PRK or LASIK eye surgery for Survivalists

I just begin reading your book surviving economic collapse. On page 33 you mention LASIK and referred to the US Navy and Air Force.

I have personal knowledge knowing Air Force surgeons and having been an opthamologist that the procedure recommended is not LASIK but thermal keratoplasty.

The difference is that thermal keratoplasty  uses the laser to modify the corneal shape without slicing through the cornea like LASIK.
The sliced flap can be dislodged rendering the vision in the eye completely blurred.

Thermal keratoplasty is more uncomfortable than LASIK but has equally good results and less risk.

That being said you’re better off with LASIK than glasses for your purposes.

Thanks for all your insights.

Robert McBratney
retired Ophthalmologist

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Thanks for your email Robert. You are right. Keratoplasty is the recommended procedure when possible for patients that are likely to suffer trauma, such as military personnel and of course survivalists as well. At the time I wrote that it wasn’t as common as it is today and LASIK had become a procedure accepted by the Air Force for their pilots.

LASIK involves the cutting of a small flap while keratoplasty shapes the eye surface itself, without the cutting of a flap. The flap may be completely cut off during surgery by accident or become detached by trauma. Keeping things in perspective, its very unlikely to suffer accidental flap detachment during surgery and even in thousands of cases of very strong trauma flap loss is a very rare incident.
Having said that, indeed, if I was doing it today I’d go for Keratoplasty. Its cheaper, safer, and there’s no flap to mess up in the first place.
FerFAL

Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”.