I see warnings of low light vision loss as being a possible side effect of laser vision correction therapy.

I am wondering if any of the members where have any experience with this as to how they function in the darkroom after having laser eye surgery.

My reservations are that right now I do fine in the darkroom; under amber or red safelight things are plenty bright.

It would be a shame to get my vsion tuned to try to loose my need for glasses, and then find that I can't see well enough to function properly in the B&W darkroom.

The dull green one I use when printing colour is quite dim, and I really cant see anything by it even after my eyes are fully dark adapted, but using it does let me stay oriented when I am turning from the enlarger to feed paper into the roller processor.

Mike, although I'm not an ophthalmologist, I'm a physician, so at least I'm conversant with some of the terminology used by my eyeballin' colleagues. And I'm also a LASIK patient, having had mine done eight years ago to correct moderately severe myopia (nearsightedness) and astigmatism.

Indeed, low light visual difficulties can happen to some; this has been a relatively minor problem, if at all, for me. It happens because, at least as they were doing LASIK in 2000, the corrected area of the cornea can be smaller than the pupil opening when it is maximally dilated in low light. This means that light rays can pass through the uncorrected periphery of the cornea and thence through the pupil, to be perceived as glare (think lens flare) or blurry vision, even though the light rays passing thru the (corrected) center of the cornea are sharp (this is where light rays pass when you are looking directly at something.) Another post-LASIK problem can include dry eyes, since reshaping the cornea can interfere with the flow of the tear layer over the cornea. My eyes were dry-ish to begin with, so I've had to use artificial tears intermittently. It's worse during allergy season (ie, 9 months of the year in Kentucky!) but overall not a real big deal.

Would I do it again? Knowing what I now know, not with 2000 technology, but yes with today's methods. The ability to precisely map and reshape the corneal surface has come a long way in a decade. I'm having a problem now because I have some smaller irregularities in my corneal surface that my LASIK could not correct, which have become more pronounced with time--this atop the presbyopia (reading glasses time!) that every 45-year-old begins to experience. (Growin' old ain't for pus---s!) I could have repeat LASIK with today's far better techniques, which CAN map and correct such small irregularities, but I run the risk of perforating my surgically-thinned cornea and winding up with a corneal transplant, a nonhealing corneal ulcer, or various other maladies not consistent with committing photography. My best option, and not great at that, is to apply a liquid-backed hard contact lens so that in effect, the front of the contact lens becomes my new "corneal" surface and cancels out my wavy corneal surface.

So ask questions, and make sure your doctor has a LOT of experience with this procedure. You want the guy/gal who's done about a trillion of these. You want the guy to be yawning in boredom as you lie down, s/he's done so many.

Good luck!

Mike, thanks very much for your report.

I've been contemplating LASIK ever since it arrived, haven't been able to convince myself to take the risk. My prescription keeps changing so I have trouble imagining that any reshaping of my cornea would solve my vision problems once and for all. If not a once and for all fix, why bother?

Have I misunderstood something?

Cheers,

Dan

Dan, let me re-emphasize that this is not my primary area of expertise so I speak as an informed patient as much as I speak as a physician!

When I had mine, my prescription had been stable for some time. This is the case for most myopes (nearsighted--which is I think the diagnosis for which the majority of vision surgeries are performed) once they get well along into adulthood, as I understand it. My vision had been stable since the surgery, until about 6-9 months ago, when I began to notice irregular, inconsistent blurring in parts of my visual field, worse in the right eye. An exhaustive--and I mean EXHAUSTIVE--eye evaluation by both cornea and retina specialists revealed only the corneal irregularities I described above. Not sure why I had this relatively late change in visual acuity--age related changes in corneal flexibility perhaps? No one has found any pathologic reason for it, and it is evidently not an uncommon occurrence.

Even if you have LASIK for myopia, at some point in your life presbyopia (trouble seeing up close, eg reading) will set in, requiring you to use reading glasses or perhaps one contact lens fitted for closeup vision ("monovision"). This is the trouble the middle-aged have viewing things up close, as a result of a stiffening lens which is no longer flexible enough to change its shape to focus up close. This is a different problem from myopia, one not solved by LASIK aimed at correcting that condition. (there are vision surgeries for presbyopia, but they are not as frequently performed as those for correcting myopia.) Myopia is due to an abnormal curvature of the cornea, the clear bulging window in the front of your eye. Many people don't realize that the cornea is the main refractive surface of the eye, while the lens serves to fine-tune focus and to provide sustenance for ophthalmologists when it begins to yellow into a cataract, necessitating its lucrative replacement with an implanted artificial lens.

I'd think that a frequently-changing prescription would be a concern if you're contemplating surgery--but your doc can explore this with you at your initial consultation.

The glasses I wear have been part of me for nigh 30 years, but now I notice - yep that middle age thing- that I see better up close ( ie less than 10") with the glasses off. Distance and mostly astigmatism get corrected by the corrective lenses, and things have been almost perfectly stable for 15 years

So view camera time - glasses on 99% of the time - to visualize the scene, initial camera set up, tell hiking partners I will catch up, etc. .
Glasses off to view the groundglass.
Glasses on for fishing out the film holder, read the light meter, etc.
Glases off to check final framing and focus, etc.

A nusance it is, and here I am with the mortgage to be paid off in a year or two, retirement and kids education funds all caught up and getting filled to maximum limits each year.

So I am pondering a 'me' upgrade instead of directly getting tempted by GAS.

Mike,
I'm in much the same situation as you, though I've worn glasses a bit longer (for myopia). I go through pretty much the same drill with the camera. My conclusion for me, has been the surgery wouldn't be worth it, because of presbyopia. My understanding is that with the presbyopia and LASIC, you basically have two choices, infinity focus or close focus, and the basic solution is to do it one way in one eye, and the opposite in the other. Even with that method, the close focus ability will continue to deteriorate.

I'm sure it works for some people, but it doesn't seem like something I'd like, so, for now, I'm willing to put up with the glasses on/off drill.

There are other choices too, eyeglass mounted loupes, "task" bifocals which place the close prescription on the top rather than the bottom, magnifying visors.

YMMV, I'd recommend a long talk with your eye doctor.

What would be truly cool would be variable focus eyeglass lenses or else implants that can replace the eye's lens, and there are folks working on it, we'll see.

Bdial is right about presbyopia and LASIK. I considered those so-called "monovision" techniques where one eye is corrected (either by surgery or by contact lenses) for distance and one for close-up, but rejected the notion. I don't think I could get used to it, being a stickler for sharp vision; and at the time I was flying actively, and it was a no-no for FAA vision clearance, at least back then.

I have one of those Opti-Visors for closeup work at home, and if I ever went back to shooting large-format again I'd probably use it in lieu of a loupe. Until then, I'm gonna go with the granny on-the-nose glasses on the librarian chain around my neck!

Interesting thread. And thanks for your insight <g>, Mike. I'm another of those nearsighted, starting to have trouble reading up close, glasses wearing old coots. But I really don't like anyone near m y eyes, so my solution for when that times comes, is to get two pairs of glasses - as they say: one for reading and one for seeing.

my solution for when that times comes, is to get two pairs of glasses - as they say: one for reading and one for seeing.

I saw a cartoon a while ago showing an elderly couple. The man was asking his wife "have you seen my 'looking for my glasses' glasses?".


Steve.

Anyone ever hear of some ongoing research in a technique that replaces the stiffening gel in the lens with an artificial material to permanently cure presbyopia? Late blurb I saw it was tested on dogs and it worked. That was a few years ago so I'd think things would be closer to human testing stage but it seems to be under the radar for the popular science news sites.