Thanks. Much appreciated. I’m still hesitant about it, but nice to know the info. Looks like the price as gone up though. Used to be 45k I thought.
What the crap? My friend got it done here a year ago for 28,000! No, I don’t know where, nor do I know what kind of machine they used. I do know he “shopped around” though. 3 people got it done together.
My wife had it done at Cornell clinic which is just around the corner from Daxue and used the new machine and they charged around 27000 which included a govt sponsored 10K discount. Now they charge 37K. We interviewed at Daxue but got bad vibes from the experience and chose Cornell clinic. My wife is 4 months post surgery and it worked out great.
I thought that Daxue was a very pushy and overconfident place. Seeing as how they overcharge by so much, now I understand.
Well it cost me 43K at Daxue 1 year ago.
Yes, more expensive than some other places, but more experienced doctors, and better machines (than some).
Brian
Also, most of the Taiwanese celebrities go there as well. And the doctor there that started was the first one in Taiwan to start the procedure. Crap, I don’t care what the hell the price is. I got a famous doctor that even the celebrities trust so it gives me a peace of mind. So far, everything is all right with my eyes. Just really dry.
What is the main difference between the two options at this place - Navisk vs Lasik?
As far as I am concerned, if the Navisk is even 2-5% better than Lasik in the final result, then it’s got to be worth an extra 10,000NT right?
After reading the positives many of you have experienced with Lasik, I decided to investigate having the operation. My local gf has also had it done, quite successfully. She did, however, mention that her distance sight was restored immediately, but it took a few weeks for her reading distance sight to focus again.
Anyway, on the recommendation of many of the posters on this site, I contacted Daxue and one other clinic I have since forgotten the name of. I live in Hsinchu and contacted the local branch (well, actually my gf did, to help with the Chinese). They quoted me NT$35,000. There was just one problem; I wanted to have the op on the evening of 10 June or morning of 11 June, as my school had a 2-week teaching break starting then, so I would have more time to recover completely before I teach a writing course this term (ie heavy close-up eye work for me).
The problem was 11 June was Dragon Boat Day, and the doctor was leaving early, so couldn’t do the op on Friday night either. What to do? No worries, they said. Come in for the tests in Hsinchu, and if I’m suitable for the op, I can go up and have it done in TPE, where they are not closed on the Friday night, but still have my follow-up visits in Hsinchu.
Although I would have preferred to have the same doctor who does the op do the follow-ups, this seemed fairly reasonable. I went for the tests, and was VERY impressed. The technician spoke very good English, explained what he was doing, and was highly efficient. The doctor, who did the final examination of the retina, was also great.
Then they sat me down for the “chat”. Yes, fine, I can have the op, but because I am having it at this particular branch in TPE, it will be NT$45,000 instead of NT$35,000.
What? Why?
“Because the doctors in Taipei are more experienced.” :loco:
Now, I don’t doubt that this is true, but is that what you want to tell your prospective customers? Of course my reply was “So the doctor in Hsinchu is inexperienced.”
Serious back-pedalling. No, no, of course not. The one in TPE is just MORE experienced (70,000 ops he’s done, they say… 
)
Naturally in a free market, more experienced ppl (doctors, lawyers, teachers) charge higher fees, but don’t use that one on your customer, especially in the medical field, surely. Even weirder to me was a hospital offering different prices in their different branches. McD’s doesn’t charge $100 for a burger in TPE and $60 for the same in Taichung because it’s cheaper to hire staff and rent buildings there, does it?
Now if they’d just told me TPE was a more expensive city, so the price was higher, I could’ve bought it to some extent.
Weirder followed. OK, they can knock their price down to NT$40,000. 
Yep, bargaining over my medical care now.
I reminded them that I would’ve had it done in Hsinchu if this branch was open like the one(s) in TPE, and that I was doing them a favour by going to TPE. To no avail. Instead they suggested Taoyuan, Chungli and Yonghe as other branches with less experienced doctors who could do the op “cheap”. One was even NT$33,000, I think. I guess he was a recent graduate???
I said I’d phone back, and did so a few days later, and asked if they could give me a more reasonable price yet, but they wouldn’t budge. I said that if they could offer a better price, they could phone me back.
All this over a lousy NT$5,000 you say. That’s true, but the fact is I’ve worn glasses for 15 years now, and I’m not that desperate to ditch them. I used to find them more of a hindrance when I played ball sports (cricket, hockey etc), but now that I do cycling and gymming, it’s just not such an issue. To me, the principles are important.
Tips for Daxue:
- Charge a standard fee, or make it clear in advance that prices differ among cities and branches, which you did not do, although I explained in advance that I wanted the op in Hsinchu, and you explained that I could have it in TPE.
- Don’t bargain on medical costs, or offer me a “jie-shao” price. Give me your best price straight up.
- Don’t mention experience of your medical staff as a reason for higher prices.
Tips for the cash-strapped surgery-seeker:
- Check if other branches of the same company offer better prices (but block your ears when they tell you why, for more peace of mind)
- Check in advance that the price quoted is the price at the branch you want the op done at.
DSN,
appreciate you sharing your experience, but if they are pumping thru patients every 15 mins, I honestly think their response will be “NEXT PLEASE”
Just a quick note: a doctor doing his 30th surgery of a certain type is sometimes a better choice than one doing his 100,000th, because the former is more likely to be awake during the operation, and less likely to make a careless error. The former is more likely to have reviewed his notes extensively during the previous day and to be extremely alert during the procedure. This piece of advice was given to me by, you guessed it, an eye surgeon friend in Taipei.
I had LASIK performed in Taichung about 5 months ago and I couldn’t be happier. As a rugby player, gone are the days of getting whacked and losing contact lenses! Night driving was a bit of a pain for a while after the op but everything now is completely fine.
My biggest piece of advice would be to choose a surgeon you are comfortable with. Go to a few different ones and talk to different doctors. Even without extensive knowledge of the subject you will get a sense of who is most professional. Ask about what equipment they use, get names, then look it up on the internet to make sure the equipment is the latest design…
I also had a surgeon friend from NZ give some really valuable advice… She said, if you feel the doctor is pressuring you to have the procedure then walk out. With LASIK, it is a lifestyle choice and there is not really any urgent reason to have it done… therefore, if a surgeon pressures you to go to his clinic, he’s probably just trying to turn a quick buck…
I can’t remember the name of the clinic I went to in Taichung (will find out, was near Jong-Yo department store, near the gas station on the corner), but I got reccomendations from 3 different people, looked at other clinics, and most importantly, the doctor was very up front and said right off the bat, “There is no reason for you to have this done. It is essentially a life style choice and if you feel it will improve your life then we are willing to help”. They were also very upfront with information regarding any potential risks and or hazards…
Cheers!
Daryl
There is an interesting new article on LASIK here.
I haven’t had it done yet, but I would if I had enough money lying around.
I had it done a couple of months ago. Did it at the Da eye clinic on the corner of Heping East and Roosevelt.
the guys took their time explaining it. About 40 minutes… MUCH different from this other clinic we went to in Jianguo…we felt RUSHED to do the operation. The doctor at Da Eye is Dr Lan. It was a bit pricey (35 000) even though we were 2, but the machine is one of the few in Taiwan that actually tracks your eye. Other machines stop when your eye moves, and start again once it stabilizes.
The whole experience was amazing. I loved the procedure too…this mechanical machine tells you ‘Im all fired up’ when its ready, and counts down the seconds…it was SO pretty…so many colors and lights once your lense gets removed…
Of course the lounge area before and after helped a lot too, and the meds…wow, i want to know what they gave us! Within 5 mins I felt like I was floating, and they could have switched my head with my friends, I wouldnt have minded.
The aftercare was great too…very friendly, loads of free eyedrops. I didn’t have any problems, only dryness (OF THE EYE) for the first month.
I had mine done a year and a half ago in Toronto and it’s the best! I’m so happy without my glasses and contacts. I also play a lot of sports and I’m so happy with the surgery. I would recommend it to anyone. I had dry eyes for a couple of weeks, which you had to dip your eyes with eye drops.
Now 1 of my eyes is 20/20, the other one still has a little near-sightedness, but not enough for me to venture another touch-up surgery (which is free of charge)
So get yours done!!! 
How long does it take to recover? You can’t read, go on the computer, or watch TV for several days?
I am in the process of getting my eyes lasered in the next week, so I thought I would outline some of the stuff I have learnt.
[color=red]DISCLAIMER: I am attempting to outline what I have researched myself with respect to Laser Eye surgery in Taiwan. There are risks associated with any surgery. This information is supposed to outline some of the procedures in Lay terms, however this information should treated just as a totally unqualified opinion. (I aint no Doctor)[/color]
In my opinion, what is most important, is that you do your research on Laser eye surgery BEFORE you talk to any clinics or Doctors. This way you will be confident with the options, process and terminology used, and you will be in a better postion to ask the right questions when you need to.
There is a ton of info out there online, so you can google it or use a good independent site like allaboutvision.com/
I might as well outline some of the basics here, as it seems from some of the previous posts there is not much in the way of technical details (for me anyway)
There are really 2 mainstream categories of Laser eye corrective surgery:
- PRK (Photorefractive Keratectomy)
- LASIK (Laser-Assisted in-Situ Keratomileusis)
In short, PRK is older technology, which is more painful and requires a longer recovery time, but, it does not involve the creation of a flap in the Cornea, like LASIK (which some consider to be an advantage) Heres a wiki article about PRK
These days, LASIK is the procedure of choice for most doctors and patients as it is less painful, considered more accurate, and has less chance of complications. Heres a wiki article about LASIK.
So LASIK it is, and many people think that the knowledge required stops there, but within the LASIK category there are a few more sub-categories, which determine the price. I notice that in previous posts the prices are sometimes mentioned without qualifying the type of LASIK.
All LASIK procedures require making a slice in the cornea to form a flap, which is peeled back to allow the laser to make the lens corrections, and then it is replaced. There are 2 main methods to forming this flap:
- mechanical microkeratome using a metal blade.
- a femtosecond laser microkeratome that creates a series of tiny closely arranged bubbles within the cornea.
There are advantages of either method, but one of the key considerations (for me anyway) is there is way more experience out there in using the mechanical microkeratome. Many clinics don’t have the Intralase machine to do the laser flap. You can find some debate about this in the above links. There is another method, using a finer blade and alcohol to loosen the flap, but that is called LASEK or epi-LASIK. Once again, this is newer technology that is not widely in use yet.
So that is the flap side of things, now to the laser corrective surgery itself.
There are 2 main types:
- Traditional LASIK - this uses a simple correction of focusing power to the cornea.
- Custom (Wavefront guided) LASIK - this uses 3D mapping of how your eye processes images, and creates a custom reshaping correction.
Custom LASIK is sometime used on patients where there are eye conditions that are not so suitable for Traditional LASIK. There is also a great deal of info out there that tends to point to Custom LASIK generally being a more accurate way to laser correct(better chance of 20/20 or greater), and produces less chance of some of the post op risks (halos, glare and night vision)
So which method did I choose?
Armed with this info, and some reading of official medical journals on the subject, I decided before I went to the clinic that I would be aiming for mechanical microkeratome using a metal blade (for the experience advantage) and Custom (Wavefront guided) LASIK (for the accuracy and less post op risks advantage)
Only then, did I think about clinic selection. I have a good colleague who had LASIK with Dr Eye and was happy, but more recently has had many friends get their LASIK done at the HSIN HO MEI Laser Center (on San Min Rd, just of Nanjing), and have been very happy with the professional approach, and the results. I had my colleague come along as a translator, but I believe english is spoken also. I just felt more comfortable having it translated as I went.
The evaluation
I went to the clinic on Thursday for my evaluation, which involved an explanation of the LASIK procedure first, followed by a bunch of tests on various machines, I guess about 8 in total.
First, was the normal eye exam to determine how blind I am, then they measured the diameter of the eye, thickness of the cornea (which is the critical factor in determining if the flap can actually be cut), testing the pressure of the eye using a machine to puff air onto the eyeball, then a Wavefront Analysis to give the 3D mapping. The Cornea was measured again using a hand-held ultrasonic pencil shaped device held right onto the eyeball after some anaesthetic drops were applied (it was painless anyway). The final test of enlarging the pupil will be carried out today.
Due to the size of my pupil, the clinic recommended that I get Custom Wavefront guided LASIK. (which is what I was going to opt for anyway)
The price difference? Traditional LASIK is 26K, where as Custom Wavefront guided is 43K.
For me the price is important to a point, but personally I am not interested in ‘shopping around’ on the basis of price. What is more imporant to me is the experience of the staff and clinic and quality of equipment.
So what about the equipment then? I checked out the FDA approved list of LASIK equipment and determined that VISX machines are very well known (if not the most well known) in the LASIK business. The VISX- Star S4 & WaveScan WaveFront System is what is used at the HSIN HO MEI Laser Center.
I will post again next week after I have had the procedure to outline that. In the meantime, here is some reading on the complications/risks of LASIK. In short, careful selection of candidate significantly reduces risk of post op complications. In other words, significant problems are extremely rare, but can happen.
PS. My apologies for the length of this post, but if you are like me, this sort of info is like gold if your are considering Laser Eye Surgery.
Truant -
Thank you for the post.
I have been considering this procedure for several years.
I watched it develop quite rapidly in the southern california marlet. I think that area is on the cutting edge for the develop,emt and implementation of the various procedures you have described.
I look forward to seeing your post-op results.
Good luck to you and I wish you well.
while you probably can’t read this at the moment, Truant . . .
Actually, while I have heard many tales extolling the virtues of laser eye surgery, like those above, last year my bosses wife had it done here in HK. I’m sketchy on the details but it seems she was offered some pain killing drops that reduced the healing of her eye. There was also some further complication with the upshot that she has spent almost a year with extremely limited vision, endless trips to the hospital and a whole lot of agony. The operation was performed by a leading HK eye surgeon.
Just a cautionary tale, but it might be worth asking about the impact of whatever drops they offer. BTW, she was not told to limit the use of these drops. And do listen to exactly what the doctor says. One of my biggest gripes about privatised medicine is that doctors are too keen to sell their product and in their sales pitch too often play down the risks.
All intervention, no matter how minor it may seem, entails the risk of a fuck up.
HG
I hear what you are saying HCG, and it is very easy to find horror stories on the web.
Statistically, the rate of complications these days is very low, and of those, virtually none of the complications are ‘blindness’ as some people would have you believe.
The doctor told me that infection of the flap is the biggest complication risk these days, which occurs at his clinic in under 1 in a 1000 cases. The use of antibiotic drops is critical.
I have done plenty of research, but more importantly asked as many people as I can who has done the procedure or know of people who have. All 1st hand accounts have been 100% positive. No complications or post op problems. A couple of 2nd and 3rd hand accounts where problems(night vision, halos) have occured, all happened circa 10 years ago or older when Laser surgery was new, most likely PRK or early LASIK.
Risk is an interesting question, and worth considering. However, there are far more riskier things we do everyday than have Laser surgery.
Anyway, back to the final part of the evaluation performed yesterday. I have another identical Wavescan analysis, and the 3D mapping matched perfectly to the previous one, which is an verification test. Then a series of eyedrops made my pupil dilate to the max, so the eye surgeon could use further equipment to check for the health of my retina and other parts of the eye. After this, my pupil was dilated for another 3-4 hours which made it really difficult to see things closer than a meter while wearing glasses (this gave me an insight into what elderly people go through with their eyes).
While chatting to the doctor, I asked him about the Bladeless Intralase method to replace the flap, and why it’s difficult to find information in Taiwan about this. He told me that Laser surgery is an Govt approved surgical procedure and Intralase has yet to be fully approved in Taiwan, but will be in the next year or so. As I mentioned earlier, the latest technology is not always the best to go for because there is generally less experience in implementing it - So mechanical microkeratome is fine by me.
Will keep those interested posted on the op.
OK, Friday came, and I had the operation. It went something like this:
Another eye test, to check my vision and confirm for maybe the 5th time that the correction procedure programmed into mr Visx was the correct one.
Next was a detailed briefing on the upcoming procedure, followed by a run down on the medication I need to administer over the upcoming weeks.
I was very impressed with the level of detail here. The nurse explained what I should expect and when with respect to my vision improvements. Most of it occurs instantly, but over the next few weeks it improves firstly for long distances, then close. And night vision/halos reduce to nothing.
The nurse explained in detail a sheet they had prepared outlining the best foods to eat over the next coming weeks to provide the best vitamins & nutrients to assist in the recover process. This was attention to post op care I wasn’t expecting.
Some cleansing drops. Some more. The I was taken into the preop room to suit up into a gown and cap. The cap was taped to my face to allow the fluids used in the op to run off.
I had to remove my shoes, switch of my cell phone and walk across a sticky mat into the theatre. (I presume the mat was anti static.) In the theatre was the Doc and 3 nurses.
Some drops were applied. The doc examined the health of my eyes again on a machine with incredibly bright light. Some more drops were applied, then he gentle marked my eyeballs with a special marker. Then it was time to lie down on a bed that swings under the Visx machine.
The Doc swung me under the machine, and did some calibation to align the machine to each iris. Then I was swung back out to apply a face shield, which had a hole for my eyes.
The Doc used some tape to hole the skin around my right eye open, then a clamp device to hold the eyelids apart, to prevent blinking. More drops. Washing/cleaning solution. Then the microkeratome process. This was much less of a worry than I thought, as it had been my main area of concern. The device uses suction to locate on the eyeball and is painless. The Doc communicated all the way thru and told me when I would lose my vision etc.
Once that procedure was done, it was onto the laser.
I had to stare at a red light for 30-40 secs while the Visx zapped. The thing that I was not prepared for was the noise. It sounded like a ‘cracking’ noise of increasing intensity, (very much like a TIG welder for stainless steel etc).
After the laser, he washed the surface, repostioned the flap, washed again and then brushed the eyeball surface with a tiny brush with the most careful, steady hand I have every seen. That was it for the right eye, so it was just a matter of repeating that for the left.
After both eyes done, the Doc carefully examined my eyes with the bright light magnifying machine and confirmed everything was ok.
At this point there was no pain at all. I walked out and took the robe, cap off and they put on some polycarbonate glasses to protect my eyes. The nurse gave me a panadol, and we were good to go. I was amazed at how much I could see already.
Once in the taxi, my eyes started to hurt a little. A bit like the stinging pain you get from a chorine pool, about 10-20x though.
I took a lie down in a darkened room and still felt a little uncomfortable, so I took another pandol. The pain faded and at about 4hrs post op I was feeling reasonable normal…but I could see - pretty much perfectly.
We decided to head outside for a bite, and found ourselves meeting up with some friends to watch the Football. By this stage I reckon I had close to 20/20 vision with some slight halo effect around bright lights (totally expected).
I felt pretty comfortable, and my eyes felt no worse than they used to when I wore contact lenses.
I leaned back in my chair and saw a miracle. I could clearly see stars in the sky above Taipei! I think my friends thought I was really ‘seeing things’ until they took a look for themselves.
I went back on Saturday for my 1 day post op exam and they measured my eyesight as ‘perfect’ (no nearsightedness). The doc examined the eye surface using the bright magnifying machine and said everything was fine. He confirmed that the coming weeks will be the full recovery process and will improve my vision.
All in all, I was very happy with the process, and in particular in using HSIN HO MEI Laser Center. I found the whole setup very professional and in particular they use several counter checking procedures with different staff to confirm the same results. IMHO, the tests and evaluations are critical to the success of Laser surgery.
They have a website: seelasik.com.tw/
As predicted, the riskiest part of getting my eyes lasered was taking a taxi to the clinic.
Ha ha ha! Great stuff, well done and congrats!
HG