength.
And I agree on increasing your eye strength as well. I try to take off my glasses frequently, and I have noticed that if I go for a while without them, my vision seems a little better when I put them back on. Also there are some apps that help as well [1]
[1] Came across this link on HN a while back: https://github.com/Fordi/eyegame
the last 4 or so years before lasik I mostly wore glasses except for special occasions where I'd wear contacts.
What has your post-lasik experience been like?
LASIK recovery is just 2 days or so - PRK can be 2 weeks
I clean them with a t-shirt when smudges happen to impede vision. Happens only when somebody pokes them with a finger. If your pillow is soft enough, you can even lie down on them and the glasses are just fine. They don't care, they just bend a bit.
No weird shit to put in your eyes. Take them off whenever they annoy you. Change your entire face every few years when buying a new pair. That's always exciting.
I guess I'm lucky that I can do sports and such without glasses. Means I can just take them off when they'd get in the way. Same for fogging when I transition from cold to warm. Take them off, carry on.
My doctors always said I should avoid wearing glasses 24/7 because something about eye laziness, but I am much more comfortable when the world isn't blurry. So I wear them 24/7 except for certain sports and sleep.
<3 glasses
Yes, my face looks weird without my glasses, the overall shape is very different!
Finally, when I was about 27, I broke down and got glasses as I noticed my vision was slipping.
I can still walk around and drive without them. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and do some on-call work for 20min while squinting at the screen. I can spend a few hours walking around the house without them.
But I never leave home without them, and I never drive or work without them, and I never take them off. I simply don't see the problems you see; yes, they get dirty, i clean them perhaps once a week. I don't smudge them because I'm careful not to.
I still rather quite like them and the way they look. I have no desire to poke my fingers into my eyes or get lasers shot into them.
I'm sure you could argue that it's different for me because I don't have to wear them to see, but it's really not that different -- I wear them every minute of every waking day except those extraordinarily rare days I mention.
It helps that I go out of my way to get glasses I like. I have a few pair of colorful titanium and carbon fiber frames. Yes, it's a bit painful to spend $600+ every year or two, but worth it to have something I like the look of.
Definitely has downsides. Smudging and fogging is so frustrating, but I've gotten used to it.
Glasses have some upsides too. For instance when it's windy, they're a shield that makes you less likely to have unwanted things get into your eye :)
So the only time I ever take off my glasses is in the shower.
As an aside I always wondered how they are able to measure an infant's vision before they can really communicate.
And of course slightly older babies have ways of communicating without words! https://youtube.com/watch?v=84-Cuc-Tz2o
As far as babies being able to communicate in other ways, my mom noticed that it seemed like I was having trouble with vision well before I could talk, that's how I ended up in the opthalmologist's office in the first place. :)
For what it's worth I solved my own issue by insisting on a slightly stronger prescription (-0.25) for my myopia. It's well worth a try, especially for driving at night. The easiest way to tell if it would help is if green traffic lights look significantly blurrier than than red traffic lights in the distance.
I remember colored lights being involved in eye exams when I was very, very, very young... But that may be a false memory, it's hard to really know.
- Some think glasses look good - Glasses protect the eyes from wind, rain and flying particles
Yes, the glasses do get foggy and smudgy. But when riding a bike, they shield the eyes. Also, at the age of 50, I've had several eyeglass lenses scratched by things like a piece of metal or stone flying off an angle grinder, or dust/sand blown by a pneumatic nailgun. Without glasses, the same things would have hit my eyes.
> But when riding a bike, they shield the eyes.
In my experience, they shield the eyes from sand and small debris, but they also tunnel the wind in from the top and bottom with more force, resulting in constantly flowing tears if going at any decent biking speed. I always hated riding with glasses because of that, especially as the tears would end up staining the glasses and making it harder to see.
When it rains (particularly -0°C water) the glasses are indeed quite difficult to see through, but then the eyes would be very irritated too.
Now if I could just find something comfortable to block out all the wind noise.
I dunk my glasses into my cleaner every morning while I'm showering.
THANKS
p.s. disposable wipes with rubbing alcohol are great for keeping them clean (although terrible for the environment), and getting a non-reflective coating definitely helps keep the effects of the smudging to a minimum.
Do it now. When you're older (40 or so) you're going to need glasses for driving/reading anyway