Is Lasik long term safe???

[lance]

Hi Glenn,

I posted some questions in another website (ask lasik doctors) and got pretty shocking answers from a lady who seems to know a lot about the potential dangers on the lasik surgery in the longer term.

The followings are some of the postings from her and another doctor. I would like to hear what your thought on this important topic.

Thanks in advance!

[LasikExpert]

Lance,

For many reasons I have removed your cut and paste of comments from another website.

Some of the comments you referenced are what I call "lying the truth". Individual facts are lifted out of context, presented without mitigating information, and even sometimes deliberately misrepresented. A common tactic of these individuals is using multiple aliases to create the appearance of a chorus of agreement with their anti-Lasik views that does not actually exist. An example of lying the truth is the statement that the Lasik flap never heals. It does heal, but not like a cut on your arm. The cornea is always different after Lasik. See Lasik Flap Healing for details.

The larger question on something such as Lasik flap healing is if there are long-term detrimental effects. The corneal lamellar flap was developed in the 1950s for partial corneal transplant and refractive surgery. That gives us about six decades of history to see that when created with proper safety concerns in mind, the Lasik flap is stable in the long term. If the Lasik flap is a legitimate concern based upon an individual patient's circumstances, a surface ablation technique such as PRK, LASEK, or Epi-Lasik may be more appropriate.

These anti-Lasik untruths/half truths/lying the truth are almost universally propagated by individuals who have had poor Lasik outcomes. These people are, to put it mildly, angry. They are angry at their doctors, they are angry at the medical device manufacturers, they are angry at themselves, they are even angry at our organization. I have been a target of vicious personal attacks by a couple of these people to the point I am litigating for defamation and invasion of privacy.

The sad part of these tactics is that the important information is often lost in the hyperbole and rhetoric. Each person with a poor outcome is a cautionary tale of what can go wrong. Most of the time when people have poor outcomes it is because they were not a good candidate at the time they had surgery or they had unreasonable expectations (another form of being a poor candidate). This is why we emphasize patients becoming informed and careful selection of their Lasik doctor, whose primary responsibility is determining who is not an appropriate candidate.

When considering any elective surgery it is important to not fall victim to hype. This is true of hype for surgery and hype against surgery. Consider all information, but consider too the source and validity of the information...including the information you receive here.

To answer your question directly, Lasik is considered safe and effective by medical standards and a recent Lasik 10-year study affirms this, but safe and effective does not mean perfect. There is no such thing as perfect surgery, a perfect surgeon, or perfect patient, for that matter. There is always an element of risk in surgery and all patients need to be informed what may be their individual risk based upon their unique circumstances.

[maria22]

About two days before my Lasik, I was browsing the web for eye forums and came across quite a few very scary websites.
But as Glenn said, most people with horrible Lasik outcomes were not proper candidates for the surgery in the first place. Now they are angry and trying to scare others away from the procedure.
I felt a little unsecure after reading some of these postings, but I decided to base my decision on medical facts and accepted the fact that realistic expectations and some amount of risk are part of the process.
My eyes will never be perfect, I can only still only see about 60-70 %. But I am grateful every day for not being dependant on contacts or glasses and having gone from a very high prescription to the best vision I can achieve.

[lance]

Glenn,

Thanks for the information. As I mentioned before you are very knowledgeable about the subject and is always willing to share. The readers do appreciate your help.

I do however respectfully disagree with your decision of removing the writings I copied from another website. I fully understand you want to protect readers from wrong or inaccurate information. But censorship never have worked and will not work in current and future situation.

We do need to present both sides of the story and we do need to trust our readers' judgement. The better way is to post the orginal message, and you can point out and provide right information for the "lying, misleading, and half ture" parts.

Thanks!

[maria22]

I also think it would be helpful for people considering Lasik to be able to see a false statement discredited by the actual facts.
This has already been done with the 'the flap never heals' statement.

I think this website and the information it provides is extremely helpful, and I would have asked my doc some additonal questions had I seen it before my surgery.

[LasikExpert]

Thanks for the kind words about our website. We try to keep it as objective as possible.

Just applying a little common sense often reveals bias and unreliablility of a source of information. When someone makes a statement such as; "There are permanent adverse effects of LASIK in 100% of cases...", it does not take long to realize that you know a lot of people who had Lasik who do not have any adverse effects.

The old rule applys that if it seems too good (or bad) to be true, it probably is not true.