When my sister had LASIK, it took a while for her eye to adjust (few months) but overall she is satisfied and considers it one of the best decisions so why is there so many bad reviews and regret stories on Quora?

I have heard that on their first day Journalism students learn: "dog bites man" is not news. "Man bites dog" is news.

This is probably the main reason you can find disgruntled or upset LASIK patients posting online. Since the overwhelming number of LASIK patients are quite happy with getting the results they expected, they don't tell feel the need to tell anybody -they just go on with their lives. But people who do not get the results they expected, or even those with genuine serious complications, understandably want to tell the world.

In the hands of experienced eye surgeons who are directly involved with patient selection and post-op care, complications are extremely rare with borderline and unsuitable candidates properly screened. When big business started setting up "LASIK mills" I saw all sorts of things being done that no honest and caring ophthalmologist or optometrist would do (e.g. LASIK as low as $250 per eye). Employees were rewarded for generating numbers to get bonuses regardless of the suitability of a candidate. If there were a complication, they would point to the doctor to blame and deal with any medical liability. It was around this time that you started to hear LASIK horror stories.

Fortunately, most of these companies have gone bankrupt or otherwise abandoned the business, having left the problems and bad reviews/regrets you refer to for us to deal with.

_Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. - Chief of Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic