Eyes - Surgery, Alternatives, Doctors

[Original Subject: Laser eye surgery in taiwan]

Has anyone undergone this procedure or know of anybody who did?

Just inquiring for a friend who’s thinking of undergoing the procedure.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

Gener, i had it done here about 8 years ago. Back then it was done with a scalpel! But i have a friend who’s just had the laser version done here. I’ve never regretted it for a moment; it really is a release. My friend is also very pleased with his results. It is very cheap here and quick.

Friend had his done at the eye surgury on Hsin-Sheng South Rd just south of Hsin-Hai (across from TaiDa). Very thorough treatment and follow-up observation, unlike mine which was done in 10 minutes with no follow-up work whatsoever.

I had it done at the same place, Daxue Yan ke, and although I’ve picked up some astigmatism, I’m generally happy with it.

My friend is planning to have the surgery done when she goes home at the end of the year, but might just change her mind and do it here if she hears this kind of positive feedback.
Could you please give me an indication of how much the surgery costs here…I guess something like that is seen as cosmetic surgery and won’t be covered by medical aid.

I think that it’s about NT$50,000 for the full treatment and follow-up work; Paogao could probably be more accurate, but i know that it’s about half the cost of having it done in the UK.

Sounds about right, but I had it done over a year ago, so prices may have changed.

I will need to have my peepers checked out soon (eye pressure, general health, etc). Anyone know of a good glaucoma/eye specialist in Taichung, who speaks reasonable English?

Anyone know of a miracle cure for glaucoma, while I’m at it?

Ta

FWIW (ie, I’m not a doctor), glaucoma can be treated with several drug classes (and even surgery)–not sure which are best, but treatment also depends on whether the glacumoa is open or closed angle. An opthalmologist in Taipei (PT Hung) has published quite a few papers on glaucoma and has a recent report on lantaprost for primary angle closure glaucoma. Abstract available at
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer … t=Abstract

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer … t=Abstract

Here’s a link to the International Glaucoma Association:

Good luck finding a doctor.

Included in Forumosa.com Knowledge Base

Thanks for the positive feedback all!

And if others have tried out another place please post, most appreciated!

My friend has a very high degree and glasses and contacts now are just costing her out of the wazoo. She’s mostly concerned about the safety aspect(local vs someplace back here in Vancouver). I’ll have her check out the place mentioned above. :slight_smile:

I had it done here and I am very happy with it. My doctor was great and took a lot of time to make sure I was comfortable with everything ( even put up with my stupid questions ).

The cost was NT$50,000 for the better machine and around NT32,000 for the ok machine. Follow up has been great.

One big difference is that the price is the same regardless of degree of vision unlike the states where they will carge out the wazoo if you have a high degree.

healtheye.com.tw/ is the place, I can give you the doctors name if you are interested. About five people I know have seen the same doctor and all have been happy with the results. YMMV.

my optician in vancouver says there is a clinic in Westminster, BC that is rated top two in N. America for laser eye surgery. you might be partially covered under BC medicare (i’m not sure). anyways, it has a very good track record and the surgoeons there apparently have a good experience record.
anyways, where ever you go, be sure to verify the experience of the surgeon that will ACTUALLY be performing on you. youd be surprised at how many of them don’t have a lot of experience.
good luck. me i’m holding off on it. my friend has fuzzy vision sometimes especially with light contrasts eg night time but sudden bright lights (after the initial normal effects that is)

Wow – at those prices, I’d be willing to consider getting it done here. However, I’m holding back, because my eyes are still getting worse slowly. Every year when I go to get a new pair of contacts, my eyes have always gotten slightly more nearsighted, a quarter step or two. Don’t your eyes have to stay the same for a couple years in order for the surgery to be worth it? Seems to me if mine continued to get worse, there’d be no point, since I’d eventually have to start wearing glasses again! I’m going back to graduate school soon, and will be doing a lot of close reading and computer screen gazing. Isn’t that supposed to make your eyes get worse, surgery or not?

Can anyone on the spaceship tell me if getting cataract surgery and an ocular implant is inexpensive and high quality in Taiwan. And just how much would getting a lens (not corneal implant) cost with the cataract surgery? It is a $12000.00 operation here in USD and can anyone tell me if Hernia operations are low cost compared to US hospitals $9000.00USD.

Thanks!

When I researched getting my eyes fixed I was told that one’s eyes are seriously weakened after the operation. This puts you at a high risk for blindness should you be hit in the eye. My doctor said anyone who plays sports (especially racket sports or martial arts) where there is a high risk of getting hit in the eye should carefully consider whether the operation is worthwhile to them. I decided it wasn’t for me.

This was five years ago so the procedure might be safer now but I’d check this out carefully if I were you.

this is an amazing new development that is still relatively unknown.

under this procedure hard contact lenses are worn overnight. you put them in before you sleep and remove them in the morning. they are made of a new highly oxygen-permeable plastic that makes them safe for overnight wear. the hard lenses are computer mapped by the doctor to fit and shape the cornea, giving the effect of laser surgery without slicing your eyeball open.

my daughter has been undergoing this for a year now ith no ill effects. the amazing thing about it is that it can stop the progression of nearsightedness, and in fact has for my daughter, who had progressed from 50 to 300 on the local scale within two years (she just turned 8.)

we debated and researched it extensively before undertaking this. every doctor we went to here wanted to give her atropine eyedrops, which from my understanding are of dubious value in preventing nearsightedness, cause a highly unpleasant sensitivity to light, and seem to be used on the principle that something is better than nothing. i refused to do this and was going to go for glasses when i was introduced to a specialist handling only these cases. we did worry about it at first but as there are potential complications from nearsightedness, and we my wife and i are longtime soft contact lens users without adverse affects, we decided to go for it. we have had no regrets. wearing hard contact lenses does take a bit of getting used to but once gotten used to is not uncomfortable at all.

again i am amazed by this and very happy that we were able to find out about it. with the lenses out my daughter has perfectly normal vision without using glasses, and her nearsightedness has stopped progressing.

this does not come cheap, it was $50,000 for the first year, i believe each additional pair of lenses cost $15,000. but well worth it in my opinion.

the doctor is called Dong Xiaoqing, his office is on the corner of Anhe Rd and Linjiang St. I believe a number of other specialists are doing it, but this guy is completely professional and has personally invented several important developments in the procedure. I completely recommend him. His address is 164 Linjiang St., tel 2738-3591. I would recommend anyone considering laser surgery to look into this.

You say that it stops myopia from progressing, but it doesn’t actually reverse it does it?

does not reverse it permanently, at best stops the progression. you have to wear the lenses every night to get the vision improvement. ie my daughter had 300 degree nearsightedness when she began. her vision is improved to normal as long as she wears the lenses every day. if she stopped she would revert to 300 after a few days, barring some miracle her vision would start getting worse again.

I don’t really get this…so you have to wear these hard contact all the time for it to be effective. So why not just wear regular contacts during the day?

no, you put the contacts in before you go to sleep, and remove them in the morning.

Incidentally the procedure is known as orthokeratology, and is commonly called ortho-k. a web search on either will get a lot of hits.

I don’t think the idea was that much of a new thing. I’ve heard about hard contact lenses able to to stop even regress near-sightedness for sometimes. What I am not sure about or what I think may be new about it is how it is done, ie. when you said computer mapped and all that technical stuff.

Something about myopia that one’s got to know is that there are two physical changes in eyes when it occur. One is the lengthening of the eye ball, the other is the increased(or decreased? I think increased. Anyway, changed.) curvature of the cornea. Fitting contact lenses to change the curvature can adjust the optical property and make you able to focus image on the retina again. Then you seem to have perfect vision. One thing you got to know thought is that the eyesballs are still lengthened abonormally. The danger of thining the retina (and its worst consequence possible, going blind) still exists and it is just as dangerous as it was before corrected. But you need not concern if you don’t have serious myopia (something around the local scale of 700-800 or more I think).