JWR,
Regarding Eye Surgery: I am an optometrist. Unfortunately some of what was most recently posted is misleading if not flat-out wrong.
1. Laser Vision Correction (LVC) will not make you more prone to problems with your near vision. However, if (a) you are nearsighted before the surgery (and thus able to see up close without correction), and (b) you are over age 42 or so, then you will struggle with your near vision. Prior to the surgery, of course, you can see fine up close if you remove your glasses or if you have bifocals. But the LVC does nothing to make this problem worse; it simply corrects your distance vision. Of course all these points are moot if you are younger than age 42. But at around age 42 it will be a problem, so be aware of that.
2. Implantable Contact Lenses (ICLs) are very, very rarely an improvement over LVC. LVC sculpts the front portion of the eye, ICLs involve cutting the eye open and putting a synthetic lens into it. Contrary to the original poster, they are not “swapped out” at your whim, they can in fact correct farsightedness, and they do not have any different effect on your near vision than LVC. ICL’s are significantly more expensive and significantly more risk (of both post-operative infection and of cataract creation due to jostling of the natural lens in the eye) than LVC, which is why we do not recommend them often. Their greatest benefit is for those whose prescription is so high that LVC is not an option.
3. If you are really serious about refractive surgery, I strongly recommend PRK as opposed to Lasik. Both are forms of LVC, however the former is an operation that does not create a flap, while Lasik does create a flap. That flap can be dislodged in the future at any time.
4. Lastly, while I cannot fault many people for looking to the Internet for advice-—I do it too-—neither can I overemphasize the necessity of having an eye doctor who knows you go over the implications, benefits, and risks of refractive surgery with you. Last week I had a new patient who was 62 years old who had amblyopiia [commonly called “lazy eye”] in his right eye. No one had ever spoken with him about this condition or what caused it, even though he had it since he was a child. I explained it thoroughly to him, and he was impressed and thankful. I then smiled and said, “You’ve been going to the discount eye places, haven’t you?” He admitted he had been.
Fight the good fight, keep spreading the Gospel, – WPR