Lasik scare

As someone who's had Lasik, I'm naturally interested in the news stories that suggest that it's more dangerous than we'd all been led to believe. A government panel has urged stronger warnings because a small number of people (reportedly less than 1 percent) who've had the vision-improving surgery report awful problems.

I feel for those people, but I'm not one of them. Lasik has been bery, bery good to me. I wore glasses from the time I was 13 years old until a year ago. My vision is close to 20-20 these days, plus I'm one of the lucky ones who hasn't needed reading glasses (yet). Perhaps that's because my arms are so long...

My only complaint about Lasik is my night vision, which isn't great. I'm still getting some halo effects around lights, particularly if my eyes are dry or tired. Not so bad that I shouldn't be driving, but I limit my night driving, just to be safe.

Otherwise, it's great to go without glasses, though at least one friend thinks my face looks "naked" without them. I can wear cool sunglasses now. I can see when I first open my eyes in the morning (which doesn't stop me from reaching for my glasses; some habits are hard to break).

My eye doctor gave me all the warnings, and every opportunity to back out, but I went ahead and got Lasik. I'm glad I did. I wish it had worked out this well for all Lasik patients.