Basejumper.com - archive

Yo !

An obvious offtopic, but 2 close base jumping friends had it done recently and called it "the best thing they've done in their entire life". The fact that they've done many other amazing things that apparently didn't even stand close has finally convinced me.

Yesterday i had Wavefront/CustomVue/Intralase LASIK done by Dr. Clinch at Chevy Chase, Maryland. My originl vision was OD: -2.25 sphere, +0.50 cylinder, OS -3.00 sphere, +1.75 cylinder, with about 7% higher aberrations on both eyes.

Today i felt totally comfortable driving for an hour to the check-up appointment, and my vision is 20/15 on both eyes. It is likely to stay the same or improve even more in the next weeks.

I have thought for a long time about LASIK but was scared shitless. A couple of mental tricks made it easier: first, imagine it's just another jump. Most likely it'll be fine, but there's a chance to go in. Oh well, that i can take any day. Second, and it's funny - Intralase laser replaced the knife during the first stage of LASIK, and somehow it made me feel much more comfortable.

The entire procedure was completely painless and there wasn't even any real discomfort. First stage you cannot see anyway, i just had a countdown from the Doc (50sec left, 45sec left...). Second stage is simply looking at the light for about 20sec. I was out of the room in less then 15 minutes. Feel like i was born again... and waisted many years by doing it so late!

I can jump in 2 weeks, maybe less, but will take a month to be sure. The whole thing run about $4k, but you definitely get what you pay for here.

I will join my friends: "This is the best thing i've done in my entire life". If you're thinking about LASIK and worry as much as i did, feel free to PM or call.

My biggest problem was choosing the best Doc. At this point i know of 3 good ones that worked on my friends and myself. They are in DC, CA and FL areas.

bsbd!

Yuri.

P.S. Any advice and experience on ACL reconstruction is greatly appreciated via PM. Will have to do it in the fall... Team Old and Brittle!

I had it done 3 yrs ago. Except I had a sligth variation.

Not PRK, not Lasik, I had what is called LasEK. Instead of cutting a flap, they kinda "peeled" the top layer off, shot my eyes with a laser and then put the layer back on.

Once it was done I went from 20/400+ in each eye to 20/80 and healed to 20/20 to 20/25. Best operation I have ever had!

it is pretty painless... unless you wake up in the middle of the night and are crawling to the medicine in the bath room, and are in so much pain you say fuck it cause it hurts to bad..

but it was worth the pain...

BTW... luckily my roomy at the time's GF helped me out. I wasn't nin much pain once I started with the "tetricane"

i just had a 'version' of LASIK performed last week...

ASA Advanced Surface Ablation... its very much like lasik minus the 'flap' portion... which eliminates a majority of the complications..

the downside is that it isnt an 'instant fix' for most the way stadard Lasik appears to be..

I was even jumping Sat after a Thurs surgury, but later that night the downside creeped in... MAJOR light halos and my overall vision took a dive for 3 days while the epithelium layer (which is moved during ASA) healed... for a good portion of those 3 days my vision fluctuated between complete clarity and inability to read anything at all....

life is much better now and i'm pretty happy with the results, but if you'd asked me last week i would have gladly gone back to pre-surgery vision

it will take a few weeks for the major halos to lessen...
but i hardly notice then at all now

yea i was scared also...

i was staring at the dot and while they were shooting my eye it went out of focus REALLLY BAD...then started focusing in more and more...

VERY surreal...

I even videod part of the surgery... you see smoke coming off of my eye, the smell was um weird though

I had PRK done when I was in the Army and recommend it to everyone looking into the surgery. There is no flap cutting, so less chance of scarring and halos later in life than with LASIK. The downside is that it takes longer to heal and hurts a helluva lot more, since they scrape the protective coating off the the eye (epithelium) and expose raw nerve endings.

I went from 20/200 and 20/100 to 20/10 and 20/15. Immediately after the surgery, my vision was so clear that I could see the veins on a leaf that was on the other side of the room, about 15 feet away, with perfect clarity.

Mike

ASA is apparently a compromise between 'standard' LASIK and PRK..

pain and discomfort were not an issue, but 3 days of being able to do next to nothing was driving me stir crazy

sine pennis volare hau facilest
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What's that about your penis?
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pain and discomfort were not an issue
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Oh, I get it. Don't forget to wear a helmet....

Yo Yuri!

Good job, mate! I had Lasik done in March 2000 and it certainly was the best $1700 I ever spent! I have had 20/15 vision ever since, and after having been blind as a bat since 6th grade, I have been so stoked about my vision I can't even tell you!

Some of you may be wondering how I got Lasik 5 years ago at such a low price. Well, I was probably even more scared than Yuri, but 3 other people from my dz had been to this doctor and had superb results. When I went to the clinic for the preliminary tests, there on the wall was an 8x10 photo of Stevie Nicks, signed "To Dr. Mendez; thank you for fixing my eyes!"

Yep, Dr. Mendez clinic in Tijuana, Mexico!

I didn't have the 4 grand to spend, and Dr. Mendez doesn't have to pay a million dollars in malpractice insurance, and his overhead is much lower being located in Mexico. Not only that, but he told me when he decided to do this ten years prior to my visit, he wanted to help people. By keeping his prices low, he could help a LOT more people than if he did it for tons of money.

So far I think 5 of us from Perris have been to Dr. Mendez, and we all have excellent vision.

Zarky is next! :)

Peace,
K

it has no feathers.... dr gave me a shot for that issue...

Noice!

I had lasEk a little over a month ago. Lasek is a combination of Lasik and PRK. There is no corneal cut. The cut is much thinner and only involves epithelium that regenerates in one-two weeks. There is also no scarring unlike PRK. The problem is that it hurts pretty bad for two days and it takes about one month to fully recover but again no corneal flap and no long term side effects.

I did a lot of research beforhand and I thought this was the way to go.

1500 bucks, some pain for two days, blurry vision for two weeks, and now I got 20/15 and I am loving it!

Yuri,
I had Lasik in the summer of 2000 and it was a genuis move for me. I love it. I wish you the best with yours. :-)

-=Raistlin

ive got lasik 4 yrs ago and doing fine. seeing throught the girls dresses etc....
it was the best thing that i have ever done.
50 minutes after operation i saw pretty well and
after 3 hours of sleep in my hotel i went to get drunk with my cousin...no prob...

it was something like 2500 € that time...now its about 2000€ i think...

well worth the cost... even if it was free for me....

the best you can get without paying

Is it worth doing even if I have a moderate near-sightness (-1.25 and -1.5)?

 

At first the halo's were "quarter sized(?)" But that slowly went down. I think within a month or 3 I didnt notice them unless I tried to notice.

It is now 3 yrs later and love my decision to get the surgery (LASEK).

That was my case: -1.5 on each eye.

I could not wear contacts, forget about glasses, and I could not kid myself anymore. On my next physical they were going to put limitations on my private.

Night vision is where it's at! I have no glare whatsoever and everything is so crystal!

My vision was 20/40 ever since I was 17. In the past year it got to 20/70.

If you are worry about long term side effects look into lasek.

My nearsightedness was about -.75 and -1.00 with -.75 and -1.25 astigmatism. I never wore glasses and treated my eyes really bad with the contacts, only took them out about once a week even though they were dailies. My eyes started to get pissed off, so I got LASIK.

I was worried about what the LASIK would do to my night vision, but to tell you the truth, before the LASIK my vision was worse at night due to the astigmatism. And the contacts caused halos and starbursts at night anyway.

The day after the LASIK I went in for my eye exam and was seeing 20/15 in both eyes. Same a year later. Night vision was spectacular with far FEWER halos and starbursts than I had with the contacts.

The sentiment was the same for me, "The best thing I ever did and pissed at myself for not doing it sooner."

I paid about $3500 to $4000 about 3 or 4 years ago. There was no pain, ever. Eyes were dry and itchy for about a week after, but the drops helped that.

Lou

to add to this:

I was VERY near sighted with bad astigamatism, so YES it is very worth it, even if my astigamatism was almost to bad to have the surgery.

found a pic.... or 2

Hah, it was a funny feeling of "deja vu" as I seem to have read your post elsewhere in a different language, but it took me a good while to realize that :P

As somebody who has to wear glasses 24x7 on prescription, I've thought about getting the laser thing done, but... it's not the going-in part that scares me (in skydiving, or otherwise), it's the loss of vision part that does.

I think I'll stick with glasses for a few more years, until the technology is advanced well past the "innovative" stage.

Thanks for the post tho :)

I think it is past that stage... I had my surgery done by a doctor that literally had done thousands of these operations a year. I was nervous, but this doc was awesome.

What i meant to say was this: you can consider the loss of vision the same as a bounce, as it is always very easy to kill yourself in such a case. Just a mental trick, nothing more...

LASIK is indeed way past "innovative", my doc is over 7000 surgeries. There are other newer technologies like LASEK, but they also seem to share most of the past good experience.

I kept thinkg "i'll wait a few more years..." until i realized the technology will keep changing and improving forever, while my life is finite.

bsbd!

Yuri.

my god, I see the reason why all of us pulls so low!!!
No one can see the ground!!!!

Does any jumper here has helthy eyes?!

Ive been contemplating LASIK (or similar derivatives) for some time, however my optometrist has warned me about skydiving if I have it done as even though the flap they cut on my cornea will heal in time it will never be 100% again and if my goggle/helmet were to come off the force of the relative wind could be enough to tear the cornea again. Has anyone been warned of these risks?

I have been warned... I have jumped birdman with some cheapo sunglasses 2 yrs after the operation...

thats just me... dont try it if you are worried...

I've jumped goggle-less and was fine, it's been 3 years. I ride motorcycles and do other things that cause wind. My doctor told me not to swim for three months, though.

Regular eye doctors, the ones that sell you glasses, will try their best to scare you out of LASIK, because they know you'll never be in their office again.

But like Leroy said, if you're worried, stay away.

Lou

I was scared of getting LASIK as well but after reading your post, I talked to my doctor about it and am planning to get it done soon.

Thanks for the post,
Kris.

Sure you will; You will be back in their offices once you reach your mid-forties, for reading glasses. It's called "presbyopia".

Yes and I did a LOT of reseach.

That is why I went with LasEk instead.

Or you just go to your local drug store and buy a pair of glasses right off the rack. Presbyopia prescriptions aren't very complicated.

Just a quick progress report: it's been two and half weeks now, nearly perfect vision on both eyes: 20/15 on the right, 20/15..20/20 on the left depending on the time of day (my astigmatism has always fluctuated a bit during the day, so i expected this). Did my 2-week check-up on Fri and asked the doc when can i get back in the air... he said "tomorrow"

Going to jump a tower tonight, and hopefully put a bunch of flights on another V1 over the weekend

bsbd!

Yuri.

P.S.