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DETROIT – A month before taking her own life Dec. 12, Jessica Starr, a meteorologist for a Detroit TV station, shared that she was still struggling with complications such as dry eyes and blurred vision from her Lasik-type eye surgery in October.
"I do still need all the prayers and the well-wishes because it’s a hard go," Starr, 35, the Fox 2 Detroit (WJBK-TV) meteorologist and mother of two young children, said in a video on her public Facebook page.
The role that those complications played in Starr's death by suicide – if any – remains unclear, but her comments spawned nationwide headlines after her death and new attention to potential dangers of the popular eyesight procedure that has been available since the 1990s and is widely perceived as safe.
The physical pain was often accompanied by the psychological regret of having opted for a roughly $4,000 elective procedure that, if only they had stuck with glasses or contacts, wouldn't have been needed.
Starr said in Facebook posts that she had undergone a newer Lasik-like surgery known as SMILE, or small incision lenticule extraction. That procedure uses a different laser and eye-reshaping technique. SMILE was approved in 2016 by the Food and Drug Administration and was performed last year for the first time in Michigan.
SMILE procedures are "fundamentally the same" as Lasik and both are very safe, said eye surgeon Dr. John Vukich, chairman of the Refractive Surgery Clinical Committee for the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.
“Lasik is the most common elective surgical procedure in the world," said Vukich, who is based in Madison, Wisconsin, and has personally undergone Lasik. “It is a procedure that has enhanced the lives of many, many people, but like in any surgery, there is never a zero risk."
Sad ****. I was really thinking about doing this after hearing people saying it really helped them but after talking to my eye doctor and reading this story. I am fine with just wearing glasses and contacts lol.
"I do still need all the prayers and the well-wishes because it’s a hard go," Starr, 35, the Fox 2 Detroit (WJBK-TV) meteorologist and mother of two young children, said in a video on her public Facebook page.
The role that those complications played in Starr's death by suicide – if any – remains unclear, but her comments spawned nationwide headlines after her death and new attention to potential dangers of the popular eyesight procedure that has been available since the 1990s and is widely perceived as safe.
The physical pain was often accompanied by the psychological regret of having opted for a roughly $4,000 elective procedure that, if only they had stuck with glasses or contacts, wouldn't have been needed.
Starr said in Facebook posts that she had undergone a newer Lasik-like surgery known as SMILE, or small incision lenticule extraction. That procedure uses a different laser and eye-reshaping technique. SMILE was approved in 2016 by the Food and Drug Administration and was performed last year for the first time in Michigan.
SMILE procedures are "fundamentally the same" as Lasik and both are very safe, said eye surgeon Dr. John Vukich, chairman of the Refractive Surgery Clinical Committee for the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.
“Lasik is the most common elective surgical procedure in the world," said Vukich, who is based in Madison, Wisconsin, and has personally undergone Lasik. “It is a procedure that has enhanced the lives of many, many people, but like in any surgery, there is never a zero risk."
Sad ****. I was really thinking about doing this after hearing people saying it really helped them but after talking to my eye doctor and reading this story. I am fine with just wearing glasses and contacts lol.
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