I am very nearsighted, and have an astigmatism in both eyes. I checked out LASIK 10 years ago, and was told that it hadn't developed enough to make it safe/effective for a person with my conditions. Has the state of the art improved with regard to laser correction of severe nearsightedness with astigmatism? Are there new techniques that could work better than LASIK? Background: I have worn glasses since I was 4, switching to contact lens in junior high school. Without my contacts, I am nearly legally blind, and my glasses are so thick (plastic or glass lens) that they impart a funhouse-like curvature to my vision. My vision with contacts is very good, but I am constantly worried that I'll develop some side-effect of the contacts (like a corneal scratch) or conjunctivitis which will require that I wear glasses (which practically limit me to the house, as my job is almost all reading and writing).
I'm posting this to AskMF in the hopes of hearing both from persons with expert knowledge and those with personal experience of correction of severe nearsightedness and astigmatism. While I understand that it is possible to apply LASIK to persons with my conditions, it is the reliability and safety of the procedure that concerns me -- any significant chance of a degradation in my vision would be too much. With that said, even an improvement that could bring my eyesight back to the level where it could be effectively corrected by eyeglasses would be worth it.
I'm posting this to AskMF in the hopes of hearing both from persons with expert knowledge and those with personal experience of correction of severe nearsightedness and astigmatism. While I understand that it is possible to apply LASIK to persons with my conditions, it is the reliability and safety of the procedure that concerns me -- any significant chance of a degradation in my vision would be too much. With that said, even an improvement that could bring my eyesight back to the level where it could be effectively corrected by eyeglasses would be worth it.