What a timely thread. I just had lasik done 20 hours ago. So far it's awesome. My eyes are a bit blurry, as it takes a few days to clear up, especially with high prescriptions. After my checkup this morning I'm already 20/30 and expected to improve. The doctor will do a secondary surgery free to get me to 20/25 or better if I'm not there already.
Consider where I came from: a prescription of about 7 or so - that's like 20/1000 or something ridiculous. When they put the biggest letter up on the wall, I can't even tell that there's a letter there at all.
I've worn glasses since second grade. Lately I've become extremely active: snowboarding, mountain climbing, rock climbing, cycling, hiking, etc. I've had some situations where my glasses seriously impaired my ability to survive. One was getting stuck on Mt. Rainier in a 75 mph blizzard with my glasses fogging up while wandering through rocks and crevasse fields on a rope team. One time I dropped my glasses rock climbing. Thankfully it was only a single pitch and it was at a sport area. If I was climbing in the backcountry I'd probably have to be rescued. My only goal was to not have my life dependent on glasses. Even my eye doctor, who I would give large sums of money to yearly, kept telling me to get the surgery, despite not having any financial connections to any lasik companies.
The procedure was painless. The only uncomfortable part was when they were using the laser machine to cut the eye - basically they attach a vacuum hose to your eyeball to keep it still and there was a lot of pressure. The actual laser correction had no feeling at all, though the smell of my burning cornea wasn't pleasant.
I HATE anything touching my eyes and the surgery wasn't a big deal. It was actually entertaining watching them touch my open eyeball with tools to move the flap around.
My advice for finding doctors is to look around a lot. Go to at least 2 consultations. I would stay away from large chains that are not owned by the doctor. Also be wary of a doctor that has like 10 branches and just moves around every day to do more surgeries.
Also if they have deep discounts that's probably a bad sign. For both eyes, the total should be at least $2k. Mine was closer to $4k. No reputable doctor I visited was less than $3k.
I ended up going to Bellevue Lasik and Cornea in the Seattle area. The doctor has performed a lot of surgeries, has the latest equipment, had the surgery done on himself, and had mostly good reviews online. Plus, I got to see the doctor the day before the surgery and the day after - lots of places you only see the doctor on the day of the surgery. It's a highly competitive environment, so they have ODs and technicians do much of the work before surgery. He also gave me his personal cell phone number after the surgery. Another thing I liked about him is that lasik only occupies about 2/3 of his time. He also works regularly at the nearby hospital doing all kinds of eye work, including cornea transplants and surgery.
The doctor also said I was a candidate for the newer custom lasers (wavefront). The first place I visited said my cornea wasn't thick enough. However, the doctor I went with said I was well within the recommended FDA cornea thickness, and his personal requirements were stricter than that. Some doctors are just more conservative than others.
Complications with lasik are lower than they were even 4 years ago. The newer custom wavefront machines drastically cut down on longterm glare and night vision problems due to their higher order shaping of the cornea. Actually I recently read a medical article showing that that the risk of serious eye problems is less with lasik than contacts. The risk of complications from one lasik surgery is much lower than the risk of eye damage from infection from wearing contacts for 30 years.
If liking how you look in glasses is holding you back, just keep your glasses and get the lenses changed out really weak ones.
OP (and others considering it), how strong is your prescription?