[thechat] Astigmata

[Judah McAuley]

Tara Cleveland wrote:
> Thanks for the encouragement. I'm not sure about the laser eye surgery
> though. It hasn't been around for that long. I wonder if there will be side
> effects as people age (like 80, 90 years old). I've heard some pretty
> horrific stories about people coming out of it worse off (mostly blind) -
> but maybe that was just stories.

I'm sure that there have been bad incidents.  But if I could afford the
surgery, I'd do it in an instant.

I wouldn't have done radial keratotomy.  The science behind that
procedure scares me.  It fundamentally involves weakening the lens of
your eye and letting it squish out some.  Not my notion of a good idea.

Lasik surgery, however, seems really solid to me.  What they do is take
a laser that they've adapted from the electronics industry (for doing
lithography and creating IC's I believe) and they use it to burn away
bits of the lens.  Essentially, its just shaving it so that its the
right shape.  We know alot about how lens' are supposed to be shaped
(optics is a pretty old discipline) and we know quite a bit about how to
precisely control lasers.  Given that it doesn't involve fundamentally
altering the structure of the lens (only the thickness), I feel like its
a pretty low risk surgery.  They also peel back the epithileum (the
protective coating over the lens) before the surgery and then put it
back afterwards.  This really reduces the incidence of post-op
infections as nothing is really exposed to the air.

I've know two people who have gotten the surgery done and both are quite
happy with the results.

Now I just have to find that extra $5000...

Judah