I had vision so nearsighted that I could only see my hand clear if it was inches from my face. My husband’s vision was a bit better.

We both go around, without any glasses most of the time.

I don’t wear glasses at all. My vision is not 20/20, but it’s very close (one eye is 20/20 the other may be 20/40 or something like that). I also have astygmatisms in both eyes, which complicates things a little. In dim/dark settings where there is some light source (stop lights, movie theaters, etc), it’s a little off.

My husband just got glasses recently. He uses them occasionally. His vision is also much improved and he can generally go around without them, but for times when he wants to perfect 20/20, he wears them.

There are no guarantees on the results and there is always a risk (#1 get a good doc who will do a THOROUGH eval before hand), but if you are interested, it was worth it for us, even though it wasn’t perfect. Just because before we couldn’t function at ALL without glasses and now we can do anything without glasses/lenses.

As for paying for it, does your company have a flexible spending benefits program? that’s what we did with ours. It’s the program that allows you to take out money pre-tax for certain things like prescriptions, medical procedures, etc (including LASIK).

If you have it, you will need to pay for the procedure up front yourself, but then, you submit your receipts and claim forms to your company and they will reimburse you. The amount is deducted from your paycheck over the year (usually you can only opt when during the benefits enrollment season of your company). That spreads out the amount over the year (assuming you start this in time for the new year), and takes the money from your pay pre-tax so that reduces your taxable income.

Sheesh.

I’ve considered Lasik, but there’s no guarantee you won’t still need reading glasses. I don’t see the difference between having to wear strong glasses without lasik or reading glasses with lasik – I’m still wearing glasses either way. With my contacts, I put them in in the morning and have perfect vision until I take them out at night.

I have worn corrective lenses since I was a kid; the “clutter” involved really isn’t terribly much:

- Pairs of glasses: one.

- Bottles of cleaning fluid: three (one at home, two at work, one of those nearly empty).

- Lens cloths: Four. Two at work, one at home, one in the backpack that I carry around.

That’s not NEARLY as much “clutter” as my sister-in-law has to cope with in coping with diabetes. There is the whole assortment of materials that she needs to take everywhere to measure sugar levels and to apply appropriate quantities of insulin. And it’s rather expensive, too.

Her life does get “cluttered up” with dealing with the medical condition. I can’t comment the alternatives – people that try to “declutter” on this tend to go blind and die early.

It sounds to me as though the *real* issue here is that wearing contact lenses for purposes of vanity introduces quite a lot of clutter.

Perhaps the less prideful approach would be to consider wearing glasses. Sure, it’s so 14th century – but in a pinch, you can clean them using soap and whatever fine tissues you may already have in the bathroom. It’s a mature technology that doesn’t involve much clutter.

The surgery wasn’t painful, just strange. Anxiety-provoking despite the valium they give you.

And personally I would NEVER have eye surgery if it wasn’t medically necessary. Yes, most people do fine. Yes, most people are happy. But why do you want to take the chance with YOUR eyes? Even with something as safe as cataract surgery, my opthalmologist, who is top-rated internationally, told me to wait as long as I possibly could, because of the tiny chance that something could go wrong.

Also consider that Lasik surgery hasn’t been around all that long, and we don’t know the long-range results. My opthalmologist wears glasses too.

So maybe you should ask yourself if you are really talking about clutter or maybe something else here?

What made my decision was a discussion with my opthamologist, who practices at a clinic offering top-of-the-line laser surgery by board-certified, fellowship-trained surgeons. Each and every doctor at the clinic can get the surgery free of charge. Each and every doctor at the clinic…wears glasses.

If my eye doc doesn’t buy it, I don’t either.

I’ve also had to undergo a different kind of laser surgery for holes in my retina and it’s not pleasant. I would never voluntarily have LASIK done, even if I could. It’s painful to have lasers in your eyes!

I’ve often thought about LASIK, and may go through with it if they improve the procedure in the future. For now, I’m far too concerned about the risk. I know the risk is (apparently) very minimal, but potentially ruining my eyesight is a risk that I’m not willing to take, regardless of how low the odds may be.

I’ll stick with my glasses, thanks.