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My PRK Procedure

Flyer09

Final Select NFO
In hopes to help out those who might be going under the procedure, I’ll follow suit as some others have and describe my procedure in hopes to shine some light on how things happen and what I felt and how I healed. Right now I am just approaching my 1 week post-op visit so I have a lot of healing to go yet before I’m back at 100% My vision before the surgery wasn’t horrible but I was 20/60 in my left eye and 20/80 in my right.
I am using LasikVision Plus Centers for my correction. They accepted my eye insurance and where the closest to my home. Speaking with the doctor he also stated he had done several other SNA applicants and was certain he could get me to where I needed to be. I printed out all the forms from the NOMI website and brought them with me for my pre-op exam.

Operation Day


I would be lying if I said that going into this I wasn’t a little bit scared. This is a pretty serious surgery even though it is getting more and more mainstream. I showed up about 20 minutes early for my appointment. My mom was going to be my driver but she is squeamish when it comes to things done on the eye so she didn’t watch the procedure. I filled out all of the necessary paperwork and was given some valium to calm my nerves. The receptionist was very cute so that helped out quite a bit as well!

I went back into the waiting area where another gentleman was waiting for his son to complete the procedure. There was a huge viewing area so you could see the procedures if you wanted to. The other gentleman was getting regular LASIK and they had just started so I stood and watched and that helped quite a bit as well. After his procedure the doctor came out and talked a little with me while his nurses prepared the room for my procedure. When they were ready, we went in and he put the numbing drops in my eye and took a peak to double check everything. After that I was placed on a comfortable table and given some more drops. I was starting to get nervous until the doctor made a few marks on my eye and I didn’t feel it, it was at that point I started to relax and ask questions of him as he was prepping me. He put that eye lid extender/retractor thingy into my right eye first and we where off. He used, what I can only describe as a cheese grader type device to take the top layer off of my eye. It looked pretty funky when he was doing it because it sent the light scattering in all directions as he pealed back the flap and removed it. Following that he splashed some cool drops on to my eye and told me he was about to start the laser and to look directly at the purple dot, looked purple to me.


The scariest part was hearing the rapid clicking of the laser and the dancing dots. I don’t know if it was just my mind playing tricks on me or if it was the laser but I swear I smelled a slight burning smell. Anyways he then swabbed the stuff for the night vision on my eyes and then placed the protective lens over my eye and repeated the process for my left eye. I won’t describe that as it was the same as it was for my right eye.


After the procedure was complete, I looked into the slit lamp one last time, was given some fancy sunglasses and on my way. I went home and took my “long nap”. I slept about 5 hours with the goggles they gave me to protect my eyes when I slept. After being awake for some time I really felt no discomfort or pain what so ever. The only thing that was really annoying was the contact lenses themselves. My eyes weren’t dry and I could see pretty well. I was able to sit at my computer and type up emails and post on message boards with no problems. I didn’t sleep well at night because I took that nap and am not use to doing that.


DAY 1


I had an 8am 1 day post-op check up. I woke up that morning feeling pretty well. No real fog or ghosting to speak of. The only thing was my eyes where really dry and the contact lenses where being a drag. At the visit I had about 20/20 vision with both eyes. My left eye was better than my left. I started to get extremely sensitive to light. Even with the sunglasses and a hat I still had to keep my eyes closed to help. I got home and hung towels over my windows in my room to make it as dark as possible. I tried to sleep most of that day and kept the rewatering drops in as it felt like I had some sand in my eye. It was mainly my left eye that was giving me the majority of the problems. I even tried a cold wash cloth and that helped until I took it off and my eyes started to warm back up. So I avoided that for the rest of the day and toughed it out. Later than evening I felt a lot better and my sensitivity to light was greatly reduced. My eyes were also swollen so I started pumping Motrin and Tylenol to help and that worked very well. I had started to get some ghosting and blurry vision but no real discomfort or pain. Later that night I switched to the drops for severe dryness and that greatly helped. It helped more than the regular drops.


DAY 2


I woke with some sensitivity to light but nothing big. I could not go down stairs of the rising sun and the discomfort it caused. The ghosting and dryness continued all through the day. The contact lenses still where annoying me but nothing else major to report. I slept about half of the day. I really had to get up close the things in order to read it.


DAY 3


No sensitivity to light or any discomfort or pain what-so-ever. The ghosting started to fade some. Later in the day I found that if I put my steroid drops and then tilted my head down that the drops would get under my contact lenses and cause my vision to go brown. That kept my pretty occupied for my next several sets of drops.


DAY 4


I really wish I had more to say but I have experienced no real problems with my procedure. I seem to be coming along very well. I go in tomorrow for my 1 week so I will report back how that goes. I can’t wait to get these bloody contact lenses out and I’m positive they are the cause most of my annoyance. Today is no different. My eyes are still really dry and I keep switching back and forth between the drops for severe dryness and the regular drops. I’ll put the severe drops in in the morning and evening and then use the other drops throughout the day to help with the dryness and help with the ghosting I keep experiencing. My vision seems to clear up in the morning and then starts to drop as I go through the day.

I’ll keep updating this post as I go through my healing process and my follow-up visits.
 
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