[mrnoodle]

I had to wear glasses from age 6. Thick bastards, too. Got soft contacts at 15 (but weird kid that I was, kind of enjoyed the act of sticking things in my eye). My vision was horrendous -- my prescription was so strong that only the dorkiest of plastic frames would hold the lenses, and they weighed a ton.

Got LASIK in 99, at age 29, and I can't even begin to tell you how cool it was to wake up the next morning from the procedure and be able to read the clock across the room. The surgery itself was cringe-inducing, but painless. My vision was better than 20/20 a month afterwards, and only recently has it regressed to 20/20 (I have to go in for regular vision tests because of the rheumatoid arthritis medicine I'm on, so I get frequent updates). If you have the money, go for the surgery -- you're in more danger of getting hurt driving to the clinic than from the surgery itself. Plus, it's cheaper than it used to be (albeit not covered by insurance), and the docs have several years' worth of experience under their belt. When I did mine, it was a new procedure with no proven track record, but it still worked flawlessly.