Eye Surgery Debate: 7,000 Euros Cost and Persistent Halos
Patients report halos and incomplete vision after refractive surgery. One critic notes that operating ophthalmologists often wear glasses themselves.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The debate on treating myopia: 7,000 euros and unresolved side effects
Refractive surgery is presented in the debate as a solution to a problem that glasses correct. The testimony of a patient who had surgery this year with ICL lenses — 7,000 euros for both eyes, according to the price mentioned by a participant — describes a result that does not reach the promised 20/20 vision, halos that flicker before any light source, and a sense of being defrauded that is hard to digest. "According to the doctor who operated on me, I am perfect and heading straight for the success statistics," he summarizes. The antiestéticar of knowing the failure rates is not rhetorical: it is the fine print of a business that generates thousands of euros per eye and rarely reports when the result is not as advertised.
What is promised and what is delivered
The commercial argument is unbeatable on paper: extremely expensive lenses manufactured to measure, lateral incisions without shaping the cornea, a reversible procedure. The reality described by several patients is different. One of them reports that his left eye does not reach 100% vision — a tenth of a difference, sufficient to ruin the experience — and suspects that the diopters were measured incorrectly or the lens was rotated. The halos, far from disappearing, are more intense than those he had seen on the internet before going to the operating room. And they flicker.
Some claim that the brain eventually ignores them. This is the standard postoperative argument. Other patients confirm that the halos disappeared, that vision stabilized, and that they would not go back. The discrepancy is significant: we are talking about subjective perceptions of an organ that cannot be replaced.
The unshakeable argument: ophthalmologists with glasses
The most repeated observation in the conversation is not a clinical study nor a meta-analysis. It is a snapshot: the ophthalmologists who perform surgery continue to wear glasses. If the surgery were truly superior to optical correction, those who best know the postoperative process, the interactions between surgeons, and the long-term risks would be the first to undergo surgery. They are not. The proportion of professionals with glasses does not seem significantly different from the rest of the population, and that, while not proof, is an uncomfortable fact.
This is compounded by the case of public figures who had surgery and have returned to wearing glasses. It is not a statistic, but it fuels the suspicion that the result is not always the definitive one being sold.
Does myopia get solved with glasses?
Here the consensus breaks. For some, myopia is corrected with simple glasses, and the rest is marketing. For others, glasses are a crutch: they do not fix the problem, only compensate for it, and generate dependence on an object that can break, get lost, or become outdated. The discussion shifts to contact lenses, with their own problems — dryness, discomfort, risk of ulcers — and to visual re-education methods that promise to reduce diopters with consistency and exercise. The evidence for these methods is, at best, questionable.
What is not known in the long term
The strongest argument against the normalization of these surgeries is not pain or halos. It is uncertainty. The effects decades later are not well documented, and laser procedures — LASIK, LASEK, PRK, Relex — are not equivalent in technique or consequences. Inserting a scalpel or a laser into the eye to correct something that glasses solve requires a level of evidence that the industry has not provided. Meanwhile, the industry continues to sell the intervention as a consumer product, with financing included.
The conversation does not close. Happy patients exist, as do those who carry side effects. What does not exist is a public and transparent registry of results that allows us to know how many do well, how many are average, and how many do poorly. Without that data, each patient is an experiment with their own money and their own eyes.
Refractive surgery is presented in the debate as a solution to a problem that glasses correct. The testimony of a patient who had surgery this year with ICL lenses — 7,000 euros for both eyes, according to the price mentioned by a participant — describes a result that does not reach the promised 20/20 vision, halos that flicker before any light source, and a sense of being defrauded that is hard to digest. "According to the doctor who operated on me, I am perfect and heading straight for the success statistics," he summarizes. The antiestéticar of knowing the failure rates is not rhetorical: it is the fine print of a business that generates thousands of euros per eye and rarely reports when the result is not as advertised.
What is promised and what is delivered
The commercial argument is unbeatable on paper: extremely expensive lenses manufactured to measure, lateral incisions without shaping the cornea, a reversible procedure. The reality described by several patients is different. One of them reports that his left eye does not reach 100% vision — a tenth of a difference, sufficient to ruin the experience — and suspects that the diopters were measured incorrectly or the lens was rotated. The halos, far from disappearing, are more intense than those he had seen on the internet before going to the operating room. And they flicker.
Some claim that the brain eventually ignores them. This is the standard postoperative argument. Other patients confirm that the halos disappeared, that vision stabilized, and that they would not go back. The discrepancy is significant: we are talking about subjective perceptions of an organ that cannot be replaced.
The unshakeable argument: ophthalmologists with glasses
The most repeated observation in the conversation is not a clinical study nor a meta-analysis. It is a snapshot: the ophthalmologists who perform surgery continue to wear glasses. If the surgery were truly superior to optical correction, those who best know the postoperative process, the interactions between surgeons, and the long-term risks would be the first to undergo surgery. They are not. The proportion of professionals with glasses does not seem significantly different from the rest of the population, and that, while not proof, is an uncomfortable fact.
This is compounded by the case of public figures who had surgery and have returned to wearing glasses. It is not a statistic, but it fuels the suspicion that the result is not always the definitive one being sold.
Does myopia get solved with glasses?
Here the consensus breaks. For some, myopia is corrected with simple glasses, and the rest is marketing. For others, glasses are a crutch: they do not fix the problem, only compensate for it, and generate dependence on an object that can break, get lost, or become outdated. The discussion shifts to contact lenses, with their own problems — dryness, discomfort, risk of ulcers — and to visual re-education methods that promise to reduce diopters with consistency and exercise. The evidence for these methods is, at best, questionable.
What is not known in the long term
The strongest argument against the normalization of these surgeries is not pain or halos. It is uncertainty. The effects decades later are not well documented, and laser procedures — LASIK, LASEK, PRK, Relex — are not equivalent in technique or consequences. Inserting a scalpel or a laser into the eye to correct something that glasses solve requires a level of evidence that the industry has not provided. Meanwhile, the industry continues to sell the intervention as a consumer product, with financing included.
The conversation does not close. Happy patients exist, as do those who carry side effects. What does not exist is a public and transparent registry of results that allows us to know how many do well, how many are average, and how many do poorly. Without that data, each patient is an experiment with their own money and their own eyes.
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (50 replies).
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