life after Lasik

contacts down the drain!

In doing my research prior to getting Lasik eye surgery, I happened to come across some blog entries of other people’s experiences that I found helpful in my evaluation on whether or not I should get it done.  So I thought I would return the favor and document my own experience.

Let me first start off by saying that both O and I got it done, actually on the same day, and we are very happy with our results.  I still can’t believe that we did it, because I have been freaked out about getting it done for at least 2 years now, but I am beyond happy now that we did it and am stunned at the positive results we had.

Day of Surgery: June 29, 2010

We decided to get Wavefront Lasik instead of regular Lasik, so we needed to go in beforehand on the day-of to get a few more tests done.  Wavefront Lasik is a type of customized Lasik and is the latest technology available.  After the tests and a final short session of questions I had for the doctor, we went into the operating room area.  Our shoes got covered with plastic elastic galosh things, our hair got netted, and we got put into hospital robes.  Glasses off for the last time!  Then we had 3 different kinds of numbing drops put into our eyes and were escorted to a waiting area.  My nerves were racked, but I was calm and collected.  O was totally cool.

There were 2 parts to the surgery: the flap creation and the laser correction part.  O was taken in first.  He was in and out in maximum 4 minutes and said that the majority of the time was spent positioning his head in the chair.  As he was now sitting next to me, his eyes were closed so as not to disrupt the flap and he waited to be taken into the second room for the laser correction.  A few minutes later I was taken into the operating room where I was asked to lay down on the chair and rest my head in the cradle.  The assistant doctor cleansed the outside eye area in preparation and then the doctor came in.  She covered my left eye with what felt like a big band-aid patch and put the metal eye-opener device in my right eye.  I thought that part would be freaky because when I would see photos or videos of that online, it always looked like some torture device that left your precious eye so vulnerable.  Anyway, this part was probably the least freaky part of the whole procedure.  She put drops in my eye and then explained that she was placing a device on my eye and I would feel pressure, no pain, and I would see black.  And that’s just what happened.  I’m not going to lie, this part was awkward.   I’ve never had anyone else touch my eye and certainly not in this manner.  But I trusted my doc and that is paramount in this type of surgery, so I suggest if you are considering Lasik that you trust and believe in your doctor wholeheartedly.

At Dünya Göz Hopsital, where we had our surgeries, they only do bladeless corneal flap creation, so I knew this would take up to 30 seconds per eye.  You don’t feel a thing and honestly it felt like no more than 5 seconds.  I was so concentrated on breathing to keep me calm, so the 30 seconds flew by.  She removed the device and I had my -3.0 nearsighted vision back.  Time for the other eye.  This time I knew what to expect and I was already calmed down from my breathing.  Again, done in 30 seconds and I had my regular blurry vision back.  Off to the sitting room again where I waited with eyes closed to go get lazered.  I didn’t feel any pain at all.  By the way, many hospitals (from what I read in my research) do both the flap creation and the laser correction in the same chair.  But honestly, I preferred the little break in between so that I could gather myself.

A few minutes later they guided me into another room for the laser correction.  I sat on a chair and they swung me under the machine.  Here, instead of the band-aid type thing, the doctor took a different patch and in one swift move taped my eyelids open and covered my eye with the patch.  My other eye was blinking like crazy!  She then cut into the patch to open up a hole and then put the metal eye-opener thing in again.  Some solution got squirted in to wash my eye, she said.  Then more drops.  With a tool of some sort, by hand she brushed the corneal flap to the side to expose my cornea for the laser.  I focused on the red blinking light and the laser started.  Literally felt like 2 seconds, but it was probably more like 10 seconds.  But no more than that because my eyes were only -3.0 and -2.75 nearsightedness (the higher the number, the more laser you need).  Even though we had the customized Wavefront Lasik, it still only took 10 seconds maximum.  Once the laser stopped, she used the same tool to move the corneal flap back into place, making sure it was smooth.  More drops and then she placed a clear lens over my cornea to protect the area.  Didn’t feel a thing until she pulled off the sticky patch – I thought for sure I lost my eyebrow!  (but I didn’t).  Same deal for the left eye and then done!  The procedure was so quick I couldn’t believe it.

I was guided out of the surgery room with my eyes closed, but the assistant doctor who was guiding me out told me I could open my eyes.  I could see!  Things were clear, but with a little bit of haze around the edges (probably from the trauma my eyes just went through!).  He guided me to the dark post-op room where O was lying down and the assistant doctor asked me “so what did you think?”.  My response?  ”Well, I didn’t really like it.”  There was no pain whatsoever, it was just a very weird and abnormal experience, as I’m sure anyone can understand.  I was so thankful it was over and popped a pain killer right away before the numbing drops wore off.

Ten minutes later the doctor came in and turned on the lights and called us over for our first post-op check-up.  She checked out our eyes in the machine and said both of our procedures went beautifully and she would see us tomorrow for a second check-up.  We left the room, shed our hospital gear, and walked out for a post-op de-briefing with one of the counselors who told us how to use the drops (they had also given us a written description of this the day beforehand). O’s Mom was there to escort us home, but honestly we could have hopped into a cab and gotten home ourselves a-ok.  In fact, we were sending messages on our blackberries immediately after and laughing and making jokes.  It was helpful to have her at the house though to put the drops in our eyes, which we had to start doing one hour after the surgery.

Once we got home (only 5 minutes away), we took a sleeping pill (which unfortunately didn’t do anything at all for us) and got into bed.  We put a pillow between us just in case there were any flying elbows during our sleep.  At this point the drugs in my right eye started to wear off and my eye started to burn.  The burning feeling is very normal they say for 4 – 5 hours post surgery.  My right eye started watering now, too.   My left eye felt fine, but I just figured that the numbing drops hadn’t worn off yet.  O’s medicine started wearing off too, and his eyes were burning as well.  We tried and tried to sleep, but I really think that the sleeping pills we took were crap, so there we lay in a darkened room with our eyes watering trying to fall asleep, but not being able to get our minds off of the pain.  Interestingly enough, my left eye never burned except for maybe the tiniest bit.  But my right eye made up for both of them for sure.

Because I couldn’t fall asleep for a while, I was very aware of the timeline of things.  Here is how the first few hours at home went:

1:20 arrived home, in bed by 1:30 – had already taken pain killer at hospital and sleeping pill in the car ride home

1:45-2:45 tried direly to fall asleep with no luck; right eye watering like crazy and burning with a fierceness; the drops we had to put in only made it worse

2:45-3:45 thought it would never end; took another pain pill and sleeping pill and prayed it would knock me out; probably passed out around 4:00

4:00-6:15 finally slept!

6:15 woke up, could see clearly across the room, and had NO pain!  no bloodshot eyes, only a light ring-shape just outside of the edge of my iris on my right eye.  yay!  we survived!

6:15-7:15 laid in bed talking about the surgery while Mom prepared dinner

Afterwards we enjoyed a dinner of tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches and went to bed around 10:00 a very happy couple.

First day post-op: June 30, 2010

Woke up this morning and was able to see every detail in the room.  So fantastic!  My eyes felt like I had slept in my contacts – a little irritated – but I had slept in lenses, after all.  I had a beaming smile on my face and was so happy with the results.  We had to continue with the 3 different types of drops.  O’s Mom made us a typical Turkish breakfast and then we headed to the hospital for our 10AM follow-up appointment.  We still had all of the shades down in the house and we were wearing our sunglasses to protect our eyes, but soon realized that our eyes really weren’t sensitive to light at all.  Still, we wore the sunglasses to the hospital.

The doctor looked at our eyes in the machine and said again that the surgery was very successful.  I am seeing 20/20 with both of my eyes, with one eye ever so slightly better than the other, but she said the other one would catch up and see just as crisp in a few days.  O had a -8.0 and -6.5 nearsightedness and his -6.5 eye was corrected to zero!  His other eye is near perfect, the doctor said it’s at -0.75 and will likely catch up to the other one within the month.  She took out our clear protective lenses and off we went with our new eyes.

We both spent the day at home where we anticipated we would spend the day napping and relaxing, but we both felt really normal and didn’t have any eye pain or headache, so we did work on the computer and watched a movie.  No sensitivity to light, no halos, no glares, no swollen-looking eyes.  I still had a little bit of bloodshot in my right eye that formed a circle just outside of my iris.  It was not bad bloodshot at all, just a slight line, and I am guessing it was from the machine that holds your eye still in the cornea-creating part.  My left eye has a slight dryness to it, and felt as if there was the tiniest piece of sand underneath the outside upper eyelid, but I only notice it if I think about it.  I told the doc about this just in case there was in fact something in my eye, but she said that it was just dryness (she was right).  O didn’t have any feelings of dryness, but he did have a very tiny light pink spot on the white part of his right eye that was about the size of this “o”.  And he also had a very small bloodshot area on the same eye above the iris, but you couldn’t see it without him pushing his eyelid up.  O got a headache about 7PM, probably from too much computer work, so he took some medicine.  I was feeling fine  so met up with some friends for a birthday celebration, but only stayed an hour to get back to O.  At night we both felt like “taking our contacts out” to let our eyes rest as they felt tired, but of course that was not an option.  It was more out of habit and the old bed-time routine.  This feeling of being able to see all the time will take some getting used to… and I’m not complaining one bit about that!

1 Week post-surgery: July 6, 2010

It’s hard to put into words how happy I am with my results.  This surgery really is a miracle.  I am so thankful that we are living in such a day and age of modern technology and am thankful that we are fortunate enough to take advantage of it.  Having your sight is such a blessing.

It’s one week post-surgery and the light-colored bloodshot ring that I had on my right eye is gone.  That dry ‘sand in my eye’ feeling that I had disappeared after the second day.  Every day my eyes feel more naturally moisturized, which I am thrilled about because I have always struggled with dry eye problems with wearing contacts.  The slight difference in vision between my eyes is unnoticeable now, even when I cover an eye and do a comparison test, and I’m still seeing 20/20.  One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed in my eyes post-surgery is how white the whites are!  I think that I may have had a slight allergic reaction to the contacts that I wore for so long.  I’ve always had sensitive eyes and honestly thought that I would never have white whites because of that.  But now I see that this is not the case and I couldn’t be happier.

Although O is not seeing 20/20, it is not a big bother for him.  It was an annoyance the first few days, and a slight disappointment, too, but he is overall very happy with the results the doctor was able to achieve given how bad his eyesight was before.  He has no problem driving, but said that he would purchase low-grade glasses that you get at the drugstore if he had to drive in a city that he was new to and had to read the street signs far in advance.  He is waiting to see if his eyes improve, which the doctor said they very well might, before he decides if he wants to have the eye that is still -0.75 corrected.  We will go back for another check-up later this month and can make a better decision then.  At Dünya Göz Hospital, a correction laser session is included in the cost, if it is needed.

One of the biggest positives that we’ve experienced so far, and this is in comparison to what we’ve heard and read about people who have gotten regular Lasik, is that we have not had ANY issues with light sensitivity, or any glare or halos at night.  I can say that our vision definitely feels very sharp.  And it definitely got sharper more and more each day this first week.

One of the biggest things we’ve had to get used to this past week is not going through the night-time ritual of taking our out contacts to give our eyes a rest and put on our glasses before bed.  Now, when our eyes are tired, there’s no relieving them by taking out your lenses.  Guess that’s your body’s natural way of saying that you need sleep!  We did take a weekend trip away to attend a wedding, which involved a 1.5hr flight.  This was on days 4-5-6 post-surgery.  We had no problems with the flight and dryness, but because we only got 4 hours of sleep the night before our super-early flight, my eyes felt tired it that day.  We also toured around the city and it was windy most of the day, so between that and the lack of sleep, my eyes felt it.  But I would have felt that prior to surgery as well.

We started today only taking two different eye drops throughout the day (instead of three).  This will continue for one week, after which we will use just one eye drop for another two and a half months.

1 Month post-surgery: July 29, 2010

The comfort level of my eyes improved dramatically in the first week, so much that I thought after one week how much more could they improve?  Well as it turns out, the answer was a lot.  Day by day though, my eyes improved.  ”Improved” meaning they more and more felt naturally moisturized, and the tired feeling of my eyes went away.  One defining thing I felt during the first month and a few weeks thereafter was they were quite dry first thing in the morning.  In fact, I kept eye drops at my bedside because when I woke up in the morning they were so dry that it almost hurt to open them up.  I know I’m exaggerating, but it felt like my eyelids were stuck to my eyes.  Nothing a few drops didn’t fix though.  I worried though if this would be permanent, especially since I have a history of having dry, sensitive eyes.  I experienced this morning dryness probably from the 2nd through 5th weeks or so until it gradually went away.  O didn’t experience this at all.  I kept to the eye drop schedule, too, making sure I put drops in in the morning, throughout the day as instructed, and then again at night before bed.  I think I kinda liked the eye drop regimen – it was a nice refreshment for my eyes.  O, on the other hand, didn’t enjoy it as much and really only used drops when I reminded him and after the 6-week mark or so he had pretty much stopped using them regularly.

Our vision has stayed pretty much the same as far as prescription numbers go.  Our sharpness has only increased for both of us.  I think it’s neat that if I want to focus on something far away and see some small detail, all I have to do was look at it and NOT squint.  We get so used to squinting to see something far away because closing our eyelids sharpens our focus.  Well no need to do that anymore.  Squinting actually now doesn’t help since I am seeing super-sharp with my eyelids open regularly.  In fact, when I squint now I notice my eyelashes and how they actually hinder me from seeing that far-away-thing clearly.  Such interesting new revelations I’m experiencing with my “new eyes.”

We went for our 1-month check-ups and the doctor said she was very pleased with how our eyes are doing.  My eyes are measuring 20/20, but I can tell they are not 100% matching one another.  My right eye is ever so slightly more sharp than my left eye.  But if I was seeing out of both eyes how I see in my left eye, I would still measure 20/20 and wouldn’t be the wiser.  The doctor said that the in time they will match each other and I won’t notice (she was right).  O’s vision is still the same – perfect vision in the eye that was a -6.5, and -0.75 in the eye that was -8.0.  She explained that if O wanted to have a touch-up on his eye to bring it to zero, that she can do it any time after the 3-month mark (this second procedure is included in the cost).  O said at this point in time he is fine with his vision, but he will continue to see how things go and will make a decision after the 3-month mark.  He is driving without any problem, but is still getting used to the difference between the eyes, specifically when he drives and when he’s watching tv.

3 Month post-surgery: September 29, 2010

Let me repeat something I’ve said before: this Lasik surgery is a miracle.  It’s now three months after our surgeries and to think we lived our lives up until now dealing with and depending on contacts and glasses!  People who are born with perfect vision are blessed for sure.

We had our surgeries done at the beginning of summer, which some friends advised us not to since you aren’t supposed to swim for 6 weeks at minimum and we usually spend a fair amount of time during the summer at the beach, not to mention go on an annual 7-day boating trip.  We swam at the 4-week mark, but were smart about it and were careful with the waves and didn’t really “swim” much (ok I can say for me – for O he was diving into the waves).  I think they tell you not to swim because they don’t want any irritants in your eyes that could potentially cause an infection.  Anyway, we were fine.  And the first week of September (9-weeks post op), we went on our annual boat trip, which includes lots and lots – 7 days to be exact – of swimming in the salty Aegean Sea.  We were fine.  I used drops from time to time, but only as a preventative in case of dryness which didn’t turn out to be a problem for either of us.

One thing that stood out during this 1-month to 3-month post-op period is that the slight different in vision I was experiencing “evened out” like the doctor said.  Sometimes though, especially when I would get tired, my right eye would lose it’s sharpness ever so slightly (previously it was my left eye).  This only happened a few times and it was only when my eyes were over tired.  But overall, I notice very little fluctuation anymore.  It seems that my eyesight has stabilized and only on rare occasion do I have that temporary lack of sharpness in one eye.  Sometimes when I experience this (which is always at night when I’m over-tired), when I look at lights there is more of a glow around them instead of a sharp light.  But this happens when your eyes are tired and they relax and lessen their focus (meaning it’s not because of the effectiveness of the surgery) and it’s always back to normal in the morning.  O hasn’t been experiencing any fluctuations with his eyes, or more likely, these type of things are too slight for him to notice.  He has decided not to get the touch-up surgery in his one eye for two reasons: 1) he doesn’t want to go through the hassle of getting it done again, then the recovery, and 2) he will be reaching 40 in a few years and everyone’s eyesight naturally starts to deteriorate after 40, so regardless of if you get Lasik or not, you will likely need reading glasses post-age 40.  So he is going to get glasses with the prescription for his -0.75 eye that he will use when he feels he needs it for driving or watching tv.

We stopped using all drops after 3 months and didn’t really even need them during this last month.  When I wake up in the morning, my eyes are now very naturally moisturized with natural tears.  Apparently our eyes should be fully recovered and our vision fully stabilized after 6 months, so I will post again at that point and let you know how/if things have changed.

More to come… my 6-month update.  Stay tuned for more.

June 30, 2010. Tags: Dunya Goz, eye surgery, Lasik, Wavefront Lasik. Uncategorized. 4 comments.