LASIK Safety through the lens of a viral YouTuber
You can skip to 6:15 for my reaction to WhistlinDiesel!
Cody Detwiler – better known as WhistlinDiesel – is a content creator who’s built a huge online following by sharing his “durability testing” on cars. Usually expensive cars…
He recently went viral for bashing the Tesla Cybertruck, for example, racking up 25 million views and counting on YouTube.
Earlier this year, Cody published a serious video on YouTube called “LASIK Surgery Ruined My Life.” Obviously, it was a big departure from his normal content. It had over a million views before being removed from YouTube in March, and now it’s on Facebook with a different title (“My Lasik Eye Surgery Mistake - A Cautionary Tale 😓”) and over 2.5 million views.
How relevant is this to people who are interested in laser vision correction? And to ophthalmologists like myself who offer laser vision correction? Very!
This type of influencing/deinfluencing from popular creators can be quite persuasive, having the potential to rapidly reach and steer tens of thousands of people to or away from LASIK and other elective medical procedures. Far more so than a Google Review or blog post or Reddit testimonial ever could.
Click here to watch Cody’s full video on Facebook.
So when a colleague asked me if I thought Cody’s take was reasonable or over-the-top fear-mongering, I decided to a) film my reaction to WhistlinDiesel’s LASIK experience and b) contextualize it within the current world of laser vision correction.
Watch my reaction at the top of this page!
These are my main conclusions:
Just think about this… Cody got LASIK to change his life for the better so he could stop wearing contact lenses and glasses, only to discover that his vision didn’t improve following surgery and now he has to wear sunglasses whenever he goes outside. That’s awful and you can see why he recorded his video.
Almost everything that could go wrong in Cody’s LASIK surgery went wrong. I feel bad for him. For example, the five or six attempts at applying eye suction... misplacing the corneal flap… all major red flags to put it lightly! With all this sloppiness – there's only two things you can say: 1) pick a top surgeon, not the most convenient or most affordable 2) better yet, just don't get LASIK!
But my #1 take home message is this: all of the problems described in this video are directly attributable to the LASIK procedure. If you choose LASIK, you do assume these risks. You can avoid all of this with a non-cutting procedure (like Advanced Surface Ablation).
Moreover, flaws with the LASIK procedure that WhistlinDiesel highlights and the incentive for the LASIK industry to ignore them are tarnishing the reputation of the entire laser vision correction field. It’s critical to draw a line between cutting (LASIK, SMILE, etc.) and non-cutting (ASA, PRK) laser eye surgeries. Honest, safe laser eye surgeries need not go down with the sinking ship of LASIK.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about laser vision correction, or book an appointment to discuss your options if you live in NYC.
PS… enjoy some of these behind-the-scenes photos from my video shoot below!
