Background

I am 32 years old and have been wearing contacts since the 7^th grade (I had glasses for several years before that) to correct a myopia with a prescription of -6.00 (left) and -5.50 (right).  I was lazy about wearing the contacts and kept them in much longer than I was supposed to.  I never had any problems keeping them in, so I began keeping them in longer and longer.  Eventually, I just never took them out until I had to replace them after about three months.  Yes, I wore them 24 hours a day, seven days a week for months at a time.  For two decades, I never had any issues, but only now realize exactly how lucky I was. 

I only started researching LASIK because I wanted to be able to go swimming without the fear of losing my contacts, and I was tired of having the contacts get “stuck” up in my eyelids when I rubbed my eyes.  These, of course, are minor issues and I quickly dismissed the idea of paying thousands of dollars to fix them, especially after reading about complications of LASIK such as halos and chronic dry eye.  In my research, however, I noted that serious problems with contacts are pretty common.  I started worrying about my habits and went for a LASIK consult.