All things LASIK surgery (aircrew/other -- merged)

[Slim]

OK so for now I am out of the Pilot MOC but you are saying I am fine for AirNav MOC?   That was my second choice.

I am not a pilot...CF or Civvy. I know NOTHING about flying, other than where to sit in a helicopter to take pics out the door.

Hopefully when I offer this bit of advise I will not get my foot jammed up my verbal keester for it. ( I better not as I'm a mod and know where all of you live! ;D)

My only piece of advise (take it for what its worth) is that if you love to fly then try and find a way to keep current...You never know what will happen. I'm not trying to raise your hopes up or start any false ones. I just know what its like not to be able to do the things you want to do...Even if its just as a hobby.

Cheers. Advice machine off.

Slim

 

[Zoomie]

Since I have had the eye surgery am I still ok for Air Nav?

Yes

 

[Jaxson]

[size=10pt]Hey kincanucks [/size]

I have tried to copy the link that I got most of those posts from just so you don't think I made them up, like I care what you think anyway.


If you do a search for that, you should be able to find it.   Also take a look at his profile, unless you are sceptical that he may be lying too?

First off he wasnt accusing you of making them up, what he wanted to do, or what i assume he wanted to do was infact read the threads and post you were referring to, to see if it came from a credible source. Second, Kincanucks is a recruiter and what he told you about going for anything but pilot,is to save you time and down the road when they find out you have infact had Lasik.Your question has been answerd: No you can not CURRENTLY become a pilot in the CF, but you are eligible to be Air Nav if you pass all tests and meet all requirements.

 

[Good2Golf]

Both of you take a deep breath, and remove your heads from your rear ends.

On this website, you will recieve advice from many people, some of which (like kincanucks) know alot about what they are saying. Therefore, unless you suffer from a severe lack of IQ points, you would be well advised to shutup and take that advice, or ignore it. You would be well advised to NOT mouth off to a member of this site (and the CF) with plenty of TI and who has garnered quite a bit of respect among the members of this website. If you want to ask for advice and recieve the most current available, and then ignore. Fine. But DO NOT proceed to try to show how smart you are by trying to disprove someone who deals with questions like yours everday. It is a well known fact that pilots in the CF have never been allowed to have laser eye surgery. Everyone in the CF who knows a pilot knows that.

So welcome to army.ca and unless your attitude changes, may your stay be a short one. Very short.

: ....................

 

[WannaBeFlyer]

Yeah. I see a PM from a mod in the very near future for me. Oh well.

Nah. I am sure most of us were thinking the same thing.

I would have taken my email address, that contains my name, out of my profile if I felt the need to shoot from the hip at my future employers. :tsktsk:

 

[acclenticularis]

Thanks for the advice 2332.  I suppose I was a little harsh, as were you.  I have been following the forums for months and I have found Kincanucks to be a valuable, respected source of info.  Having been in the military before (for 10 years), and having taken an educational break, and now returning, I have found Kincanucks' posts very useful.  In fact I have only had to post for information just once, due to the responses that he has provided in other posts that apply to my situation.  I suppose Kincanucks can fight his own battles, however, I found it rather offensive that the poster would take such a tone with someone who has helped so many.  And I do respect the advice of others that are in the military ... as I have been and will be in the near future again.  P.S. you sound like my Chilliwack instructor, except he would say "shut your cake hole or I will chew your head off and %$it down the stump". 

 

[2006AF]

Ok so what I have learned so far is that if you have sarcastic remarks to be made a good place for them if you feel they absolutely need to me made is through a private message and not out in the open of the forum.

Thanks to everyone who have answered all of the questions

 

[Pte. Bloggins]

"Join the infantry. You can fly helicoters and CF18s after you join. Its like a QL5 course or something.

ROTFLMAO!  ;D

 

[2006AF]

I am supposed to have a form filled out for the CF for the laser eye surgery that I had done.   This form is supposed to be filled out by the operating physician that did the eye surgery.   The form needs pre-op and post-op eye conditions.    This is where the problem occurs.   I had the surgery done 6 years ago and the company has since gone out of business.   I have contacted the doctor who still practices, when I needed ironically the same form the CF uses for my private pilot licence almost two years ago.   His office has most of the files archived, but at that time and still now can not find my file.   For my PPL I was able to get another   eye doctor to do an eye exam for me and fill out this form for transport Canada.   Tranpsort Canada ok'd this form even though the pre-op part had to left blank.
Since I can not get the pre-op eye conditions what can I do?????

I am no longer going for Pilot, I am going for my second choice now for Air Nav.

 

[kincanucks]

Well if I were you I would start by calling the medical person at your CFRC/D and asking them.  It doesn't matter whether you are going Air Nav now you still need to provide the information regardless of your occupation choice.

 

[2006AF]

Thanks Kincanucks. Hopefully we are nicer to each other this time

I did ask the medical person at the recruiting centre and he said to do my best to get that info, but offered no ideas if I can not get the info, he just said that it is something that is required.
I would love to provide the info if I could get it rather than calling all over trying to find out what to do and paying more $$ for eye exams.
So lets say that there is no way of getting my old files to get the pre-op info (I doubt the doc that did the surgery would let me go rumaging through the files until I found mine, apparently they are all stored in a basement in London, Ontario).
Is it a dead end at that point?

 

[kincanucks]

Well correct me if I am wrong but isn't the doctor who did the surgery under an obligation to provide the information?  If not and he doesn't then I would assume that you need to get another doctor to do it or go back to the recruiting medical person and say "WTF do I do now?"

 

[2006AF]

Your right Kincanucks !   BUT what can I do when every time I call the office of the doc that did my surgery they tell me they will look, and within a few hours they call me back and say NOPE couldn't find it !
It really pisses me off that the company folded and they just threw all the patient files in a basement with no organization   !   It is impossible for me to have any other doctor write down pre -operation results, since it is now post-operation.
I am going to call the recruiting office and talk to the doc that did my medical and see WTF to do now.   What a pain in the *** the is !   The only hope that I have is that they accept it like it is just as Transport Canada did.   I am not too sure what difference the pre-operation results have now anyway, you would think all that matters is how my eyes are currently.   Unless they want to know how much of a correction was done during the operation?

 

[Dog]

Did you ever go to a different eye doctor before you had your surgery? Maybe they can give your pre-op test results?

 

[ImanIdiot]

Hello all,

Not to continually beat a dead horse, but I thought I would mention I had LASIK(I opted for LASIK over PRK because of the quicker healing time- I can't take a week off work at the moment) about 50 hours ago, and so far it impresses me. The procedure itself was not fun. There is no pain at all, but really, who likes being poked at? They use some kind of suction tool that changes the shape of your eye-causing everything to go black- and then it cuts the corneal flap. Like I said, there's no pain, but it wasn't pleasant either. Each eye took about 5 mins. The laser smells like burning hair. Yum.

The day of surgery is pretty lame, because all you want to do is close your eyes and go to sleep, but they recommend you stay awake for 5 or 6 hours after surgery. Of course, no TV, computer, or reading.....so good luck keeping your mind occupied. The drops they gave you were not fun, either....it felt like I was dropping sand into my eyes....but yesterday I found them quite soothing, so chalk it up to just post-procedure discomfort.

Today is not as clear as yesterday, although apparently it can fluctuate quite a bit over the first few weeks. I had my 24 hr post op check up yesterday morning, and Doc said I could expect increasingly clearer vision as time goes on. That's pretty awesome considering I wouldn't have complained if it had just stayed the same as it was right then!

So, today I have some minor blurry-ness, and light sensitivity. Nothing to worry about. I don't want to jinx anything, but so far, so good! Hopefully I will continue to improve! Good luck to those about to get it done.

 

[mover1]

Funny my doctor told me the exact opposite, I was to sleep for three hours after surgurey so I wouldn't get the sand in the eye feeling.
Your vision will fluctuate for the next few months. I found the fishbowl feeling at night hard to adjust to, but I did eventually and it went away.

 

[Cliffy433]

Before you read - I am not a representative or employee of the Gimble Centre - just an INCREDIBLY SATISFIED CUSTOMER.  Any further questions, PM / email me and I'll get back to you.  I will detail the entire procedure for you.  All stats etc are from 1999 as that's when I had the procedure. 

As for the CF Regs on it - I cannot say.

I went from being unable to read the big friggin' "E" at the top of the chart (roughly 20/400+ in each eye) to 20/15 in both eyes, yep, that's slightly better than perfect!!

Best $3000 I ever spent!!  I got it done in Dec 99 at the Gimble (sp?) centre in Edmonton.  I mention the name because I believe in the following:

1. Research:
- according to a Time magazine article published in '99 the largest learning curves for a surgeon are at 600 and 800 procedures, therefore, you should get a surgeon who has done approximately 1000

(my surgeon had been with the Gimble centre for years, and performed in the range of 3000 procedures - PRK, LASIK, this does not include his Cataract or Lens Replacement numbers)​

- the best odds for minimal complications and largest permanent effect are between 18 and 25 years of age for the patient

(I was 23)​

- Average complication rate for "discount" laser eye joints (as low as $450/eye in Wpg that year) nationally?

~ 1 in 100​

- What do the discount places consider a complication?

Any reduction in vision​

- Average complication rate for Gimble Centres?

Less than 1 in 1000​

- What does the Gimble Centre consider a complication?

  Dry or irritated eyes beyond 6 months post-op.​

2. Cost:

- I went to the most expensive place, why? well, Dr Gimble (based in Calgary) brought PRK from Russia and was instrumental in the development of LASIK

(those are impressive credentials) ​

- the words "discount" and "laser eye surgery" DO NOT GO IN THE SAME SENTENCE

Read that last line until it sinks in.

tlm.

 

[Chauhan]

Im going for Veh Tech if i save up enough money for my laser eye surgery while im in training my MOC can i go ahead and get laser eye surgery while im serving in the CF or you must take off some time or how does it go? and as a Veh Tech are the ranks and promotions same as infantry and others.. since we get paid according to our ranks..What do we make as Privates? on the pay chart it says 2421 $ after the taxes rations insurance and all that what does it come down to?

 

[George Wallace]

Locked:

There are dozens of Threads on this topic already.

Some are:

My Journey Through the Recruitment Process (including LASIK info)  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/35067.0.html

What is the LASIK policy of the Army?  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/22971.0.html

What's the Canadian Forces Policy on Laser Eye Surgery? (Lasik)  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/28672.0.html 

Lasik before or after training  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/21820.0.html

Lasik Eye Correction / Recruitment  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/13313.0.html

What was laser surgery like for you?.  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/33536.0.html

Lasik surgery  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/13032.0.html

Laser eye surgery... acceptable or not?  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/30942.0.html

vision requirements  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/30014.0.html

Laser eye surgery  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/26417.0.html

laser vision correction & the CF  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/28987.0.html

The CF policy on laser eye surgery for Pilots? Unfair?  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/25631.0.html

Eyesight?  http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/13297.0.html

And there are many more if you use the "SEARCH FUNCTION"

I have done enough searching for a few minutes, you can take over.

 

[MikeL]

I searched, out of the threads that are still around I didn't really find something that answered my specific question.


Right now I'm doing a componet transfer, an I've been accepted in the trade, etc. Right now they are taking forever to do a prior learning assesment, etc. Seems like I got a fair bit of time before I get my formal job offer, etc.  Anyways, I was considering getting LASIK done an staying in my current trade, etc. I read for a civvie who just got it done he/she would have to wait 6 months before being able to apply(something like that) but how about a serving PRes member already accepted into the Regs? Would I have to wait 6 months an do another medical an start the process again or will it not effect my transfer(an get my eyes checked out 6 months after LASIK).

Thanks