Anyone here had it? Just wondering if it's worth it. Thanks

Watching

Lasik not Lasic

Dr. told me I wasn't a candidate for it.

For what, removing cataracts ?.

Worth it....if you are a candidate. Had mine done around that age. Wore coke bottle glasses almost all my life. Now I just need cheaters.

I had it done at 52 and it was worth every penny. I haven't needed prescription glasses or readers since.

Texas Buckeye would be able to tell you whatever you need to know. He did mine and I had no issues.

Had mine done a few years ago. Piece of cake.

Wife had hers done 20 years ago, she said the other day she needs to get some glasses for driving now.

I wear reading glasses.

Eye doctors told me for a few years that I needed to get the cataracts removed and I put it off since I could still see pretty good.Then one day at the eye Dr she told me I should get those cataracts removed and I decided WTH so I made a appointment.They used some compound drugs to put me to sleep,wham bam,did their job and I went home.Three r four days later I went back for the other eye,gave me a shot of compound drugs then they wanted to do a EKG.After that things kinda went south but I told them to go ahead since I already got the shot.A week or so later I checked myself into the hospital with my heart racing.Fast forward five weeks and I was back home. Come to find out those Compound drugs about killed me as whoever mixed them didn't do a very good job ! I was told my heart is damaged and now i'm living with only 17 % of my heart left.
I just went through Lazer surgery recently to remove the cataracts on the back side of my eyes and no drugs,one eye then the other eye next day.Lazer is great.
I have a friend that they used compound drugs on and now he is almost if not completely blind.Last I heard he couldn't go outside by himself.Channel 8 did a story on those compound drugs and eye surgeries some time ago and he was in part of that interview.There are a lot of good eye dr's but you ask them if they use compound drugs you better find another eye doctor but that is my opinion.

Thing about lasik after 50 is there are several issues you need to make sire aren’t going on prior to doing it.

1. Any evidence of cataract or lens changes (this can be seen as a shift or change in the glasses prescription over a few years) is a no-no, since the lens changes will still happen after lasik and the “lasik effect” will go away after a year or two (sometimes as quick as 6-9 mo). This type of person wpuld be better suited for a lens exchange which is essentially cataract surgery before insurance will pay for cataract surgery.

2. People over 50 are mostly presbyopic, meaning their eyes cant focus like they could at earlier ages. What this means is after lasik you will need to wear reading glasses unless you get monovision (one eye distanceand one eye near) and not everyone can tolerate monovision.

3. Even withstanding all the above, lasik over 50 is not going to last 20+ years like it would if you had it in your 20’s or 30’s, because almost everyone will develop lens changes prior to developing cataracts. So, expectations are key. Most people will notice some changes in their vision around late 50’s to early 60’s. So depending on your age, you dan expect about 10 years of good vision before things start changing.

Any other questions or concerns don’t hesitate to ask.

This situation is completely different and unrelated to lasik, and honestly the issues you are discussing are not common at all. I can speak privately about tue compounded medicines you are talking about and the issues they had, but i can assure you this issue is not related to all compounded medicines. I have been using compounded medicines in cataract surgery since around 2016 (somewhere between 9-10,000 surgeries between lasik and cataract) and have had no issues to the things you are discussing. Those are very isolated and again would be happy to discuss privately on that.

The laser for cataracts thing is a common misconception, you had a laser to remove scar tissue or film from behind the artificial lens in your eye, a very common procedure after cataract surgery. A lot of people think laser removes cataracts, and that is just not true. There is a laser that can help with cataract surgery, but the laser costs thousands and has shown no benefit to patients (the only benefit it has shown is a extra payment to the doctor that insurance does not pay, so the cost is the patient’s responsibility).

I am sorry you had such a poor outcome from the compounded medicines and your friend as well. It is a bummer for sure, hope your heart eventually heals more! I wish i could say your friend is going to regain his vision lost but time has shown that isn’t going to happen. There were at least 70 people affected by that issue in the dfw area, some people had both eyes affected and are effectively blind.

Had my right eye done on 15th of January last year, and left eye on the 5th of February. Had lasik cataract surgery with corrective lenses put in. I was 59 at the time. Still need readers but was one of the best things I have done! No issues other than wearing a pair of glasses with one lense for a couple weeks between surgerys. Took off part of the day, the day of the surgery, went back to work the following day both times.

See?

Just to clarify, you had cataract surgery. You did not have lasik surgery. Big difference. Semantics, but it is part of the reason why so many think a laser is “needed” for cataract surgery. It just isn’t .

Glad you are seeing well.

.
I did have “lasik” cataract surgery. Had the option to just have cataract surgery, was showed the pros and cons of both procedures. Cheaper was only pro on basic surgery. Pros on lasik was more precise cuts and lense replacement and better vision after. Cost was considerably more, but the safety and other benefits made it worth it. Thank you......

So lasik is a procedure where a femto-second laser is used to create a flap, then an excimer laser is used to reshape the cornea to a certain prescription that is programmed into the laser machine. It is done independent and at a different time as cataract surgery for a number of reasons but the main one being you don't know exactly what prescription to treat until the eye heals from cataract surgery.

Laser cataract surgery is where a femto-secod laser is used to perform some aspects of cataract surgery, and the cataract surgery is performed. A small cut is made for cataract surgery, unlike a flap for lasik surgery. For the most part, as i described above, the cost is more significant to the patient than standard cataract surgery and the science shows no benefit to the patient. In truth it is a way for the surgeon to make more money doing cataract surgery and it is sold to people who are told it is an upgrade and a way to get a better outcome.

I do this for a living. I am quite aware of the types of procedures/surgeries available for patients, and “lasik” cataract surgery is not a real thing. Your surgeon may have told you that is what you had, but what you actually had was femto laser assisted cataract surgery, also known as FLACS.

I have done plenty of lasik months after cataract surgery, once the eye has healed to get a precise prescription treatment, but that is not the timeline you described. If that is what actually happened, you had cataract surgery and several weeks to months afterward had lasik to fine tune your refractive outcome, then i apologize for being saying that isn’t what you had.

Again, glad you had a good outcome, and glad you could pay extra to “help” that outcome. I sure hope you didn’t go into debt to do what you did.

I was told I had cataracts behind my eye that was left from the first surgery and he could remove them in his office with his laser.I trusted what he said and did.
Now,
A review has found the Dallas incident is part of a growing concern about compounded drugs, which may be tailored to meet individual prescription needs. A growing number of medical facilities like hospitals and clinics are using compounded drugs in place of FDA-approved drugs.
But there’s a big difference between the two. Unlike other prescription drugs, compounded drugs haven't been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. They're not fully tested and deemed safe, and often the patients have no idea.
Of the 68 patients, 60 of them have filed lawsuits claiming a drug made by a Dallas-based compounding pharmacy led to their lost vision.

No I don't care to discuss this in private with you and i'm not picking on you one bit.I simply want people to know what some of the risks are in using the Compound drugs and not all eye surgeries require drugs.

Thanks for all of this info! What does this procedure usually cost?

Good information for sure. Much appreciated. I was 20/20 most of my life, but eyes were tested at 20/30 and 20/40 respectively about 5 years ago (age 55) and I can tell after reaching 60 they've gotten a little worse. If I could get 10 years out of the surgery I'd really consider it a success. Is the procedure still roughly $1500 per eye?

Ok well since you brought it up lets discuss compounded medicines. There are FDA approved drugs and non-FDA approved drugs. But all FDA drugs are approved for a specific indication, meaning a reason or condition. So many drugs are FDA approved for a certain condition but used on an”off-label” use for another non-fda approved indication. What this means is the medication is being used for something that hasn’t been fully studied by the FDA because those studies are incredibly expensive and time consuming, and sometimes unethical to perform (an example of something that would be unethical would be the use of antibiotics after cataract surgery. No single medication has been FDA approved to reduce the chance of an infection after cataract surgery, yet, everyone that gets cataract surgery has antibiotics given. The reason there is no FDA approved drugs for this is because the study would have to be a medicine vs placebo, and there would be people harmed by getting infections in the placebo arm of the study, hence unethical. Yet, to suggest we use only FDA approved meds would suggest we don’t use anything).

So, taking this a step further, some pharmacies have taken doctors advice and made commonly used medications in concentrations or combinations that allow better treatment or a single treatment where two or three were used before. There are FDA approved compounding pharmacies, and non-fda approved pharmacies. The difference is what you are describing. FDA approved facilities hold their compounded medicines until the lot is tested for purity, sterility, and precision. Non approved facilities make medicine, send it out without testing the lot and maybe will do the testing and send a report. The dallas incident took place because the doctors didn’t want to pay a little extra for compounded medicine from an fda approved facility and instead sourced their medicine from a local non-approved pharmacy that was known to not test their meds before being sent out and didn’t send reports even when requested several times after medicine was received (i know because that was my experience with that same pharmacy, and the reason i stopped using them for anything well before the Dallas issue came up).

To suggest all compounded pharmacies are the same is like saying all cars are the same across all manufacturers. Simply apples to oranges. Yes, you are providing a public service to bring the issue up, but your understanding of the issue is very rudimentary and biased by several bad outcomes. Its a shame, and again, i do feel bad you have had these issues but lumping all compounded medicines in the same group is as silly as someone saying they had lasik cataract surgery. It just isn’t accurate.

The laser done after cataract surgery is called a YAG laser and it is to remove the posterior capsule of the natural lens, which acts as a envelope holding the artificial lens in place. Done properly, the YAG laser creates an opening in the posterior capsule and allows a clearer view through any scarring, film, whatever is obstructing your visual axis. Whatever this tissue obscuring your vision is called by the doc, it is a very simple to remove and the YAG laser is very common procedure after cataract surgery, but almost all the time only needed once after cataract surgery.

sorry, i am a stickler for semantic accuracy in medicine as i spend about half my time in the clinic explaining away misperceptions, misunderstandings, just plain false advertising, or other inaccuracies patients bring because of what their friend had done or what they read on the internet or saw on tv.

Which procedure are you asking about?

Lasik ranges from 3500-4000 for both eyes, half for one eye.

Refractive lens exchange is anywhere from 2800-5000 per eye depending on the lens chosen (this depends on the eye and the desired visual outcomes)

Cash pay cataract surgery is around 2800

But cataract surgery and the YAG laser are covered by insurance and the cost to you depends on the insurance coverage and lens choice.

At 60, you are way better off getting a lens based surgery, either cataract surgery or refractive lens exchange. Going to last you the rest of your life and it will get rid of cataract surgery down the road, since you only need to remove the lens once in your lifetime and the lens (or cataract) wont grow back. Cost is a little more, but the effect is more “permanent”.

I will say you could probably find someone willing to do lasik on you if you show up with cash, but you should run if lasik is suggested.