Army LASIK & PRK

Anyone get LASIK or PRK at a military hospital? It's free for active-duty
military. i'm about one month into it. seeing 20/30 so far. huge
improvement from my 20/200. after full PRK recovery, hoping to be 20/20 or
better. good luck to all.

 

Best of luck on your final outcome. As you already know, visual
recovery with PRK is much slower than with LASIK. It is reasonable to
expect continued improvement over the next few weeks.

For other military personnel considering refractive surgery, even with
doctors who are a part of the military or civilian doctors who are
contracted by the military, it is necessary to evaluate the
qualifications of the doctor who will perform your surgery. I suggest
you use our 50 Tough Questions For Your Doctor as a guide.

Glenn Hagele
Executive Director
Council for Refractive Surgery Quality Assurance

Email to glenn dot hagele at usaeyes dot org

http://www.USAEyes.org
http://www.ComplicatedEyes.org

I am not a doctor.

 

I would be hesitant about getting free lasik done. For one thing, the
standards required to perform surgery are considerably lower for
military doctors. Also, if they screw up, you can't successfully sue
them.
I do have another comment about this. In the civilian world,
virtually no company covers a lot of medical procedures such as PRK
and LASIK. Even in other areas such as dental care and eyecare
involving contact lenses and glasses there are huge deductibles. Why
is it that our government decides that military people get FREE full
medical coverage for non-service related problems? How nice of the
government to be so generous.. with taxpayer money.

 

I'd be inclined to agree with you about lawsuits and the fact that SOME
military doctors are inexperienced. I'm not a big fan of military
hospitals, but there are inexperienced doctors everywhere, not just in
the military. I'd like to see your statistics on the "lower standards".

There is no comparison to civilian jobs and military at all. Apples and
oranges. Ever tried to shoot an insurgent who's shooting at you while
it's raining...while wearing glasses? Ever tried to wear a gas mask?
with glasses? Has your job ever transferred you to Alaska? Korea?
Germany? Did your glasses fog up when you went in and out of buildings?

Get back with me on that and let me know if our tax dollars are wasted.
The annual cost of eye exams, glasses, chemical mask inserts and the
fact that soldiers with vision correction are more battle-ready
apparently sold Department of Defense and your congressmen on the
program. Just my two cents....(tax refund)