LASIK debate

Ever since he had LASIK surgery two years ago, Geobanni Ramirez sees everything in triplicate.

The surgery he hoped would improve his vision left the 33-year-old graphic artist struggling with extreme light sensitivity, double vision and visual distortions that create halos around bright objects and turn headlights into blinding starbursts.

His eyes are so dry and sore that he puts drops in every half-hour. His night vision is so poor that going out after dark is treacherous.

But Ramirez says that as far as his surgeon is concerned, he is a success story.

‘‘My vision is considered 20 /20, because I see the A’s, B’s and C’s all the way down the chart,’’ Ramirez said. ‘‘But I see three A’s, three B’s, three C’s.’’

None of the surgeons he consulted ever warned him he could sustain permanent damage after LASIK, he said.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the first lasers to correct vision in the 1990s. Roughly 9.5 Geobanni Ramirez, 33, has been dealing with vision problems since having LASIK surgery two years ago. He said he sees a lot like this picture — with visual distortion, halos and sometimes in triplicate. million Americans have had laser eye surgery.

There is a perception among patients, fostered by many eye doctors who do the surgery, that the procedure is virtually foolproof.

As far back as 2008, however, patients who had received LASIK and their families testified at an FDA meeting about impaired vision and chronic pain that led to job loss and disability, social isolation, depression — and even suicides.

Even now, serious

questions remain about both the short- and long-term risks and the complications of this increasingly common procedure.

A recent clinical trial by the FDA suggests the complications experienced by Ramirez are not uncommon.

Nearly half of all people who had healthy eyes before LASIK developed visual aberrations for the first time after the procedure, the trial found. Nearly one-third developed dry eyes for the first time.

Many ophthalmologists will say that LASIK is the safest procedure done on the eye and serious complications are "exceedingly rare."

Patients’ vision might regress after surgery, and they might need to use eyeglasses at times, some concede. But most LASIK surgeons maintain that soreness, dry eyes, double vision and other visual aberrations like those suffered by Ramirez subside within months for most patients.