48 hours ago I went through laser eye surgery on both of my eyes. Before that, I had never been able to do anything without my glasses. Not been able to see more than 3 feet away. I had tried several times to wear contact lenses on daily basis (I tried all of them including the extreme hydrophilic ones such as Extreme H2O, Acuvue moist, …) and even if I was able to sometimes tolerate them, it wasn’t always easy especially after wearing them for several hours. I work in front of a computer and in confined air-conditioned room all day. My eyes were irregularly too dry. It was nothing chronic but I remember getting allergies every once in a while due to contacts.
Glasses were fine and looked not bad on me but you can’t do much with your glasses on: your vision is very limited to the sides, you can’t watch TV while laying on the couch and first and foremost you can’t practice any sports.
So after a little bit of thinking, researching and talking to all those happy and satisfied people who had it done: I decided to go for it as it would probably relieve me from wearing contacts or glasses for a while. I am only 24 years old and my vision hasn’t significantly changed for the past 3 years. I’ve had the same correction on both eyes (-2.00). Now I am feeling that my left eye is a bit weaker but not by much. I know that my vision is most likely going to change (maybe a lot before I turn 30).
Of course my research got me onto these findings on the bad sides of the laser eye surgery: some terrible side effects such as increased dry eye problems leading to sensations of burning and pain, night vision problems (halos, hazes, stardusts…). Besides my mum, who is an experienced ophthalmologist back in France warned me about the procedure and was totally against it. She would always say: “why all surgeons who actually need vision correction never had the surgery done on themselves?” If you want to scare yourself before you have it done check out this website. It will make you think twice believe me!
A month ago I went to my free consultation at Clearly Lasik and after about an hour and a half I was told that I was a good candidate for all laser eye surgeries and there were three: Regular Lasik (with a blade)/PRK, Wavefront Custom View Lasik (with a blade)/PRK, Intralase Wavefront Custom View Lasik (bladeless) know in Europe as femtoseconds or Z-Lasik IIRC and has been around for the past 5 years or so.
I didn’t want to go cheap because I only have two eyes and they’re precious to me so I decided to take the more expensive one: Intralase Wavefront Custom View Lasik. That included lifetime enhancements (if I ever need to do it again) at the same clinic.
The procedure itself took less than 10 minutes for both eyes and was fairly painless. I remember feeling a slight pain when the surgeon lifted my left eye corneal flap but nothing huge. I remember not being able to see for a few seconds when that laser was reshaping my cornea and I remember smelling a bad odor of burnt hair when the laser was performing. Other than that nothing. When the operation was over, the Surgeon quickly checked my eyes and then sent me home. I remember him and his two technicians talking to me during the procedure but I also remember not saying much other than “OKs” here and there.
That same day, I didn’t do much but keep my eyes closed with protective sunglasses on.
It’s been 48 hours so far and what I am feeling right now is really close to what I used to feel when I had worn contact lenses for a while. Meaning sometimes it would feel nothing and sometimes it would feel pain. I try to keep my sunglasses on even indoors in dark areas because the air contact makes my eyes dryer and brings more pain I feel. I look like Agent Smith (i.e like an idiot) but who cares. My vision is definitely a lot better and I can see almost everything but I don’t know the numbers, I will have to check that next week.
To be honest I don’t know if I have made the right decision, it’s too early to tell anything. The only thing I know is that I caused permanent damage to my eyes as the flap that was created to perform the surgery will never ever heal completely and could be lifted by anybody even years from now. But that’s a sacrifice I am willing to make if it comes with clear vision without glasses/contacts.
Another procedure I could have done is the PRK procedure but I didn’t know much about it except that the healing time was longer and Lasik seemed to be the preferred procedure.
The PRK/Lasek procedures are older procedures that are now being replaced by Lasik. When you talk to most Surgeons they will tell you that the main difference between PRK/Lasek and Lasik is the healing time (a few hours for Lasik as opposed to a few days/weeks for PRK/Lasek). Actually the main difference is that in PRK/Lasek there is no flap creation as they operate directly on your cornea and that’s why it takes longer to recover. So your cornea will stay almost intact (close to what it was before surgery). This is very important because any trauma caused to your eyes will be the same had you done the PRK/Lasek surgery or not. So for athletic people who do a lot of contact sports such as martial arts, kick boxing, football, …PRK/Lasek are better alternatives but think about the healing time and the side effects as well (as they are the same and maybe worse than lasik side effects…).
I actually do a pretty violent martial art called Krav Maga but I didn’t know that PRK was preferred over Lasik for contact sports.
My optometrist said to me yesterday for my 24 hours post-op exam that if she had known that I was doing a martial art she would have told me to go for PRK but I forgot to mention it and she didn’t ask me either. Now I guess I have to give that up for a little while and maybe forever as it represents a lot of risks and I am not willing to lose my eyes yet.
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