Let me get this straight. You're told that you're not a good candidate for Lasik. You get the procedure anyway. It doesn't work. You suicide.

Sounds like this guy was Epic Fail man.

I have no sympathy for those who injure themselves after being told that something won't work for them.

Human vanity strikes again. Just wear your damn glasses.

I'm waffling on this one. I need glasses only for reading, and even then not all the time, as when using the computer. I've been told I'm a good candidate for Lasik, and of the people I know personally who've had the procedure, all of them are thrilled with the results. I'm still not sure that I want to do it, but I'm thinking about it. $2K is a lot of money (for me, anyway) to spend on a mistake that could cost me my vision.

On the vanity issue, I just saw a cartoon (I love Non Sequitur): Two women manning a booth, with a sign on it that says "Help Find A Cure For Egocentricity". Guy facing them, saying, "Sure, I'd like to help, but what's in it for me?" o_O

Flynne - it's called growing old gracefully. $2000 buys a lot of glasses. And the right ones can increase hotness factor in women, so you've got that going for you.

My dad got the procedure done and now his vision is better for distances so he wear a lower prescription but now he needs glasses to read and sit in front of the computer. Hid did the procedure to boost his vision past the minimum allowable for Air martial. He did not get the position I'm not sure if his eye site is still to poor or not.

"Human vanity strikes again. Just wear your damn glasses." Up to a point I agree but there certain situations where it's lose your job or get it corrected, I'm pretty sure most of those procedures are cosmetic. If you deal with hostile chemical wearing contact is completely out and glasses may not be the best idea depending on the environment.

I'm of two minds on this one. Last summer I went to an eye center to ask about Lasik. I give them immense credit: they offer a deal: $400 up front, and they do all the measurements and give you contacts to simulate the results. And they spent weeks with me, trying different prescriptions, etc. Two results came out of all this:

First, they finally managed something acceptable. But it took time and - as anyone who wears glasses knows - eyes changed. It was clear to me that I would not be rid of my glasses for long. Further, being in middle-age, reading glasses or bifocals are quickly becoming a topic, which poses its own set of problems I won't go into here.

Second, they showed me a model of my eye and what the surgery would carve away. I have strong astigmatism, and they would carve away two-thirds of the lense thickness at the edges. Despite the doctor's reassurance, that would clearly reduce the strength of the lense. And since I do judo (which involves a lot of down-and-dirty wrestling)...

Why the long story? Back to my being of two minds on the article. To me, it was clear that Lasik would not solve my problems, and would pose a big physical risk. I decided not to do it. But I can imagine someone else accepting the assurances at face value, being happy when the simulation finally worked and going ahead with the surgery. And in fact I know people who have had Lasik and are happy with the results.

I suppose it's back down to personal responsibility. As long as the doctors offer complete and truthful information, the patients should responsible for making their own decisions.

Thank you for thinking so, Brian, but I don't think "growing old gracefully" is on my agenda just yet - it's more like "kicking and screaming while being dragged into the depths of nine hells"!

The glasses I have now for reading have round lenses in an antique silver frame. I like 'em, BF's buddy calls them my "Santa Claus" glasses. So much for the hotness factor! o_O

I've had LASIK surgery. Best money I ever spent. However, I was a good candidate and went into it with realistic expectations. Had the doctor told me I was a bad candidate, I would not have gone through with it - it's not worth the risk. Although I'm sorry that guy was driven to suicide, he can't blame someone else for his poor choice. He was told he was a bad candidate and he went through with it anyway.

I had it done back in 1999. Best money I have ever spent. It felt like, and I am not overstating this, a miracle. Vanity had nothing to do with it.

They were very thorough in telling me the dangers (back then it was something like 2% failure, 1/2% catastrophe). Two years later my wife went in for it and decided at the last minute it was too risky.

Best advice is to really investigate the doctor doing the procedure.

$2000 might or might not buy you a lot of glasses. I just spent $850 on a pair, on the other hand I also spent $55 on a spare pair from an online source.

Of the couple people I know who have had Lasik, on is back to glasses, Lasik lasted ~4years. Now his eyes are off enough that he uses glasses to drive.

My eyes are not to bad, the world is just in soft focus with no glasses so no Lasik for me.

"Colin Dorrian was a college student when he was told he was not a good Lasik candidate, but went ahead anyway . . ."

Let us look with clear eyes at the location of the blame in this case.

I guess the surgeon could have said something like, "I don't feel you are a good candidate for this procedure, and I'm not going to do it on you," but come on. They told him it was a risky thing for him to get, he got it anyway, and wow! zonkers! he had a bad result. Gee, nobody could have seen that coming.

I had lasik surgery in October of 2000, and I consider it the best two grand I ever spent. I did it so the world would look better to me, not so I would look better to the world. I didn't mind the way I looked in glasses, neither did women, but I was so tired of wearing them.

They told me I was an excellent candidate for the procedure, and have had no problems with it.

I have thought about it but I've been told I was a bad candidate too. I have astigmatism. I can usually see pretty well, it's close up reading that's a problem or any fine print on the computer. To solve this I bought a 20" screen and put the text setting on large. Still, sometimes the print is smaller than I can read so I have a habit of copying large articles, pasting them into Word and jacking up the text size till its comfortable. I don't think I really want Lasik anyway. As is stands now, I have excellent night vision and I'm somewhat far sighted. This works well for me as I ride motorcycles a lot and often at night. I have been out in the desert or in the woodes in the middle of the night and I can actually see the eyes of animals waiting to cross the road far enough in advance to slow down and avoid hitting them. So I think I'll stick with my progressive bi-focals now. I finally wised up and bought those flex-on frames. You can really tie those in a knot and they'll pop right back into shape. I'm rough on glasses so I needed that.

Brian, totally agree that the right set of glasses can be very hot on a woman. They can even make a blond look smart.

FOr those who say "just wear the damn glasses" how bad is your vision? I can focus really well... at ~5inches beyond that life is a lot about shape recognition. Has been since first grade, where the teacher figured out I need glasses to read the board. My eye doc was surprised at how adept I was at picking things out and identifying them without seeing them clearly. So for the last 35 years I have had occasionally heavy mostly uncomefortable glass things in front of my eyes. My stint with contacts lasted a while, but my allergy profile really prevents their use.

The important thing to know if you don't wear them or you are lightly corrected, is that glasses re-focus light entering your eye. So, if your eye is shaped out of round [astigmatism] you still end up with some distortion in vision. "never noticed the size of my feet, till I kicked you in the shins..."

Also? glasses come off, fog up or get covered in water, and vision is suddenly perilous. Sure, you can strap those glasses to your head, to keep them from comming off, but take a hit in the glasses? Hurts like a mofo, and then with broken glasses, how do you get home or whatever?

This is the direction people with bad eyes often come from... They don't want to have to deal with the inconvenience and cost of glasses.

I'm sure there are cases of vanity... after all the glasses distort how your eyes look to other people too. I certainly don't get complimented on my eyes when I have glasses on, because the prescription makes my eyes look small.

And who, as a child, wasn't tired of being picked on?

All that said... knowing potential downsides, is what makes the decision worth something. People generally don't treat their eyes very well, and people with normal vision are the worst. Since lasik is very commercialized, and not treated like surgery as it should be, I don't think a lot of people take it seriously. The treatemnt centers aren't certainly going to go through all the worst case scenerios. Like if your eyes are jacked up, it may be forever. Many prolly feel the FDA will just try to scare, and wrap everything in government-ese.

Just like anything this is personal responsibility, but there are many reasons to have your eyes fixed.

I had lasik 6 years ago. I researched the procedure and had interviews with a number of local physicians. I picked those who had been in the business a long time, were recommended by other doctors, and even got references for them. I ended up going with a doctor who not only had his practice, but taught future doctors how to do it for the university. He was very honest about risks as well. Price was not a consideration. If I picked the doctor I liked and couldn't afford it, I can wait until I could afford it. I wasn't lured by any advertisements of discounts or deals. These are my eyes, I wasn't buying a car.

I had been in glasses since I was eight. I couldn't wear contacts because my eyes were too sensitive. My vision was such that I couldn't read unless it was 6-8 inches from my face, and when boxing (when you can't wear glasses for obvious reasons), I had to work off motion rather than details - things were rather blurry.

Best damn investment I've ever made. To simply be able to get out of bed without having to grope around for glasses is great. Being able to play sports without goggles is great. It isn't about vanity, it was being able to have greater functioning eyesight. At the same time I had no illusions about the risks, and the doctor stood by his work - the university hospital (OSU isn't a slacker in this respect) as well as his practice stood behind their work for 10 years post-op.

Damn that sucks Swiss! Are you some level of legally blind? Vision is one of the most precious things we have. You reminded me of something though. When I was a little kid just entering elementary school, they did eye tests on all the kids and I ended up with these huge thick coke bottle glasses. I hated them. I had big ears anyway and looked REALLY geeky. They costs about fifty bucks back then in 1964 and I threw them away! My mom was furious, she couldn't afford another pair. So I just went without. Since then, I had perfect vision all they way till I was about 38 and started to use readers. I keep wondering why that eye doctor saddled my ass with those glasses when I didn't need them. Was he making money by making kids vision worse and selling glasses kids didn't need? I don't know.

I'm kind of like Swiss. I couldn't legally drive without glasses and couldn't drive at night at all (even with glasses). Wearing glasses was painful to me because my eyes wouldn't dilate correctly when going inside to outside, and it was obviously a great hindrance in sports. My parents gave me Lasik as a present, and although I'm still not 20/20, the fact that I can recognize faces of my family and friends when they're not immediately in front of me made it all worth it.

I had my Lasik actually done through Kaiser though, and by eye surgeons (it was still newish at the time). Who knows what these outside shops do; I wouldn't trust my eyes to someone without doing lots of research into whatever facility I'd be going to.

nah, not legally blind, Bikerken, at least in the way most people think. For the most part legally blind people can't get their vision corrected enough to see clearly, no matter what glasses are used. I have a friend or two like that. Nah, I'm just old fashioned near sighted with astigmatism...

But, in terms of operating a motor vehicle, yes, I cannot do so without my glasses. One of the difficulties with getting specs for kids, is that their eyes change a lot... so luckily for Bikerken, they worked their way out, for others of us? No, and before I was about 16 my eyes were getting so bad, that they thought by 20 I would be non-correctable blind. That's when I started with rigid contacts, and that slowed me way down. When a similar thing was happening with #1son, at 12, they did the same thing, and his vision has stabilized. These days they are actually being active in arresting astigmatism [out of round eye]...

One of these days, I think I will try the correcting contacts you wear when sleeping... since now my eyes haven't changed much in 5 years, it is possible that I might correct doing that. Lasik istelf may be out of the question since my astigmatism is bad... but I'm not sure I have the guts for it...

I am an almost completely visual person, and was a photographer for years, so I'm not sure I would risk that.

heh, how is that for Irony? "Wait, you have terrible vision and you're a photographer?" 'let me show you what I see...'

I went in for the Lasik exam after finally having to wear glasses full time (I'd been using reading glasses for about 7 years; I'm 47). Sitting through the whole presentation is interesting; you know it's leading up to a sales pitch.

At the end of the eye exam, the tech left the room for five minutes. When she returned, she told me that they really couldn't do anything for me; my vision beyond about 10 feet is very good; so-so down to three feet, and getting worse inside that.

I asked if I should come back in a few years. She looked thoughtful, then said, "No, not really. You'll never be a good candidate."

One other thing: Just about anywhere else in the medical profession, a 95 percent success rate would be considered a miracle.

For the last 25 years or so I wore contacts or glasses. I saved up for a couple of years using my HSA and had the procedure last year. I went high end because it seemed prudent. Also, the doctor told me I was a very good candidate because I had thick corneas and a reasonable prescription. Neither I nor they would have done it if I were not a good candidate.

I did it purely for convenience, not vanity. I wore contacts most of the time, so it made no difference in my appearance. It has been soooo worth it. I can still remember the simple thrill of being able to read my alarm clock from halfway across my bed the next morning.

As far as the politics go, I agree with bradley13:

I suppose it's back down to personal responsibility. As long as the doctors offer complete and truthful information, the patients should responsible for making their own decisions.

What, exactly, the government should do when the doctors don't offer complete and truthful information, I don't know.

Frankly, if you're told the risks, told you're a higher risk, and you're legally capable of dealing with them as an adult, and you wind up with an unhappy result...to bloody bad.

As to the guy who took his life, regrettable for his family...but talk about overkill, no pun intended.

If I have a choice between blindness and death...I'll take blindness. He could have just as well had his eyes removed, and then adapted. C'mon, suicide? Especially at such a young age. DRAMA queen. There may be a cure for blindness in the future, not likely a cure for death.

I actually just had to have my left eye tweaked; there was some regression -- in both eyes -- and they fixed one to see if the distance compensation makes it so I'm seeing 20/25 overall, while still being able to not need reading glasses. This was yesterday and, so far, so good.

Listen, Lasik is not risk-free, and any reputable doctor is going to tell you all the possible risks. Mine did, over and over. If you're a good candidate, the risks are less than 1%. That said, there are a lot of cut-rate Lasik places; I think it's incredibly stupid that anyone would use one but, as we know, people can be stupid. And while I do feel for Dorrian, he was told he was not a good candidate, and went ahead. That was the first mistake. The second was him agreeing to have the surgery done by someone who, knowing Dorrian was not a good candidate, performed in anyway. This doctor should have his/her license taken away.