[thechat] Astigmata

[Hugh Blair]

> -----Original Message-----
> On Behalf Of Judah McAuley
>
> 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.

Agreed. Slits? Not optimal.

> 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.

Just a point of accuracy, the "lens" is not touched. Only the Cornea.
A think layer is shaved (the flap) and layed back, then the laser
'zaps' the underlying tissue, shaping it to make the optical corrections.
Then the flap is layed back over the area and allowed to heal - a week
or so. Insiders call it "flap and zap" for obvious reasons.

And, like any other surgery, there are good doctors and bad doctors.
Find one that doesn't do this in a shopping mall for $700/eye. Find
one that has done 1000s. Talk to his previous patients. Any doc
that is serious won't discount the price, will give you patients
to visit with, and you'll probably find that some of his office
staff have had the procedure. Visx <http://www.visx.com/> is
generally thought to be the best technology these days.

Want to be scared? The computer that runs the Visx system uses...

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wait for it

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Windows!
Really!

-Hugh