Aagh! Not the eyes!
Published April 25th, 2008So today CNN has a story on a subject I’m actually peripherally qualified to pontificate on - LASIK surgery. Apparently there’s a rising clamor for the FDA to look into so-called “success stories” that aren’t successes at all. Some people get their 20/20 vision, but they have such awful complications they are miserable - some to the point of suicide.
Now of course I sympathize. That sucks - you go in for a procedure that you’re told is safe and reliable - and something awful happens. But sometimes, you have to accept it. Not EVERYTHING bad that happens is unfair or negligent - it’s just bad. First off, it’s not a 100%. And if you went to a competent physician, you were handed a waiver that discusses all the things that could go wrong (scary) and that it DOES happen (scarier) a certain percentage of the time. And then you sign the waiver and laser beams shot into your eyes. If it goes wrong - well, you were warned, and you signed acknowledgment. It blows but…it happens. Feel free to investigate for fault, but it might not be anyone’s fault.
However, sometimes it’s your own.
Colin Dorrian was a college student when he was told he wasn’t a good LASIK candidate, but went ahead anyway — and his father, Gerald, described six years of eye pain and blurred vision before reading his son’s suicide note to a Food and Drug Administration panel: “I can’t and won’t continue facing this horror.”
If a doctor, an expert on this, a medical professional, tells you that you’re NOT a good candidate - then DON’T have the surgery! I wasn’t a good LASIK candidate - and I didn’t for a minute consider it. In fact I was really upset when the doc said “You’re not a good LASIK candidate” because I wasn’t aware of an alternative. He explained it a few seconds later, but at first - I was pretty disappointed. It took me a long time to get up the courage to start the process, and so it was very deflating. But this guy should have had the alternatives offered to me. I can’t say for sure if he did, but if so - take the doctor’s advice.
The article discusses dry-eye as a main side effect - so bad it causes severe pain in people. I can sorta understand this - I do have some dry-eye problems. Some days are especially bad for me, and often upon waking up I’ll have bad dry-eye. That’s why I have eye drops. And everyone I know who’s had LASIK uses eye drops. So this is pretty common - the severity is of course, random. This is a risk.
Any surgery is a risk. I’m all for studying and improving vision correction surgeries - but don’t act like you weren’t warned. If you weren’t, that’s malpractice - but if you were, you can’t go claiming this was unexpected. The world is not a perfect place.
That said, if these people can’t currently be helped, then there should be some research into developing ways TO help them.
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