On November 6th, 2003, I got LASIK surgery done on both of my eyes by Dr. Zimmer from The Refractive Institute (now Associates in Ophthalmology) in Pittsburgh, PA. I had thought long and hard about getting this procedure done, and had done research for many years prior to getting the operation. One of the things I greatly appreciated when I was preparing were personal websites where the experience had been clearly described. By the time I got under the laser, I felt like I knew exactly what was going to happen. So in an attempt to pass on that favor, as well as make a personal memory marker for myself, I recorded my thoughts and activities along the way, and have reproduced them on this site.

My LASIK experience was a very positive one. I understand it does not work out well for everybody, and I am sympathetic to those who are dissatisfied. I am not trying to encourage anybody to get surgery, and I am not affiliated with the Refractive Institute in any way. I am only here to describe what happened to me.

I have spent nearly 20 years of my life dependant on corrective lenses for to see clearly during all my waking hours. About half of that was primarily in contact lenses. I was dissatisfied with both methods, for many reasons.

	Glasses	Contacts
pros:	Corrected my vision to 20/20.	Corrected my vision to 20/20 with less bulk.
cons:	bulky and heavy enough on my face that they were always noticeable fogged or steamed up easily in cold weather or in kitchens got scratched, dirty, or smudgy all the time got in the way of sleeping, cuddling, hugging, or kissing could get knocked off, bent, or broken during sports couldn't wear sunglasses I liked (or else they were expensive) couldn't wear them while swimming limited side vision, unless I wanted unfasionable wrap glasses myopic, so couldn't even use them to focus sunlight and burn things	dried my eyes out, particularly when I was tired worsened night vision by causing lights to glare and star caused great pain whenever dust or dirt got in my eye (frequent) required daily care and special cleaning products couldn't sleep with them in (rigid lenses) couldn't wear while swimming without goggles expensive (although mostly covered by insurance) exacerbated my tendancy towards eyelid infections didn't come in nifty special-effect lenses to make my eyes glow

I got my first pair of glasses when I was 6 years old, in first grade. The deterioration came quickly, and progressed at a rather rapid rate for the next decade, with my parents getting me a new pair of glasses every year. When I was 15 years old, my eye doctor suggested gas-permeable rigid contact lenses in an attempt to slow my eyesight decay. Happily, it worked, and I liked contacts much better than glasses.

I spent most of my waking hours in the next 10 years in contacts. There were many things I disliked about them, but I thought they were more tolerable than glasses. I had heard about a process called RK way back when I was very young, and put it in the back of my mind to think about when I was old enough. When I graduated college in 2000, LASIK was all the rage, and I started investigating into the process.

In summer of 2001, I went to a street festival and got a certificate guarenteeing a LASIK procedure from the LASIK Vision Institute in Pittsburgh for only $299 per eye. So I went in for a consultation. My vision was tested with a machine in a couple seconds, and I was declared to be a "perfect candidate" for the procedure, with only a few drawbacks. The first was that I had astigmatism, which meant that they had to use a different, more expensive laser. The second was that I wanted to have a guarentee on my eyes, that I could come back and get enhancements or fixes for free if I needed them. Both of those meant that the price jumped to $799 per eye.

Then they wanted a down payment to "secure my price." It was supposed to be $300, but I talked them down to $100, because I still wasn't ready to make the appointment. I saw too many red flags to be comfortable committing my eyesight to them. I ended up letting the contract expire and never called them again. I don't regret it.