Myope5
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Exaggeration and bias reguarding the mel80 lasik and over 75% better than 20/20
I may have talked about the mel80 in an old thread on this forum and how amazing it is. I remember raving about it on other forums how more than 3/4 of people end better than 20/20! I now learned the truth about those figures. They are biased and exaggerated.
1. He probably pre-selected only those who were seeing better than 20/20 with glasses, including high myopes whos glasses minified!
2. He let the lasik patent guess the line if he couldnt see it and gave credit for correct gusses!
3. He probably excluded in his result those who had bad results with lasik. Notice that theres no results for 20/30 and only a handful for 20/40 and 20/25, almost all of them are 20/20 or better!
4. His results probably are right after lasik or shortly after. Many people no longer see this good due to regression. Would you believe more than 50% no longer see 20/20 a year post lasik?
5. I even heard in a few centers, they cheat somewhat by moving the projector closer so every letter is like 20% larger. Suddenly your 20/20 is really only 20/24! Theres many other factors too, probably at least 10 why the results are so "good"
Know what? I read post-lasik stories of many people. Some complain of blurry, fluctuating vision even though they "tested" at 20/20 they say to be honest theres no way I am 20/20, I dont know what they did but the 20/20 I saw with glasses was much better! If I were to test them on my eyechart honestly and fairly, their post lasik "20/20" would probably be tested as 20/30.
I remember going to an optometrist/technician who works for the lasik surgeon where I got my manual refraction and he proclaimed me 20/20 to 20/25. HA! LOL! The 20/30 line went by without much trouble but when he pulled up the 20/25 line I hesisated. Was this an O or a C? I guessed. Next letter, hmmm an E, F, P or something? I guessed again! He just said "good, good!" then pulled the 20/20 line. I just stood there speechless and he said go ahead, smiling at me. I told him I cant see any of those, but not to be deterred and still smiling, said just try your best. Ah ok im not about to be rude and ill humor him. Its clear he wants me to guess
I probably have a 1 in 10 chance of getting it right. I just blurted out the most common letters like E, F, P, O, L then at the end said I believe theres an O somewhere. He said "excellent!" and proceeded to write down 20/20 to 20/25 and my pescription.
I have gotten eye exams before and didnt have much trouble on the 20/30 line but when the optometrist moved to the 20/25 line, I took a 5 second look at that line and said I cant see 20/20 then he says thats the 20/25 line and to "try" anyway. What does it matter if I cant accutately see it anyway? I mean I can see enough to tell its probably not a dissimilar letter like an E vs. an O but I would have no idea if its an O, C or even D. Anyway after "trying" by guessing I got like half right(luck, eh?) and he pronounced me 20/25. Ok so maybe im a bit better than 20/30 like 20/28 but theres no such line. I may be able to read most of the 20/25 line with contacts which dont minify unlike my -5 glasses.
Appearently the eyechart doesnt tell the whole story. One guy can be a true 20/20 and see all of that line without missing a single beat while the other may hesisate for 10 seconds then slowly and reluctantly read or rather guess them and get lucky. I would consider him 20/25. Then theres also the issue of vision quality which has to do with things like contrast, especially how well you see at night. I bet I see better than the large majority of post lasik people at night and in low light. They may see better in the day accuracy wise but could still experience annoying effects like glare, reduced contrast, ghosting, double vision, dry eyes, etc.
By having lasik, you lose more than just your dependancy on glasses. I read that more than 50% experience a noticable decrease in their night vision and almost 100% will lose some contrast senestivity. Glare, halos and starbursts are often increased after lasik. Sometimes this can make night driving dangerous and you probably shouldnt even be driving at night. You also probably wont even achieve the visual accuracy you do with glasses. More than 50% of people dont quite end plano or they regress after some time. Some get enhancements but thats taking more risks and ive seen/heard my share who ended up making things worse!
I sound so negetive so let me try to be positive on one aspect. Its nice to be less dependant on glasses. Everyone will admit this even if its wishful thinking. Lasik is actually useful for soldiers and athlates. Glasses is a liability for a soldier and I heard on a message board it got one killed. He was a high myope and his glasses fell off durning battle. He couldnt find them so he ran away and got gunned down! Athlates cant perform very well with their glasses bobbing up and down or falling off. Contacts is obviously a good solution but not all can tolerate them. I heard of moutain climbers getting lasik because if they lose or break their glasses, they may as well be dead(unless only slightly myopic) since they cant see well enough to nagivate the steep, dangerous mountains. There may be a few other good reasons for lasik, but most of us, lasik is purely elective and not much of a neccessary.
I want to try ortho-k, a relatively safe, non surgical procedure. See my other thread to read about it in detail.
http://com5.runboard.com/bwelcometothevisionandeyeforums.fgeneralvisiondiscussion.t28
Last edited by Myope5, 1/27/2006, 1:44 pm
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12/18/2005, 7:34 am
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Myope5
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Re: Exaggeration and bias reguarding the mel80 lasik and over 75% better than 20/20
http://www.accuvision.co.uk/eye/testimonials.htm
Seems biased to me. The surgeon selects the best testimonals to be posted on his website. I only see a couple of negetive ones and like 50+ good ones. Isnt it unusual how pratically everyone gets an easy 20/20 vision, even the very high myopes in double digits? Regression is high for that group plus Its difficult to get high pescriptions to 20/20. Perhaps the tech/opto giving them an eye exam is being too generous and allowing them to guess and pronouncing them 20/20 even if they get only a couple letters right on the 20/20 line. 25% of people arent even correctable to 20/20(compenstating for spectacle minification) so thats another oddity. Again, I believe what they do is go strict on them before they get lasik then inflate the results after the get lasik.
Lets state an example. A -10 myope sees half of the 20/25 line due to spectacle minification. This works out to very near 20/20 without the minification. The technician pronounces him 20/30 which is what he really is as he cant reliabily see 20/25. After lasik hes able to read all of the 20/25 line(no more minification, remember?) but cant quite make out 20/20. The technician netherless cheers him on and says your doing great, keep going on! Hes gonna just guess. If he gets none of it right, the technician will say something like "your healing along nicely, youll be 20/20 in no time!" He comes back again for the 7 day post lasik checkup and guesses again. Maybe his guesses are lucky this time and he gets a couple right on the 20/20. If not he has a 3rd chance at the 30 day checkup. I dont believe for a minute that most of them are a full 20/20. I would say some are partial 20/20 and some cant really even see any of the 20/20 but guessed their way anyway. Hey the technician whom I saw for my evaluation(no, im not getting lasik) said I was 20/20 to 20/25 even though I saw none of the 20/20 and mostly guessed on the 20/25!
A Baltimore researcher found that over 40% of 175 LASIK laser eye surgery patients had more difficulty driving after surgery. According to Review of Optometry, only 40% of LASIK laser eye surgery patients achieve 20/20 vision after 1 year. And many LASIK laser eye surgery patients continue to have to wear glasses after surgery.
"Only about 35 percent of all adults have 20/20 vision without glasses,
contact lenses or corrective surgery. With corrective measures,
approximately 75 percent of adults have this degree of visual acuity
while the other 25 percent of the population just doesn't see very
well, Dr. Johnson says."
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12/19/2005, 4:14 am
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Myope5
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Re: Exaggeration and bias reguarding the mel80 lasik and over 75% better than 20/20
In my first exam after the proc I was pronounced 20/20, but I could only see
one letter on the 20/20 line.
Yes that would be amazing, but it probably means prior to surgery you had a
BCVA (best corrected visual acuity) of 20/15 and didn't know it, due to a
poor refractive exam. Then you got lucky with the LASIK. If this happens, go
out and immediately buy a lottery ticket!
I think this explains it quite well. sad I know. (those two are quotes I found. Will keep looking for more)
Last edited by Myope5, 5/5/2006, 9:23 pm
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1/16/2006, 5:05 am
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Myope5
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Re: Exaggeration and bias reguarding the mel80 lasik and over 75% better than 20/20
omg more cheating!
Getting uncorrected 20/20 out of someone 0.75D off of plano would not
be easy. It would usually require the patient to be squinting and
guessing - never a very good idea. I know some doctors have attempted
to get this kind of result by applying eye wetting drops just before
the Snellen test. This gives the cornea a very smooth surface and
better visual acuity for a minute or two, but is hardly the real
world.
When evaluating our certified surgeons our breakoff point is 0.50D.
We figure anyone over 0.50D cannot possibly have true 20/20 no matter
what theatrics they did for the Snellen test.
my comments: Well it is possible to be 20/20 with more than -.5 diopters but very rare. Youd need a BCVA of better than 20/15 and less than 2% are this good. If you are told you are 20/20 and more than half diopter off, be very suspicious. Likley you are really closer to 20/30 if you need -.75 to yield 20/20. Or you could really be 20/20 then -.75 should correct you to like 20/13! Either way, a refractive error of -.75 without correction means your seeing 2 lines worse.
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5/18/2006, 11:42 pm
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