How to laser your eyes

No longer do you need doctors for surgery

EYE DOCTORS? Pah! Who needs them? Now you can do your OWN laser surgery. A mail order kit is available for do-it-yourself enthusiasts, I hear from reader Sri Ram. For US$100, you get a tool for calculating how much of your eyeball needs reshaping, plus a laser-gun you can use to hack away at it.

Having said that, I do NOT recommend you shine lasers into your own eyes. Get your kids to do it. They have steadier hands, from all the video games.

“Lasik @ Home couldn’t be easier. Just follow these four easy steps and you’ll be seeing clearly before you know it!” the website says.

Ram said: “The kit comes with a detailed instruction guide. Maybe we use the other eye to read the instructions while operating.”
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At first I thought this was a joke, but since the website is totally devoid of humor, it’s either

a) completely serious or

b) the work of a Singaporean humorist.
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Yet the price makes me suspicious, as it departs from the standard pricing technique used by surgeons: “Cost to the patient for any operation equals the cost of doing the operation plus the cost of a swimming pool.”
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I did a survey of readers at the noodle shop, Would any of them do their own surgery?

One guy eating laksa used Google on his iPhone to find an interview in which a US plastic surgeon called Steven Williams told reporters: "We've noticed an uptick in people trying to do things like this at home.”

On the other side of the table was a female soup-slurper who said she had read about a pregnant Mexican woman who cut open her own abdomen with a kitchen knife before successfully taking out her baby.

“Did she use a Ginzu knife?” the laksa eater asked.

The soup-slurper replied: “Of course not. She was in Mexico. Where would she get a Japanese knife?”

There followed a heated discussion in which Laksa Guy claimed that Ginzu knives were actually American products PRETENDING to be Japanese and “the same was true of Atari, Haagen-Dazs and Obama”.

This ludicrous argument caused violent uproar in the noodle shop but I refused to be distracted from my theme.

The only really sensible answer came from a guy in the medical supplies business who said: “If you do your research, you’ll find that the only really successful cases of self-surgery are ones in which doctors operate on themselves.”

Hmm. That comment got me thinking.

2011 Medical Exam.

1) Remove your heart.

2) Place it in a jar on the invigilator’s desk.

3) Write an invoice for a wart removal which covers the cost of a Lamborghini Gallardo.

4) Re-install your heart.

5) Write yourself the largest bill you can.

Candidates who successfully bankrupt themselves will get an “A Plus”.

Survivors will get their results next week.

Meanwhile, if you are NOT a trained medical professional, and you urgently need surgery, you know what to do. Ask your kids. They’re over there in front of the Nintendo Wii.
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ON ANOTHER SUBJECT… It’s a public holiday here in Hong Kong, so it will be VERY quiet on this website. I’m going to sneak out of the office early. Have a great day. I plan to.
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Technorati Tags: Self surgery

Comments

[Bill]

The biggest problem I see with self-surgery is that when it all goes horribly wrong, who do you sue?

I suppose you could sue yourself, but that would cost two sets of legal fees as you would undoubtedly also want to defend yourself.

[Nury]

Great comment! thanks Bill

[Dinu]

The Don't blink! part is really difficult. I don't trust me on that one.

[Sabrina]

The medical exam part is horrible. I'm a medical school freshman this year, and I'm not sure that the sort of exam I will have to face will be that scary! >_<

[Mahjuja]

This post would have stopped me from going to medical school if I were still interested!

[tamanna]

i wish this post was published in 2007..half of my brain cells would have survived..
and sabrina the motto in sitting for medical exams are do NOT expect anything good..and always be prepared to fail even if u gave the best exam :D.

[TS]

I might just improve on that idea and develop an minimal impact instrument that that does the same thing but from inside the eye!

I will not pretend that it is a pleasant procedure, but at least you'll know you're getting screwed as it is performed through your rectum

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/lasikathome.asp

And why would you buy an eye surgery kit from a guy with glasses?

[farah]

maybe an Ophthalmologist is not one without glasses. why is it that all eye doctors wear glasses?

[Saquib]

If you do a quick search for "lasik at home" on Google, the first result is for:

LASIK@Home
Information on a home eye laser kit. [Contains fictitious information]
http://www.lasikathome.com

Surely you don't need any further proof that this site is a spoof?

[sej]

TS, Saquib,

Whoever let the truth get in the way of a good story, huh??

But even though this is just fiction, I bet there's someone out there, who is seriously thinking about trying to turn it into reality. How much of our technology, was once just science fiction?

[Lift Lurker]

I will wait for TS to finish his do-it-yourself proctology kit.

Meanwhile, I invent pregnancy test. Woman has to pee on strip. If red line appears, she is pregnant.

And then man pee on same strip. If blue line appears, he is father.

[Vernette]

I'm sure someone will give it a shot, there are just too many "intelligent" individuals that required removal from the gene pool... sad but true...

[TS]

I'm also working on a 'Day After' pill for men.
Not sure how to go about it though, might have to look into time travel.

[Lift Lurker]

@TS, if you cannot solve time travel problem (after all there is chance Stephen Hawking is insane), maybe something similar to Google Goggles is enough:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-stop-sending-mail-you-later.html

18! No, wait 17! 19! NINETEEN!

(This is as far as I go on this topic. Have to be a model of prudity. Prudition? Prudency? Prudence?)

[Christyn]

I hope I can pay for that pack in ''12 easy payments! What are you waiting for! Call 1800-fork-your-eye! (Commercial re-starts with ''Whoever said you need to pass medical science to do surgery?Ever wanted your own eyeball on your hand? Now you can!)

[TS]

16 June 2010 I made a promisse to myself, that if was ever to invent time travel, I would return to this date and meet myself.

I have just arrived from 2033 and have realised that there is a flaw in my calculations.
One object (me) can not exist as two entities at the same time, meaning that the TS that wrote comments on this post earlier today, have swapped place with me and now resides in 2033.

He will probably be a bit confused so I suggest that in 2033 you all meet up with him and explain the situation.
Oh yeah, tell him (me) that we are almost out of toilet paper and that he (I) must remember to feed the Martian molefox (long story).

[Mike]

I don't know about that existing two places comment. For the past half hour I've been sitting at my desk at work but my mind has been on the beach in Bali watching a sunset.

[Ellie G]

I agree that lasik at home is not real, but the investigations which conclude that it is a spoof are also wrong, for the reason listed in the main post, i.e., the website, which I had a look at, is completely unfunny. Thus it can only be the work of a Singaporean humourist, or smeone trying to reach those heights.

[Jason]

My brother's wife's sister is a Lasik surgeon and I visited their house in LA 10 years ago. In LA, they have a huge piece of property on which sits 3 houses, stables, a swimming pool and 2 tennis courts. So I guess after the first pool goes in you have to think of other ways to spend that money.

[Mahjuja]

Hmmm...should have become a Lasik surgeon.

[Lift Lurker]

@TS, in my Lift today I reflect about time travel and people from the future.

I begin to notice that people who live in the future are already here walking among us.

What I mean is this.

If you are 20 years old, you can talk to people who is 30 years old. They can tell you what the future holds for you. They have been to your future. They have learned lessons which you will be facing.

If you are 30, those who are 40, 50, 60 have experienced your future. They have the wisdom and they can tell you what lies ahead. You can prepare and see into the future.

There is wisdom available from people who are from the future.

[Ape]

Wait a minute.. public holiday and you have to sneak out of office? What the hell are you doing in office?

[kartini]

here's a DIY gone to great lengths.. scream ewww, ewww, ewww...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf8G-c_eAhs