Hi I am 45 days post Lasik using Ladarvision.
I am 43 years old. Prior to LASIK I was

BEFORE:
Left -5.5 plano
Right -5.25 with 0.25 D astig (I dont recall the axis)

AFTER:
Left 20/15 plano -
Left eye is so good I can practically see into the future.

Right Eye however is about 20/30ish with 0.75 Astigmatism.

So basically LASIK triple the astigmatism in my right eye. It is perceptable as a moderatly strong gohosted image at the 7pm clock position and is noticeable in bright or dim lighting.
It makes reading signs, subtitles hard to read
and it makes everything seem sort of jittery.

When I look thru a pin hole everything snaps into sharp focus, and It seems to be about 20/20 or better.

Also I am right eye-dominant so having double vision in my right eye is harder for me to ignore.

Assuming that my vision finalizes to its current
Rx, am I am candidate for an enhancement or is my vision "too good" to risk? What is the minimum correction that LASIK can or should be used for?

How common are ghost images postop, and how often do they go away?

I aslo wasnt happy with my LASIK docs quickly dismissing my visiob as 20/20 from a a few seconds of snellen chart reading, even though I had to mentally subtract the double image to determine each letter. Why dont they do a wavefront analysis before and after to have some objective info?

-Schwa

If post op checking is included when you paid for lasik, you have every right to insist for a wavefront. I am not a doctor so any enhancements is between you and him. Let the wavefront see whats going on

Quality of vision is the issue. If you have poor quality of vision, then an enhancement may be helpful. You should of course allow your cornea to heal and stabalize - which can take 3-6 months.
Please talk with your own doctors further and perhaps ask for a corneal topography to determine the cause if the double visiona and induced astigmatism.

Bill Trattler, MD
Miami, FL

It sounds like you and I are in very similar situations.

I had PRK on 4/25/2005. My correction was -7 with some astigmatism. I guess I've always had the astigmatism, but I was too myopic to really notice it.

Anyway, after a few weeks ticked by, I realized that I really wasn't seeing any better the I did the day after my surgery. I had a noticible double vision. While sitting at a traffic stop I happened to glance over the top of my sunglasses and, like you, my double vision was gone and I had a hell of a good correction. I realized that I had nearly 20/20 vision from almost the first day. I was just confusing the double vision for continuing myopia.

I met with my doctor. He confirmed that I was now less then a -1 in both eyes but there was still a significan astigmatism which was creating the double vision and ghosting. The doctor suspects that the astigmatism will work itself out over the next couple of months. He is setting me up with a temporary set of glasses. In mid-July we will meet again. If the astigmatism is still a problem, we plan to do an enhancement to take care of it and perhaps address any remaining myopia that still exists at the time. The myopia, all by itself, had improved to a point that it wasn't worth fixing. But since we may be going back to fix the astigmatism anyway, it would be a simple matter to take care of any remaining nearsightedness.

I have a great deal of confidence in my doctor and I trust his judgement. I'll let you know how it all works out.

Steve,
I am 2.5 weeks post ENHANCEMENT and I am seeing ghost images like you described. However I was not this way after the first surgery, only after the second surgery. I am extremely worried that this ghosting will be permanent. On top of it all I am due to return to school and I need to be able to read comfortably. I will be returning for a check up, and hopefully my doctor will be able to tell me whether or not this ghosting is from astigmatism, or from an off-center ablation (my eye moved during surgery. The laser stopped, but I'm apprehensive).

It is very frustrating that my vision has not improved so much after the enhancement. In fact, I feel like my left eye has regressed because of the ghosting.

Will update after checkup.