20/20 is meaningless as a measure of success. Visual acuity and visual quality are different. Visual Acuity can be 20/20 with multiple images, ghosting, haloes, loss of contrast sensitivity, and other complications. You can have 20/20 vision following refractive surgery, and still be severely compromised.

My Lasik Experience with TLC's Big Sky Laser Center Billings, Montana
My name is Richard Zickefoose Sr. (Zig), If you are considering Laser Eye surgery with TLC please read on and find out how I was treated after TLC impaired my vision for life! I found out there is no Lifetime Commitment with TLC or Dr. David Boes.

Click here to email Zig

      In March of 2000 I went to see Dr. Richard Jones (Family Vision Clinic) in Cody, WY to get my eyes examined and to get a new pair of glasses. Before I had left his clinic Dr. Jones convinced me that I was an excellent candidate for laser corrective surgery. I wish I would have just ordered another pair of glasses and went home and forgot about it. I made the mistake of a lifetime when I said I would have the procedure. Had I known that I wasn't a good candidate and that I was doomed to have a poor outcome I would have never had this procedure! I believe that the dollar sign impaired Dr. Jones better judgment. Click on link below to read what my expert witness had to say about Dr. Jones' substandard preoperative exam.

    Dr. Boes did the Lasik procedure on my eyes that started the months of what I call 20/20 to 20/Hell. From the start I had major problems with my vision, I was unable to work. Dr. Jones kept giving me false hopes that after I had enhancements things would be better. It took four months before TLC could schedule me in for enhancements (Note: enhancements can be done after 6 weeks, TLC claims they like to wait at least 12 weeks, why did they make me wait 16 weeks knowing I was unable to work?)
     After 16 weeks of blurry vision, no depth perception and depression I was able to get an appointment with TLC to have my enhancements. To my surprise they had a different surgeon do the enhancement, Dr. Mark Kontos. Dr. Kontos would only enhance my right eye, this was contrary to what Dr. Jones wanted done. After the procedure all Dr. Kontos did would worsen my condition. Click on link below to read about my case as put together by my Attorney.                                

Thousands have ended up with vision like this eye chart below, this is considered ghosting images. As you can see it would still be considered 20/20 vision if you can make out the 20/20 line. Would you want 20/20 vision like this?

     You may have stumbled onto this site because you are considering Lasik surgery or you are one of the thousands who has fallen victim to a bad Lasik outcome. If you are one of the unfortunate, like myself, you have probably heard a thousand times "you knew there were risks to this procedure". Risk is defined as "a factor, element, or course involving uncertain danger". What you will learn from this site is that the biggest risk to a Lasik procedure is not the procedure but the integrity and competences of your referring eye doctor and surgeon. Most Laser Centers like TLC will have you sign an extensive informed consent form warning you of the dangers (TLC's is nine pages long). They want you to think that this consent form is to warn you of the small percentage of hazards that may occur! The real reason for the consent form is to protect the doctors from litigation. Even when the doctor is totally negligent he has that consent form to fall back on, and believe me they will fall back on it! The majority of the people with poor vision after Lasik will not file suit against their doctors because of that consent form, the consent form does not give the doctor the right to do surgery on someone who should not have the procedure. The consent form you sign has you taking all the risks and the doctor taking none even if he screws up! The majority of Lasik complications could have been avoided by proper screening and testing (the consent form takes the need for this away!) I believe the laser eye centers and their doctors should be held responsible for their actions when they proceed with a surgery on a patient who is at high risk or certain to have complications.
     There are Surgeons in the US that are performing  laser surgeries knowing that on occasions their laser will malfunction. Instead of shutting down and waiting for the repair or a replacement they will continue doing surgeries.

 

 

 


A Beautiful Lady with a Beautiful Life destroyed by Lasik and Dr. David Doka! Please click on Elvira's picture below to read her story!



 

Below is an example of my indoor vision! Caused by Pupils being too Large.


 

Click on the Victims below to learn about their Lasik Experience.
 


Brent Hanson




 

I am an Unnecessary Lasik Disaster Victim!
 Are you considering Lasik Eye surgery with TLC for any of the following reasons?

  • You trust your eye doctor and he recommends TLC to you!
  • You like TLC's "Lifetime Commitment"!
  • You are impressed with TLC's "Success Stories"!
  • You are told that you are an excellent candidate for Lasik eye surgery and you trust your doctor!
  • Your eye doctor tells you not to go with the lower priced Lasik centers "because you get what you pay for"!
  • You're impressed with their National add campaigns with Tiger Woods and other big name celebrities!

  I went with TLC for all of the above reasons, but mainly because I trusted my eye doctor. Now I feel my vision has been impaired solely out of greed by my Optometrist Dr. Richard Jones of Cody, WY, TLC's Surgeon Dr. David Boes and TLC. To date I have spent over $50,000.00 in medical cost and legal fees associated with my Lasik procedure.
     I am not against Refractive Surgery, I am against Refractive Surgeons that do not take the time to properly evaluate their patients, that use known faulty lasers and then pass their sloppy work off as a risk of the procedure! This is what has happened to myself and thousands more! Fox News below uncovers a problem known with a laser that is used widely across the US.
     If you are serious about having laser eye surgery maybe you should take the time to download these 3 video clips. I must warn you that these are large files and will take some time to download!


95.5MB


96.5 MB


160 MB

     Please listen to this conversation I had with TLC's Elizabeth Jeffries on March 22, 2001, one year after my original surgery with Dr. Boes. This tape is a good example of TLC's Lifetime Commitment, pay close attention to the background recording when they put me on hold, they claim they will take care of you forever! Tape Recording Miss Lizard was very rude to me and made many false claims on that tape. Response Below!

  1. They never bent over backwards for me, they wouldn't even return my phone calls!
  2. If I had a perfect outcome, Why did Dr. Jack Holladay in Houston, TX have to Re-Laser both my eyes?
  3. All the Doctors she claims I went to for opinions were affiliated with TLC except for one!
  4. The first excuse they gave me for not being able to get into Dr. Machat was that he was going through a divorce, then it was he had a death in the family. The fact is that Dr. Machat never even looked at my records until a year after this recording!
  5. They created the legal issue by not helping me and ignoring me!
  6. I did ask to get rid of monovision and they refused to do it! I found out much later that the monovision had nothing to do with my problem!
  7. I did not create this situation, they did by not giving me a thorough exam and for doing surgery on eyes they should have never touched!

     As you heard in the tape, I offered TLC an easy way out, help me with my expenses, they chose the hard way!


 

Would you call this an unknown Risk or Gross Negligence?

Needless to say, with such large pupils and such a small Effective Optical zone, my indoor and night vision is severely and permanently damaged.


 
   To the left is a picture of my pupil when dilated to 7mm, the black area is my pupil, the yellow area is the area that was corrected with a laser. The yellow area (the corrected area) should have been larger than the pupil size. This would be like wearing a contact lens that covers a little more than half of your pupil. This is the same problem that Steven Post (Arizona Airplane Pilot) has.
     My left eye had a correction of -10.25 diopters of myopia. What that does to my vision is I have a circle of clear vision in the center and a ring of my old vision outside of it that makes a distorted image. My normal pupil size in bright sunlight is 4.5mm, that is when my vision is the best. As soon as I go indoors my pupils enlarge to over 5mm and my vision starts to distort. The larger my pupil gets over 5mm the worse my distortion is!
     What went wrong here was not a risk related to the Laser but a risk of the Co-Managing Doctor, TLC and the Surgeon all giving me a substandard preoperative exam that I paid highly for. The preoperative form used by Dr. Jones had a place for pupil size, but this was left blank. This was also overlooked by the TLC Doctor that did my preoperative exam and also the Surgeon Dr. Boes that did an exam. The training manual for the VISX Star S2 laser states "Please remember that it is important to check pupil diameter in light and dim conditions ... (This was the laser they used on me!) I do not believe that any of them ever read the manual on the laser or they would have warned me that the surgery would not work for my eyes!