After reading all the horror stories on Lasik, I am a little nervous with my Epi-Lasik surgery scheduled on Friday. Has anyone had a positive/successful LASIK (or Epi) experience? Would love to hear someone saying that it went well....

You can search google and type in "lasik diary" theres hundreds of people who got lasik and put a diary of their experiences. Everyone of them I read was overall positive. I then typed "lasik disaster" and got a few who had bad outcomes.
Make sure you are a good candidate, research the net and ask other doctors for their opinions

I feel better already : )

You may also note that nearly every one of those who have a website about bad LASIK outcomes had their surgery years ago, and none had wavefront-guided LASIK Epi-LASIK.

Glenn Hagele
http://www.USAEyes.org

I am not a doctor.

You know Glenn, that's an excellent point! All those nightmare stories I was reading until 130am last night, were done around 1998-2000 or so. I didnt find any stories on Wavefront Epi, but did find a great roundtable doctor discussion artice with Dr. McDonald and others talking about Epi-Lasik. Very interesting article and thier studies/numbers put me at ease....I will avoid the horror lasik websites for now : )

Not to scare you Brian and you likely already had the
surgery...but I had wavefront-guided Epi-LASIK 6
weeks ago and I regret doing it. I HAVE used my
medicines correctly, done al I was supposed to do and I
still cant see well out of my right eye. This is SURGERY
and no matter how easy the docs and Glenn may make
it sound, there is a good risk of problems even if you do
verything right.

I hope your outcome is better than mine. Good luck!

Well I had Epi Lasik done on Friday afternoon. Surgery went well, it was a little umcomfortable during the actual procedure, lots of pressure. I actually have some blood in my eye, as a capillary popped, but it doesnt hurt. Saturday and Sunday were pretty rough, lots of burning and any light whatsoever was painful. However, today I feel great! Sunlight is still bothersome, but not nearly as bad and no burning. I have a followup later this afternoon, so not sure if the bandage contact will stay in or not.
As far as sight goes, everything is still very cloudy/hazy, but I expected that. Too soon to tell how distance will be, but I am glad the burning cleared up. I will keep you posted how things go at the Doc's today...

>You may also note that nearly every
>one of those who have a
>website about bad LASIK outcomes had
>their surgery years ago, and none
>had wavefront-guided LASIK Epi-LASIK.

>Glenn Hagelehttp://www.USAEyes.org

>I am not a doctor.

That and many of them were not good candidates to begin with but their doctor was a little incompetant and also cared about money more than you. Some dont measure your pupil size or neglect to tell you they were too large. Others werent aware of your slight dry eyes which got much worse. Some were the doctor's own fault. Many of those doctors who did bad lasik years ago have been sued and fired since. You can still have a complication today but its much more rare. However make sure you are a good candidate, dont go to a discount center and dont skip medicines! You wouldnt believe the people who skip on their eyedrops and dont use them as pescribed then complain of over/undercorrection, dry eyes, infections, etc. If you are a good candidate, do your research and use your eyedrops to a tee, your risks of serious complications is less than half percent.

Sorry for any typos above, still pretty tough to read things close....

reading glasses will help with nearby things. If I wasnt myopic, I may also need reading glasses. I just take off my -5 glasses to read as things are blurry with my glasses on and its also bad for my eyes.

Well, 4 days post op (Epi-lasik) and things seem to be going pretty good. I had one of the contact bandages removed yesterday. Both actually, but my doc said the right one needed another day or two for the cells to tighten up, so he put another contact in the right eye. I woke up this AM with no pain, and I could see very clearly. Once I started the daily routine drops, things got hazy again. The sensitivity to light is still tough, but also seems to be getting less and less. I look forward to each morning to see the progression...

It sounds like you are progressing as would be expected. Surface ablation techniques like PRK, LASEK, and Epi-LASIK have a much longer recovery period than LASIK, with some days great and others not so great. Being patient is a necessity.

Glenn Hagele
http://www.USAEyes.org

I am not a doctor.