Laser eye surgery in Russia: anyone done it?

It’s totally possible here in the States too... though, from what I keep hearing, things might actually be better over in Russia... 😕

Taylor Allen said:It’s totally possible here in the States too... though, from what I keep hearing, things might actually be better over in Russia... 😕

That seems a bit silly..
My husband works in a clinic where they perform laser procedures, and based on everything he tells me, they handle quite a few operations and seem to do them correctly.
I honestly don't see why anyone would feel the need to travel all the way to Russia for that when you can find high-quality options right here in the US or even in neighboring countries. I doubt the quality is any worse than what they offer in Russia..🤷
You really should do some actual research...

It's true that I wouldn't opt for anything here in America if I felt like they were cutting corners right in front of my eyes...
But things work differently here; it's a different standard altogether—better and more refined. We are in Switzerland, after all...
Here is a link so you can go look for yourself..
www.laservis.ch

swiftmason8 said:That seems a bit silly..
My husband works in a clinic where they perform laser procedures, and based on everything he tells me, they handle quite a few operations and seem to do them correctly.
I honestly don't see why anyone would feel the need to travel all the way to Russia for that when you can find high-quality options right here in the US or even in neighboring countries. I doubt the quality is any worse than what they offer in Russia..🤷
You really should do some actual research...

It's true that I wouldn't opt for anything here in America if I felt like they were cutting corners right in front of my eyes...
But things work differently here; it's a different standard altogether—better and more refined. We are in Switzerland, after all...
Here is a link so you can go look for yourself..
www.laservis.ch

I was originally fixated on the price too, but once I dug into how important the specific equipment and techniques actually are, I completely ruled out Russia. Honestly, I might have considered going there if I knew they were using surface methods (instead of LASIK or Epi-LASIK) and utilizing the Ivis suite equipment. If you want to learn more about the risks associated with certain methods and why the gear matters so much, you can read about it here, along with some patient stories:

It’s a bit of a long read, so I’d suggest jumping straight to around page 13 and reading from there. It clearly demonstrates how some clinics tend to downplay the risks and the actual nature of certain procedures.

Well, other methods are being utilized as well... here is the link. If you aren't fluent in Russian, just click "English" in the top right corner 🙂 http://www.mntk.spb.ru/

To be honest, this thread about laser eye surgery completely caught me off guard. I actually sent this link to a friend who is planning a trip to Russia later this month. While I have considered getting corrective surgery myself at some point, I am now feeling quite certain that I would pass... unless, perhaps, this latest method becomes standard practice.

It seems more prudent to wait until the technology has fully matured.

For context, my prescription is roughly -5.5 or something in that ballpark.

Alex Foster6 said:Well, other methods are being utilized as well... here is the link. If you aren't fluent in Russian, just click "English" in the top right corner 🙂 http://www.mntk.spb.ru/

To be honest, this thread about laser eye surgery completely caught me off guard. I actually sent this link to a friend who is planning a trip to Russia later this month. While I have considered getting corrective surgery myself at some point, I am now feeling quite certain that I would pass... unless, perhaps, this latest method becomes standard practice.

It seems more prudent to wait until the technology has fully matured.

For context, my prescription is roughly -5.5 or something in that ballpark.

I actually heard from this really prominent ophthalmology professor that laser surgery isn't always the luckiest move to make, because you might get a good twenty years out of it, but nobody truly knows what the long-term consequences are yet, and I've even heard that in some cases people experience progressive vision loss or even blindness toward the end of their lives 😢
this was observed in patients who had surgery back in the 80s over in Russia when laser tech was still in its infancy.
I'm not trying to start a panic here, but it's definitely better to hold off for a little while longer.
My eye doctor actually advised me to just keep wearing contacts for as long as my eyes can handle them.
In my opinion, laser surgery is really meant for people with extreme nearsightedness like -10 or higher, where those folks seriously don't have much to lose 🤷

Keep spending your money on her fancy lentils while you still can, because if I were you, I wouldn't be rushing into getting LASIK anytime soon.

Noah Gray4 said:I actually heard from this really prominent ophthalmology professor that laser surgery isn't always the luckiest move to make, because you might get a good twenty years out of it, but nobody truly knows what the long-term consequences are yet, and I've even heard that in some cases people experience progressive vision loss or even blindness toward the end of their lives 😢
this was observed in patients who had surgery back in the 80s over in Russia when laser tech was still in its infancy.
I'm not trying to start a panic here, but it's definitely better to hold off for a little while longer.
My eye doctor actually advised me to just keep wearing contacts for as long as my eyes can handle them.
In my opinion, laser surgery is really meant for people with extreme nearsightedness like -10 or higher, where those folks seriously don't have much to lose 🤷

I am inclined to agree...

Alex Foster6 said:Well, other methods are being utilized as well... here is the link. If you aren't fluent in Russian, just click "English" in the top right corner 🙂 http://www.mntk.spb.ru/

To be honest, this thread about laser eye surgery completely caught me off guard. I actually sent this link to a friend who is planning a trip to Russia later this month. While I have considered getting corrective surgery myself at some point, I am now feeling quite certain that I would pass... unless, perhaps, this latest method becomes standard practice.

It seems more prudent to wait until the technology has fully matured.

For context, my prescription is roughly -5.5 or something in that ballpark.

I'm really not a fan of their website because they market LASIK as the absolute gold standard. Don't get me wrong—LASIK is great—but it's great for the business side of clinics, not necessarily for the patients.
They claim a 98% satisfaction rate after LASIK, which just isn't true. When unbiased surveyors conduct follow-up studies long enough after the procedure, that success rate often drops by more than 10%. And honestly, being "satisfied" should mean having the exact same vision you had before the surgery.
I noticed they use customized ablation (wavefront), which is definitely modern tech, but it's still not the cutting edge. Right now, the most advanced customized eye ablation belongs to the Ivis suite equipment. Beyond just corneal topography, it takes into account things like pupil width, shape, and position, using advanced algorithms that treat the human eye as a living organism rather than just a surface. It places way more emphasis on corneal regularity. Plus, the Ires laser has a larger optical and transition zone compared to typical wavefront lasers and operates at a higher frequency, which helps lower the risk of corneal haze. The surgeon working with the Ivis suite at www.vid.si, based on his official site, seems to prefer surface methods—taking it case by case—so it doesn't look like chasing a quick buck is his main priority. Still, stay cautious, because even surface methods aren't entirely risk-free. You can read all about the risks at the link I provided

Noah Gray4 said:I actually heard from this really prominent ophthalmology professor that laser surgery isn't always the luckiest move to make, because you might get a good twenty years out of it, but nobody truly knows what the long-term consequences are yet, and I've even heard that in some cases people experience progressive vision loss or even blindness toward the end of their lives 😢
this was observed in patients who had surgery back in the 80s over in Russia when laser tech was still in its infancy.
I'm not trying to start a panic here, but it's definitely better to hold off for a little while longer.
My eye doctor actually advised me to just keep wearing contacts for as long as my eyes can handle them.
In my opinion, laser surgery is really meant for people with extreme nearsightedness like -10 or higher, where those folks seriously don't have much to lose 🤷

In my opinion, what people are describing as a "drop" in vision is likely ectasia—that cornea warping that can happen to younger folks shortly after LASIK, though it can also show up later in life. Older patients tend to deal more with increased eye pressure, so if the cornea has been significantly thinned by laser surgery, it creates the perfect storm for those symptoms. The tricky thing about ectasia is that it messes with your visual acuity so badly that glasses won't even help anymore—sometimes a corneal transplant is the only way out. That said, I think it's a stretch to worry about ectasia with PRK (unless you're looking at an extremely deep correction). That issue is much more tied to LASIK, since LASIK inherently compromises corneal strength more due to the flap, which never quite fuses back together completely—it just heals at the edges. Since LASIK didn't even exist in the late 80s, I honestly think the idea that people go blind late in life from those early procedures is mostly a myth; it just doesn't hold up logically.

Writing in from Mexico—well, I mean, just checking in. I had my surgery back in February at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in New York City. It cost me about $1,000 per eye, plus maybe $100 for the initial exam. My prescription was -5 and -5.5, and honestly, I feel amazing now. After all these years, I’m finally glasses-free. It did take about a month for everything to settle down, though. At first, my vision was weird—one day it was great, the next it wasn't, just kind of up and down like that. Everything is perfect now, except I guess I need reading glasses for work since I'm 45. No regrets, though. Dr. Vukosavljevic did my procedure, and from what I heard, he actually perfected his technique over in Chicago. So yeah, that's pretty much the deal. If anyone wants to know more, you don't even have to fly all the way to Russia. I'll share whatever else I can.

Joshua Booth3 said:Writing in from Mexico—well, I mean, just checking in. I had my surgery back in February at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in New York City. It cost me about $1,000 per eye, plus maybe $100 for the initial exam. My prescription was -5 and -5.5, and honestly, I feel amazing now. After all these years, I’m finally glasses-free. It did take about a month for everything to settle down, though. At first, my vision was weird—one day it was great, the next it wasn't, just kind of up and down like that. Everything is perfect now, except I guess I need reading glasses for work since I'm 45. No regrets, though. Dr. Vukosavljevic did my procedure, and from what I heard, he actually perfected his technique over in Chicago. So yeah, that's pretty much the deal. If anyone wants to know more, you don't even have to fly all the way to Russia. I'll share whatever else I can.

Check out this site too: www.doktor.co.yu

Fyodor Dostoevsky?🤣

fadedmoose4 said:Sounds like you've already made up your mind about heading to Russia. You even speak Russian?
You're gonna need it just to understand the paperwork... and you'll have to stay there for at least two days if you're just doing one eye. Nobody's operating on both eyes the same day, obviously—you'd need follow-ups after that. Have you thought about how you'll handle the check-ups there? Like, you'll probably have to fly back for a follow-up right after a month.

Chloe Nguyen3 said:My coworker is sitting at a -12😢
The only silver lining is that she wears contacts, because according to her, she basically hasn't stepped foot outside without them since forever—contacts are her lifeline, since nobody actually knows just how blind you really are without them.😢

So... I was chatting with her and brought up LASIK, but she’s running from the idea like it's the plague. Her whole mantra is: "I can still see something this way, and I'm not risking total blindness."

Is it actually possible that the surgery is that sketchy, or is my colleague just dealing with a massive amount of fear?
Money isn't even an issue here.

My dear friend, your friend really doesn't need to be afraid... I had a relative who had a -16.5 prescription in both eyes... he was in so much pain that he went to a clinic in Moscow. They determined his vision was progressively worsening, so they decided to perform scleroplasty on him... it's a procedure meant to stop that progression. After the surgery, they told him he'd need to head back to Russia in about five or six months... so he went back and decided to go through with the laser. He chose to take the risk, and the surgery went fantastically. Now, he sees just as clearly as anyone else... he went from a -16.5 to zero. Anyone facing a problem like that shouldn't overthink it; they should just head to Russia and talk to them. Those doctors are always three steps ahead of everyone else when it comes to ophthalmology.

I was wondering if anyone could weigh in on the actual costs... I've heard an operation at the Light clinic runs about $3.25 per eye... I assume the initial consultation is around $333... Could someone share what prices look like in Russia—including airfare and the check-ups? I've also heard that things might be half the price in Canada, so if anyone has firsthand experience with that, please drop a link or some info that isn't too overwhelming

Amy Rivera8 said:I was wondering if anyone could weigh in on the actual costs... I've heard an operation at the Light clinic runs about $3.25 per eye... I assume the initial consultation is around $333... Could someone share what prices look like in Russia—including airfare and the check-ups? I've also heard that things might be half the price in Canada, so if anyone has firsthand experience with that, please drop a link or some info that isn't too overwhelming

Oh, and since I've been scrolling through this forum like crazy lately, I was wondering if anyone here has actually gone to them?

Hey guys, you seriously need to check this out: there’s this video on YouTube from Russia showing a vision correction surgery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQDVGmMxzuw,
take a close look at those glasses sitting on the machine. I can't help but wonder—whose even are they? Could they actually belong to the surgeon performing the procedure? 🤣🤣😂😂😂😂

Can anyone tell me how to get an appointment with that specialist who travels from Russia to the US once a month?

I'm planning a trip over to Russia soon, so I really need this info. Thanks.