This Time Last Year... I Was Blind

This isn't a video discouraging you from laser eye surgery. It also isn't a video encouraging laser eye surgery. Talk to your doctors, your family, and your friends.

If you *do* opt for a surgery like this, however, I would strongly urge you to consider doing one eye at a time, so you can best guarantee that you'll have some functionality and quality of life during your recovery window.

Stay safe out there! 👍😁👍

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[bubblewhip]

Honestly any of these stories. I'm just like "glasses are fine"

[OneNvrKnoz]

Same thing happened to my wife. She was told 48 hours to recover. It was more than a week before she felt safe leaving the bedroom and at least a month before she felt her vision was better than before.

[Sycraft]

"The one eye at a time" recommendation is for sure, always, the way to go with eye surgery. Both my parents are in their 70s and have needed cataract surgery. In both cases it went flawless, no issues, immediate vision improvement, but in both cases it was also "one eye at a time" because there is always the possibility it doesn't. The doctor who did it for them was extremely experienced and very confident, but still, did it one eye at a time because you just never know. I'm very glad things went well for you in the end, and thanks for putting this video out here to help inform people because it is important.

[Mintchip]

Thank you for sharing this. I've been considering some form of corrective surgery for my eyes, but nobody, including my doctor, explained anything remotely like this. I've even be told "don't bother doing one eye at a time, " but honestly since I'm so used to glasses I wouldn't mind still wearing them for the rest of my life, my issue is just that I know at some point I will need glasses for seeing close and it's going to be a whole new struggle. The only place I've seen people talk about the dangers of these surgeries are on videos like these.

[AMTunLimited]

They know damn well that hardly anyone can just take a month off for recovery. I know I couldn't. I also know my eyes are still changing, so I'm not a good candidate anyways

[Pickleriiiiiick]

Tge amount of times I've felt or heard stuff bounce off my lenses, ill keep my glasses just for the automajic "safety" thats attached to needing them to see and them always being there.

[jupitersky]

This is the second YT video I've seen about this recently on this. Thank you for broadening the public awareness on this issue, especially with such a balanced presentation.

[TrevorDennis]

I actually have two stories with 25 years between them. I had Lasik surgery in 1995. I think my short sightedness was a 5 and a 6 at that time. Apparently one of the tests they do confirm your suitability for the procedure is the size of your pupil, and I was marginal (too big), but they didn't tell me what that meant. On the plus side, I was comfortable and seeing way better without glasses in just a few days. My problem showed in low light when your pupil expands to let more light in, because it meant I was starting to look though the edge of the flap. This resulted in multiple vision at night. Street lights were like kaleidoscopes with maybe a dozen instead of just one. Reflective road signs were the worst because the ghosting was nearly as bright and solid as the central object. This meant that night driving was almost impossible for me. I could see well, but not as well as with glasses before the Lasik for the next 25 years.

Move forward, and my vision was getting worse because of cataracts. I had both eyes done a year apart, and my night vision was immediately back to near normal. What they didn't warn me was that me near sight was going to ruined. I can't even read my phone, watch face or computer screen without reading glasses, which came as a shock. If you find yourself in this position don't be fooled into spending huge money on prescription glasses, because $10 hobby glasses work just as well for close up.

I am 74 now and nervous about reaching 75 because your normal driving license runs out at that age in New Zealand, and I am not sure I that could pass the eyesight test. I would definitely struggle with an optician's chart because of the low light, but I'll opt to get my GP to do the test because that happens in daylight when I can see MUCH better.

[m_ism]

17:11 - Hey Dev, one of the thinks you might also recommend for your students if they can't find traveler hooks is to look at automotive hooks. We have some REALLY long ones available from a bunch of different companies. They're almost otherwise identical to traveler hooks but seem to be a lot more readily available because every mechanic needs like.. 3 or 4 of them I swear.

- Mechanic who wants to learn more about pentesting

[P_RO_]

Glad it worked for you. My elderly sister had the flap type operation and recovered a lot of her sight but her eyes were pretty bad so she considers it a good success. Myself, I've had a mini-stroke and permanently lost some vision in one eye which cannot be recovered. It's scary to deal with as just about your entire life hinges on seeing and hearing somewhat normally; lacking those you can do dam near nothing and are effectively cut off from life as you know it. Thanks for the in-depth explanation which helps with understanding how things go IRL.

[allenshepard]

Thanks for the heads up.
Thanks for the video. Education is the main reason I come here.
Looking forward to your videos in 2024.

[chrism]

Never knew one could have their eyes milked for their health!! Holy cow thats mind blowing to me
Ive considered lasik, because my eyes are terrible. However, its scary asf to contemplate fr
I dont think anyone who requires glasses enjoy wearing them. I prefer contacts, but i still have to have glasses in case the contacts are lost or damaged.
I spent an entire month in jail with only ONE contact lense one time. That really sucked to adjust to.
Many years later i spent a year homeless, living in the woods around a city park in lansing, Michigan. One of the first nights at camp i got black out and woke up without my glasses. I was mortified, luckily i found them with help and taped them up.
Im so glad i got clean and got the help i needed to become a (mostly) whole person. I used to think i would get clean and become "normal" but i learned that not really a thing

[LakeVermilionDreams]

I had the flap LASIK, absolutely no problems whatsoever and an extremely fast recovery. Thankfully I don't fly much nor take trauma to the head! I'm sorry that your experience wasn't the same as mine! I still recommend everybody talk to multiple places when researching their laser eye surgery, as one should research anything like that.

[ITBlanka]

I was expecting something odd, but this is something completely out of my scope of imagination. Even after you started talking about the procedure, I was like, ok, so he was 4 weeks instead of 4 days blind.. Months?!
This was something huh, geez..

Merry Christmas to you and the family!

[kxkxkxkx]

PRK is the way to go ... Takes a few more days to heal but there's never any cut or seam on the cornea 👍 sounds like you learned an important lesson about recovery time

[danielrcarpenter]

Dev, thanks for sharing. I had laser eye surgery over the summer last year. Mine was a non-invasive surgery with no flap that the doctor called SMILE. i could see ok that day for the first week, and after that I was back to normal. Since I didn't have a flap, they made some small laser incision and went in to do the whole eye through that. For anyone interested in laser eye surgery, I would definitively recommend looking into it (i'm in Michigan, btw).

[jpcpat]

Sorry for your troubles; glad you can see the road ahead!

[mrsnowremakes]

I also had complications with my lasik procedure. I went from a -4.5 to a +1.25. It was about 6 months until it settled. I had oil intrusion under the flaps. They had to reopen and irrigate. It was brutal. I'm a little over 1 yr from procedure, and I don't regret it. However, the consultation expectations vs the reality of the experience were widely different.

[nccm]

Happy Christmas, to you and Tarah, Dev. Hope everything works out for your family.

[rurdme]

Quite a while ago I decided not to have laser eye correction because of stories like this. In the back of my mind I told myself I would likely opt for it as I got older. However, this year I sustained a TBI when I was rear-ended while stopped at a red light. It affected my vision substantially. The recovery process has been the most difficult thing I have ever gone through and most of that difficulty is related to vision. It will slowly continue to get better but as a warning I would not underestimate the level of influence your eyes have over the healthy functioning of your brain. Thanks for sharing!