http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2015/06/22/la...
Costco decided they were going to distribute gasoline at its Colchester, VT location. They spent years in court battles with Skip Vallee, owner of R.L. Vallee, Inc., eventually went up to the Vermont Supreme Court, which handed out a decision last year that Costco is permitted to build a gas station.
http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2016/08/05/ve...
I was very impressed by that. Our CEO, not so much. I'm sure he still thinks Costco hates money.
I don't see where the other (bad) edge of the sword is.
Sounds like your parent comment's doc may not have been 100% accurate with their candidacy, or—the more cynical answer—wasn't 100% honest.
Everyone seemed very happy, myself included. Halos are no worse than with contacts (maybe better). After recovery use of eye drops for dryness is no more frequent than with contacts.
If you live in the northeast US consider getting it done in Canada. I knew a few people who went to Toronto to have it done for half the price.
I generally find US prices 20X for most routine procedures.
YMMV, of course.
Everyone is different of course. My contacts were getting increasingly uncomfortable for me, so it made sense in my situation.
The entire procedure was incredible including an HD prescription profile generated by scanning your entire eye.
The process is $4k-$5k but with financing comes down to about the same you spend on glasses or contacts annually.
No risk of halos as there is no "flap" cut like with LASIK, no chance it will come loose, and more accurate vision than you could ever achieve with lenses.
The quality of life upgrade is incredible, no scratchy eyes, no falling asleep and waking up with stinging eyes, and for sports it's incredible.
I can't explain what going from 20/400 to 20/15 is like, but basically I walked around manhattan for 6 months feeling like I was on LSD in awe of being able to see the mortar between bricks on the tops of buildings.
I found the best LASEK surgeon in the country and have brought in friends / CEOs from other states and introduced them with incredible results.
If anyone wants more info, an intro, etc. let me know and I can probably get you $500 or $1k off if you end up doing it.
I had mine done a few years ago on a state of the art machine (at the time), called the Allegretto Wave Laser. No blades - just one laser to cut the flap, and another to shape the lens.
Result - in 17 seconds (per eye time of the laser doing it's work), I went from 20/400 with a bad astigmatism to 20/15. A week later it had improved to 20/10 in one eye, and 20/12 in the other. Overall, it took 5 minutes or less of time laying down, including all adjustments.
This year celebrates 10 years without glasses, and I am finally needing to start looking at reading glasses for some situations (small print at a close distance). The great thing is that I have thick corneas, and they can actually shape them again to get rid of that as well - which I'll do in a couple years when I hit 50.
The only greater miracle I have had is the birth of my son. If you can, I highly recommend it.
Personally, I wouldn't get any surgery with a marketing department on principle.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13024352
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9941566
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5218268
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorefractive_keratectomy#Co...
[4] http://www.healio.com/ophthalmology/news/print/ocular-surger...
I suppose this is because the machine is expensive and you need to recoop your investment, plus most people are being sold glasses and contacts from their doctor as that is the default.
It does take effort to educate people about new options and it's an elective surgery where if you go with the alternative you don't really know what you are missing...
My eyes aren't perfect, but I've spent about $500 on glasses in 10 years. How much do others spend? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around financing $5k for eyes (not saying it bad, just not close to my experience).
Outside of that, having the equivalent of HD vision is worth every penny.
It does appear to have fewer complications with the flap, since it's a thinner one, and less chance of hazing.
[0]http://www.the-lasik-directory.com/lasik_lasek_chart.html
People want LASIK for the convenience, almost no recovery time. With PRK I took 1 week off work and the next week was bad too. Then more discomfort for upto 6 months. After that it's great.
I'm so used to glasses that I might not even be more comfortable or live a more convenient life (and glasses are simply part of my identity after nearly 30 years of wearing them).
So there is very little (to no) incentive to actually get surgery to correct my eyesight. But the surgery is not without risks, as small as they may be, so there is a disincentive.
I can imagine that this is different for people who wear lenses because they are slightly more cumbersome.
I got a laser-only procedure done about 5 years ago now, and it's been the best decision of my life. I had halos for about 6-12mo, but I also had minor halos before the surgery too - so I really haven't noticed much of a difference.
One thing you should either really really do, or really really don't do (I still can't decide) is walk the Vegas strip at night the day after surgery like I did. You will have major halos/starbursts at that point, and it's the closest to a random private laser show as I've ever gotten in life. I suppose drugs may be less risky and cheaper though...
Were they all treated at the same local clinic perchance? The problem might be with the clinic or doctor.
http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/health/services/casey-eye/clinical-se...
It's also worth noting that LASIK has improved drastically over the past 10 years. Bladeless procedures, wavefront imaging, femtosecond lasers, etc.
http://ophthalmologytimes.modernmedicine.com/ophthalmologyti...
I would still do it again and recommend it.
The quality of life improvement is tremendous and the amount of money saved on not getting the glasses re-done every year offsets the cost of the LASIK.
Halos, really only at night, is corrected by wearing a yellow tint "sunglass" aka shooters glasses while driving.
Plus my SO really doesn't like my driving, so i chill out in the passenger seat anyway. They feel more in control and i can get some sleep.
The only time I had to get a new prescription every few months was when I was a child so my vision was changing rapidly.
>Halos, really only at night, is corrected by wearing a yellow tint "sunglass" aka shooters glasses while driving.
Please do not wear these glasses while driving. They are dangerous [1]
Unless you wear contacts, which can get pretty expensive, but probably not as expensive as LASIK that lasts 10 years.
I'm not sure why you'd get an eye exam every year unless you were having problems or needed a new prescription.
And many people have had the same prescription for 4-5 years or more, and don't have eyes that continue to get worse.
I think the GP's point was that either your eyes continue to get worse every year, and you need new glasses, and LASIK probably won't last forever, or you don't, and LASIK is a one-time expense that will take quite a while to break even on in a strictly financial sense.
I'm sure your ophthamologist will be happy to recommend getting exams as often as possible, like your dentist.
I've had the same prescription for 10 years. I had the same glasses for 10 years until I bought new ones for cheap on the internet this year using a 3 year old prescription.
I don't know about the parent poster above, but my vision is slowly but consistently getting worse every year, for the last five years now. I get my glasses "re-done" each year because my prescription has changed (gotten slightly stronger) each year, and it's cheaper to get new glasses than to re-lens old ones.
If I didn't stare at a screen for 60 hours a week, minor prescription changes might not matter so much. But since I do, wearing a prescription that's only slightly off can still cause some headaches or eye pain.
I just looked it up and the LASIK website said a stable prescription for at least two years is required.
I went from needed bifocals to just readers and in 15 years; of wearing 1+ to 1.25+. Now, for fine detail work, i look like the guy from Toy Story 2 with magnifiers up to +4. SMTs are tiny !
Normal computer work, still +1s. I do need a lot more light though.
Not everyone is as careful and/or inactive as you :)
I've lost more pair of prescription sunglasses at the bottom of the ocean/lakes within a few years than you seem to have owned in total over the course of a decade. Basically glasses to me meant $500/yr in replacements due to breakage or losing them in various situations. Yes, completely my fault and preventable - but just not who I am. After beating myself up about this for years, I just realized I have better things to do with my brain cycles than keep track of glasses.
For me LASIK was an amazing quality of life improvement, and while I didn't do it for the financial benefits it's certainly paid for itself a few times over 6 years later.
Edit: This is also completely ignoring the pita of keeping your glasses clean throughout the day. I know from experience most people aren't bothered by dirty glasses (ugh, this is super distracting in meetings for me) but I cannot stand it. I'll replace cheap sunglasses that get a single scratch on them it's so distracting to me.
Plus stuff like being able to do things like buy 10 pair of knockoff sunglasses for $15 vs. a $200 prescription set. Or being able to actually watch 3D movies that don't completely suck. Or go off-roading and wear a mask comfortably. Or go diving. The list goes on. For those who can't wear contacts, I can't imagine not getting LASIK if it were an option.
I know it's common for adults to change vision but usually once a year is a frequency more seen in children and teens. At least from my experience talking to people and being in an ophthalmologist chair since infancy. I was a frequent flyer at the ophthalmologist's office as a child (once a month was common for a while) and I had lots of questions.
EDIT: I haven't actually heard a lot about the elderly so I don't know their typical frequency of vision change. The only data point I have is a 60 year old I knew who got LASIK and was back in glasses in about 2 years.
On an unrelated note, I went to the same ophthalmologist for 20 years and it was eerie how it never changed. The ophthalmologist always looked the same, he always had the same staff and they looked the same, and the office didn't change. After a while it was like stepping into a time machine when I went there.
Until I started wearing contacts, I got new lenses for my glasses every year.
For me, it cuts down on the amount of glare from those HIDs and maladjusted headlights.
"PURKINJE SHIFT" is the shift of frequencies that an dark adjusted eye is sensitive to; basically, a dark adjusted eye is more sensitive to blue.
I never found a technical explanation of why you shouldn't reuse dailies after overnight cleaning. I looked at papers, manufacturers' websites, and spoke to two ophthalmologists.
Though not a safety issue, my own experience is that dailies are more fragile than long-term lenses. (Could this be deliberate?) They fit less comfortably after a week of reuse. Also, they sometimes develop a very tiny nick at the periphery after many days; when that happens you feel it the moment you put it in.
My rule of thumb is that I reuse dailies for 5 days--disinfecting each day of course--and throw them out. The ophthalmologists, who are friends and can speak freely with me, agree that my regimen is fine.
Dailies are more comfortable because they are softer and more porous. That lets more oxygen through and reduces irritation. But it also makes them less resistant to scratches and tears. That's why the manufacturers say you shouldn't clean and reuse them.
Source: my sister manages an optometrist's office.
Dalies are great if you can have them but they don't fix all conditions.
Is it that you can't make use of "soft" contacts in general for this, or just (presumably) that making contacts to correct for this would be sufficiently costly for daily disposibles as to be infeasible?
Stuff is changing all the time
[ * ] Wearing lenses that correct for short-sightedness but not astigmatism is weird. I can see perfectly well, except that text is unreadable. Just text. I wonder if this is how dyslexics feel.
Additionally, I normally wear glasses, and whenever I put my lenses in my first thought is always 'wow, my feet are huge!'...
Literally impossible to correct with soft lenses.
It's hard lenses or a (risky) cornea transplant really (other options like intacs could help but not fix it)
I actually have Pellucid which is often mistaken for Kerataconus so I did the whole shebang of diagnosis!
Mine are fancy and have a soft "skirt" on the edges that make them larger but VERY comfortable.
When I tried to switch back to contacts, with a better prescription [1], I found out that I couldn't stand a full day of them anymore, they just weren't comfortable. Later I realized that I had switched to dailies; when I tried bi-weeklies or monthlies again, they were still as comfortable as I remembered.
[1] I'm short sighted, and although I'm technically not astigmatic, I have need a strong astigmatism correction as well. For the same reason I can't get LASIK either.
I was just shopping for new eyeglasses this week, and the difference between going to an in-network shop and going to Costco (out of network) is beyond insane. For something that will cost me under $100 for both frames and lenses after reimbursement from Costco, I estimated that I would have paid almost $300 out of pocket after in-network coverage.
Costco might not do enough volume to drive market cost down, but I certainly appreciate that they provide a sane alternative to crazy markups on eyeglasses in stores.
Costco did support a different lawsuit by state of Utah against Contact Lens Manufacturers. The Manufacturers lost their first appeal in December 2016: http://www.sltrib.com/news/4731439-155/contact-lens-makers-l...
Hopefully this will begin reducing the prices of contact lenses. Kudos to Costco for sticking up for its customers.
Here is one manufacturer's opinion on this matter: https://www.alcon.com/content/unilateral-pricing-policy