Before you consider getting LASIK, I strongly suggest checking this out first. I posted elsewhere:
"I feel the need to show you something about how the eye works that differs from what many eye doctors believe, but this doesn't mean you shouldn't go see them if something is bothering your eye. Nonetheless, you need to be able to make an educated decision. This may sound very out of the usual. But what I'm about to tell you about has resulted in "miraculous" cures even for serious eye diseases like cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, retina detachment; as well as reversed myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia, and astigmatia, but there's a story behind it that I feel needs to be shared which will entirely dismiss the quackery claims of many eye doctors. This story affects them directly, in their own history. It is a long story, but important that you read this.
Someone elsewhere in Yahoo Answers had asked if reading up close can affect the eyes, or whether that was a myth. My answer:
"It's not a myth, but not for the reasons others may think... it's generally said that reading up close is what causes myopia, but there's a tragic assumption most optometrists are taught to believe in - their understanding of how the eye works is based on a theory - namely Helmholtz's Theory of Accommodation - dating back to 1855!! Unchallenged until the final decade of the 20th century, Helmholtz's theory is partially correct, but not completely correct - and no definite proof has ever been offered that the ciliary muscles of the crystalline lens are 100% responsible for accommodation up close and in the distance - so the mechanism of how the eye becomes myopic, hyperopic, astigmatic - as well as develops diseases like cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration and so on is wide open to potential flaws, in case the extrinsic muscles of the eyeball are partially responsible for accommodation. Unlike what many people would like to believe, western scientists aren't always on top of things. Helmholtz's Theory is what LASIK and other corneal surgeries are based on, but LASIK only addresses the symptom (visual acuity) not the cause of declining vision.
Wikipedia shows about Helmholtz's Theory this frightening statement: "His theory of accommodation went unchallenged until the final decade of the 20th century." Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz
So why did it take our scientists approximately 140 years to challenge it, if this is the foundation of modern optometry research? It has never been proven 100% or even investigated. Yet the optometrists know nothing of this... despite their godly standing in western society. Culture has blinded them due to the "hierarchy of facts" assumption that whatever is previously wrong will be taken care of.
You have a 'paradigm shift' situation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Duck-Rabbit_illusion.jpg
The optometrists see only either the duck or the rabbit, but I see both, through my understanding of what's called ethnocentrism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocentrism
Now you can see where I'm coming from.
To answer your question, it is a western belief that up-close reading is what causes myopia, but there are some people whose eyes remain fine and never worsen after excessive up-close reading. One thing that has to be understood is that the stare is BAD for the eyes, and psychology has revealed that if you stare intently at an object for 10-30 seconds, the image itself will blur and then extinguish (disappear) from your vision!
A girl went to an art museum and saw this picture she loved, and she wanted to memorize it for the rest of her life. So she looked very intently at a detail to remember it "as hard as she could" and the detail vanished from her field of vision and she was terrified.
Staring causes a strain in the mind that causes this to happen. Blinking is a way to 'dodge' the stare. Another form of 'dodging' the stare is to keep the eyes moving continuously.
Many people blink 4x less when they use a computer, so they start staring and this worsens their eyesight and causes dry eyes, etc.
It depends on your eye habits at any given distance whether your sight worsens or not. Reading up close for a long time will not worsen eyesight unless the eye's not blinking correctly or constantly moving. I know this view differs from what many optometrists think, but I have done excessive research in optometry textbooks as well as unorthodox books to compare the differences.
So it's only when you use your eyes in incorrect ways (regardless of distance) that your eyes will be negatively affected. That's my answer.
This is where my understanding comes from. If you are interested in learning more, my understanding of this began with a book called "Relearning to See" which you can get at Amazon.com through this link: http://www.amazon.com/Relearning-See-Improve-Eyesight-Naturally/dp/1556433417/sr=8-1/qid=1171080842/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8926485-6989404?ie=UTF8&s=books
There are 24 reviews on this book, but each single review has received 5/5 stars. No other book with 20+ reviews at Amazon that I've come across has had 5/5 stars for every single review.
You can also go to http://www.iblindness.org/ and learn about the Bates Method. I have had too big of results to disregard. My average vision went from L: 3/20 R: 4/20 to L: 7/20 R: 10/20 in a month. This has nothing to do with eye exercises, but a lot of it is psychological. How we see is largely affected by the mind. I get several 'clear flashes of 20/20' per day which would be impossible according to many optometrists. Einstein once said that experience alone can decide on truth, and it's like that in my case. What I know, and have experienced, goes against what optometrists have been taught. What I have experienced should have never happened, but because it has, I have been incapacitated from any possibility of denial that this method works, otherwise I would be lying to myself. I even know what's wrong with the misleading commercial 'eye exercise' packages out there, and I've done excessive research on what works, what sometimes works, and what never works.. I'm extremely proficient at mathematics and science, and understand about not arriving at conclusions until after enough proof has been acquired. I thought you might be interested in this, so I decided to share my observations.
I would also like to share that there are many optometrists out there who call Bates Method quackery, but they don't know the real story behind everything. The man, William Bates, who came up with this method was actually the leading (and most respected) optometrist at the top school of optometry in the U.S. during his time (1900s-1920s), teaching optometrists himself, and also the founder of adrenaline. He had 25+ years as an optometrist before he changed to his method which was much different than what he originally taught to other optometrists. He made a nearly 180 degree turn after he discovered a very big flaw in Helmholtz's Theory. As you can see from Wikipedia, it says the theory wasn't challenged until the final decade of the 20th century, but someone challenged it much earlier and that person was William Bates. Something out of the usual happened then, that's for sure. Nevertheless, I know his methods work because it's based on learning how to use the eyes the correct way, through relaxation and use of the vision center of the brain to change how we see. It corresponds with science's own findings like how the mind causes our eyes to see optical illusions and the brain causes the upside-down retina image to flip right way down shortly after we're born, but optometrists do not realize its significance. Instead they choose to believe their peers who have criticized the method without trying it out for themselves first, even though it all makes perfect logical sense from a true scientific perspective. Scientists are blinded to the pure reasoning of science itself, by cultural prejudices and their mechanistic ways of addressing the body solely on a physical level (western approach) rather than on both a mental and physical level (holistic approach). I even have some very compelling arguments at my disposal that show why Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials (RCCTs), such as the double blind study (scientific method's "gold standard"), are unable to satisfactorily address the complex human organism properly. The argument I have comes directly from the British Medical Journal itself. [Citation: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/326/7404/1407 (go down to where it says "The fallacy of an assumption of simplicity" and you have one of the most convincing articles ever presented on the problems regarding the western mindset. This is a cultural thing... but this article should help you make an educated decision. It is important to distinguish how "western medicine" often addresses the symptoms instead of the cause. This is not to dismiss medicine's usefulness, but to show why some diseases do not get cured while others do - and it shows how scientists have distorted their studies even through double blind RCCT studies)].
What's taught to everybody (even in school) is still subject to cultural preconceptions and hereditary prejudices, so just be careful and remember this every time someone or a scientific textbook insists something is a fact. What may seem like a solid fact may in fact not be a solid fact. Being able to observe paradigm shifts (more than one potential viewpoint of what's regarded as being true) in just about everything is one of the best tools anyone can acquire."
(end of quote)
You can mention or show an eye doctor what I've said if you feel like it, but it'll most likely be met with violent disagreement, due to the fact that certain things make sense only if you take for granted certain underlying premises, which people don't always see alternatives to. This is the paradigm shift thing I'm talking about. The Bates Method can help people who have serious diseases of the eye, so you should try it out although it's an "alternate treatment". There is no system of "eye exercises" because you aren't trying to work out the eye muscles; rather, its techniques are designed to eventually become natural, healthy habits of the eye used subconsciously and will not harm your eyes. For this reason, it's worth giving a try. People with 20/20 vision have been able to get better than 20/20 using this method, and I am offering my 'actual experiences using an alternate method', and from my experiences with it I have been led to believe that it is indeed capable of curing diseases of the eye. Regardless of what eye doctors may believe due to prevalent, misleading beliefs right at the bottom of their "hierarchy of facts" that have gone unchecked for like a century or more. It's been criticized by many doctors who call it quackery, because they are unable to swallow their pride and take a look at the Helmholtz Theory and investigate it.
But in 1994 (which Wikipedia was referring to), an eye doctor finally investigated it and found something wrong. "For over 150 years the progressive decrease in accommodation with aging was thought to be a loss of lens flexibility often referred to as lens sclerosis. This theory was developed by the German scientist Helmholtz in 1855 and has been accepted as true until 1994. According to Helmholtz's theory, when an individual focused his eye for near his ciliary muscle in the eye contracted and released tension on the lens ligaments allowing the lens to thicken.
However, this theory was proved wrong in 1994 by an American scientist and ophthalmologist, Dr. Ronald Schachar who holds both a Ph.D. in physics and a doctor of medicine degree. Thanks to Dr. Schachar the errors in the Helmholtz theory were exposed and new applications found to reverse the loss of accommodation in the human eye. Dr. Schachar found that contrary to Helmholtz's theory there was no relaxation of the lens principal (equatorial) ligaments when accommodation occurred. Schachar showed that the equatorial fibers of the ciliary muscles pull directly on the ends of the lens and cause it to thicken, thus allowing one to see more closely." citation: http://www.elliseye.com/surgical_treatment_of_presbyop.html
But this eye doctor has not found the real cause, even though he thinks he has because he's still looking at it from a "lens" perspective. How does the eyeball change shape, huh? Where are the studies on this?? Isn't it possible it could be caused by the 4 recti and 2 oblique extrinsic eyeball muscles, based on how relaxed those muscles are, which then directly affects the lens due to eyeball shape being changed by the extrinsic muscles squeezing the eyeball out of proportion like a belt would? This is what Bates discovered. So it does make sense to me, because thoughts and emotion can affect us by tensing the muscles (negative impulses of thought to the muscles tense them, while positive thoughts relax them). Is it possible that the muscles themselves could cause all the different diseases and refraction errors in the eye? This would give new meaning to everything. This is one way to think about it. Here's one real catch and clincher that the optometrists need to consider:
It says at http://www.us.cibavision.com/for_your_eyes/vision_library.shtml that "exactly why eyeball shape varies is not known, but the tendency for farsightedness is inherited." Inherited? Yet they cannot tell you how the eyeball changes shape. This has to be considered first, because it can do away with the presbyopia myth. Presbyopia is a misunderstood disease of the eye. There are many old people who are able to see well into old age in other countries, and this is where the "Presbyopia starts at around 40 years old" is one of our culture's most ridiculous myths about how the eye works, because there's something not right here. Here you have a red flag about how western scientists can distort the facts of science and misinform the public, even in school textbooks. Presbyopia is being treated as an inescapable ‘fact’ in western society.
As that website says, "Presbyopia affects everyone..." but wait a second!! There are people older than 40 who maintain excellent vision way into their 70s and 80s and 90s, even in the U.S. and in other countries, and do not develop presbyopia. This is an ethnocentric, generalized, and inconclusive observation made by western scientists. You have two red flags present: (1) the scientists cannot tell you how the eyeball changes shape, yet they tell you presbyopia is hereditary. (2) there are people in their 70s and 80s who do not have presbyopia, so why do they say people usually begin developing presbyopia in their early to late 40s - and then conclude that "everyone" will develop presbyopia, when you have people who do not ever develop presbyopia regardless of age.
Also, what part of the body do we move more than any other? The eyes. Wouldn't it make sense, then, to say that the eye muscles are overworked, chronically tense, and do not need exercise but need to be relaxed to loosen the muscles and restore the eyeball to its natural shape?
You can go to http://www.iblindness.org/forum/ to post any questions you may have about the method if you are interested and believe that declining eyesight can be reversed."
Bates found out what was not correct, and he found a way to naturally reverse deteriorating vision in people regardless of age. I suggest you check this out first before considering LASIK, because once LASIK is done, there's very little you to address the strain that causes vision deterioration without also affecting your vision. LASIK is irreversible.