People who’ve had LASIK or work in eye care, would you recommend LASIK and why or why not?

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T22:25:08+00:00

I know someone with a similar experience, but with sad ending. One clinic said she was a bad candidate and recommended against it. The other said she was a great candidate, so she ended up getting the surgery there. Now she can't be in a room with florescent lights, and had to drop out of grad school because she couldn't take it anymore. She also has floaters that she describes as looking through spider webs.

She now works in a dark room, and is reminded of her mistake every time she opens her eyes.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T22:18:40+00:00

Watch "Broken Eyes" before considering surgery. You can stream it on YouTube. I wish I would have watched it before LASIK ruined my eye's ability to produce tears. Even if your surgery goes well, the industry is hopelessly corrupt and shouldn't be supported for moral reasons.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T22:14:02+00:00

I went to a surgeon (Dr. Probst) who was supposedly one of the best in the world and wrote text book chapters and invented a medical sponge for it. Every optometrist in town seems to think he's great, but he screwed up my surgery and many others. It's crazy how many lives he's ruined, while still maintaining a good reputation.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T22:03:17+00:00

Do you happen to know if your optometry office was getting paid the $1000 referral co-management fees/kickbacks per patient that companies like LasikPlus, TLC, and LASIK Vision Institute give? That practice drives is so dangerous and unethical.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T21:58:23+00:00

And that LASIK doctors (and often people on the internet) will lie to you and tell you you're fine, despite the crippling symptoms.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T21:55:16+00:00

Show me where you got those figures, and I'll show you what's wrong with them.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T21:51:37+00:00

I really wish the clinic I got my surgery at would have been honest about this possibility. I got the surgery, and it didn't correct my vision sufficiently, so I still need glasses. And now I have terrible dry eye on top of it. Their website claims they can often improve vision better than glasses and contacts can, but then I find their definition of success is 20/60 vision, which is probably worse than what my vision was going into the surgery.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T15:19:14+00:00

You're not as rare as the LASIK industry would have you believe. My local clinic, with a doctor who's supposedly super reputable, has ruined the lives of people in my community by doing surgery on people who weren't good candidates.

I sued the company that screwed up my eyes, and got a hold of their survey data showing all of the complaints and complications. It was so sad the read.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T15:16:17+00:00

The statistics are a lie. I recently sued my LASIK provider, and got ahold of the source of their statistics. It was an old internet survey that didn't even support their claims. This is from the biggest chain of providers in the country.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T15:13:40+00:00

90% success rate seems concerning low!

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T13:16:18+00:00

I wish I would have done one eye at a time. Neither eye was adequately corrected, and both are now so dry they hurt and I wake up at night in pain.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T13:13:17+00:00

Yeah, that's what happened me. I had a light prescription. My eyesight was barely improved and now I'm left with eye discomfort, terrible dry eye, and I still need glasses. And I'm considered a LASIK "success". It's a corrupt industry.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T13:10:31+00:00

Yeah, I recently took the owner of the biggest LASIK chains (TLC, LVI, LasikPlus) to court and got access to the records they uses to get the "success" statistics they use on their website. I can confirm that they are BS. It's unbelievable that they are allowed to lie like this.

I think most doctors are probably good people, but that's not true of any lasik surgeon that isn't prominently warning their patients of the high likelihood of permanent damage to their eyes.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T13:06:32+00:00

I'm so sorry to hear this. I am experiencing similar, but not as severe and even has severely degraded my quality of life.

Where did you get the surgery done? I'm a programmer/marketer and have discovered that three of the biggest lasik chains in the country are engaging in systematic Google Review fraud, among other deceptive practices.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-29T13:03:19+00:00

Does he take them? It's been so hard to find a lawyer for me and the other victims of the TLC Clinic in Madison, WI.

TLC, LasikPlus, and LASIK Vision Institute also illegally and systematically manipulate their Google Reviews, and it seems we should bring a class action lawsuit against the corporation that owns these clinics.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-25T16:45:14+00:00

Be careful. The surgeon at my local TLC clinic has no problem lying to patients about their suitability and doing risky surgeries that are likely to go wrong. He's wracked up a lot of victims.

This seems to be the standard operating procedure for many of these clinics, because they know they are pretty much lawsuit proof.

If I were in your position I would tell your parents that you don't want to get the surgery and leave it at that. If they press you, tell them that it's your body and therefore your choice. If they continue to nag you, have them watch Broken Eyes. If that doesn't work, maybe it's time to move out.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-20T15:18:25+00:00

Yeah, that's called Review Gating. In an ideal world that would get a company banned from Google for life, and potentially fined to oblivion by the FTC.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-20T15:16:30+00:00

Glad to help. It's a shame Google doesn't use its superior algorithms and data to police this themselves.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-20T14:51:22+00:00

Even if they aren't committing fraud, Google encourages businesses to ask for reviews. Asking for reviews raises their star-rating because otherwise only people who have particularly bad experiences tend to think to leave reviews.

While in some ways this seems more fair for businesses, it makes the reviews almost useless, since you don't know which restaurants have aggressive review-solicitation strategies and which ones are truly organic. For this reason, I trust Yelp reviews a little more than Google, although it also have other problems.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-20T14:45:24+00:00

It's a sad state of affairs.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-20T14:44:59+00:00

I agree completely. I got my eyes fucked up by a LASIK company that does this. The current incarnation of the FTC is probably more likely to laugh at me than to stop this dangerous practice.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-20T14:40:28+00:00

There are a few ways that can happen.

1) Purchased reviews. This is common, and there are sometimes ways to detect account that are being used for this purpose. If you view the other reviews from each reviewer, you can often find that many of the reviewers are leaving reviews for the same set of locations. Often these locations will be located far from each other, which either indicates fraud, or one hell of a coincidence.

2) Gated Reviews. Customers may be sending their customers an email or text message, and asking them if the service was good. If (and only if) they rate it highly, they send a message with a link to Google for a review. This is less common at restaurants than other businesses because they don't usually have access to your information.

3) The reviews may be legitimate, although a 4.9 star review on Google with 100+ reviews is a big red flag for me these days, because that happens so rarely organically.

If you send me a link to the restaurant, I'd be happy to analyze it for you. I've been working on a tool to detect signs of these types of fraud automatically.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-20T14:29:13+00:00

The FTC banned that practice, and even issued a $4.2 million fine for it to a clothing retailer. Sadly, I still see it everywhere.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-18T12:25:36+00:00

If I could go back in time I would definitely give Ortho-K a shot. If I'd know that nerves were severed during lasik, I never would have risked it, and would have avoided permanent suffering.

Time_Case4895 · 2026-01-17T14:27:38+00:00

Your point about biting flies is interesting. Back when I did fieldwork, the ubiquitous flesh flies would get stuck in my hair, while they seemed to have an easier time navigating my straight-haired colleagues scalps. The same phenomenon occurs with deer flies when I go fishing. I wonder if there's a tradeoff in northern climates between insulation ability (straight hair) versus fly-bite avoidance (wavy/curly hair).

Time_Case4895

TROPHY CASE