Month 3

Today I had my 3 month post op check.  So far, just experiencing dry eyes after sleeping.  Even with the refresh and lubrifresh pm.  I would wake up in the morning feeling like goop over my eyelashes and still needed at least 2-3 drops per eye to get the day started.  Of course, my left still not crystal clear like my right and still experiencing starburst at night but it usually goes away if my eyes are not dry.

Per my check up, my right eye is 20/15 and left is 20/20 with slight astigmatism.  I was told that usually there's another burst of healing between 3-6 month.  I was given a trial of Genteal gel for severe dry eye to try.  Will see how well it goes.  So far, loving this, no more glasses, no more headaches from glasses.

Next check in 6 months.

Month 1

Wow! It's been a month since the surgery.  It's been going great. My vision is clear pretty much all the time with occasional bouts of haziness that clears up with blinking and eye drops.  Today at the check up my vision was 20/15 right eye and 20/20 left eye.  Got a cornea mapping done and had prescription checked, had a little of astigmatism on the left, which I was told that it should get better as time goes on.  Otherwise, I use now about 3-4 vials of eye drops unless I have a really bad day, not common.

Night vision is also slowly getting better. Still got the starbursts but completely clears up when I blinked. I have been able to read the normal computer print about size 11. I have also resume my attempts in working out when I could and officially got the go ahead to get into pool and hot tub. Yeah! I ran out of my steroid eye drops by the end of 3rd week and I call my doc and was told that it's fine to just stop.  Hopefully there's no repercussion from stopping the drops early.  I can't wait to have my dry eyes go away completely.  I asked how long and was told about 6 months to 1 year with PRK closer to 6 month spectrum and LASIK closer to 1 year spectrum.  Hopefully by Thanksgiving, my dry eyes will be thing of the past.

The only funny thing is that in the morning and after shower, I was in the habit of looking for my glasses since I was 6. So now all of the sudden that I don't need them, it felt like I'm missing something at times.  The feeling is getting better and I sure don't miss wearing glasses and getting headaches from them. Now just waiting got 3 month check up!

Week 1

Today I have my 1 week post op check and get to have the contacts bandages out. Yippee!!!

So before removal, I had the eye chart exam. I was able to see without the pinholes and read about 20/30 right eye and 20/25 left eye with little bit of blurriness.  Then the contacts came out, it feels like it was a layer being peeled.  When doc looked at the corneas, I was told I had some dry spots and keep using the artificial tears (refresh plus) as needed and often.  Now I'm down to just using the steroid drops, on tapering dose.  Guess I'll have to up my usage, I have been using about 5 vials a day, I'll just increase it to 6 a day.  Still using the refresh pm at night and need a vial of artificial tears in the morning when I first open my eyes.

Also, it's my birthday!! I had to work late so I just bought myself birthday dinner and dessert.  I got dumpling noodle soup and jade tofu with fish fillet from Wonton Gourmet, and cassata and tiramisu cake from Presti Bakery. I went to my go to Chinese restaurant here in Cleveland and a yummy Italian bakery in Little Italy.  Overall, a quiet birthday, my typical since I've been living by myself and not being able to go home for it.

Day 5/6

Day 5 was better, light sensitivity was not as bad, definitely improving.  Words on monitor are getting clearer and vision in general is getting pretty clear.  Still using the drops as scheduled and as needed.  The contacts bandages were now really irritating, keep wanting to pull them out myself.  Can't wait for the 1 week post op to get those out.

Day 6 was my first day back to work.  My day starts early and I still drive in the dark in AM so lights were definitely starbursts so I keep my focus away from oncoming traffic.  But otherwise, working wasn't too bad.  Used the drops as needed and scheduled, computer screen was turned down dimmer and I had to squint a little to read the words since they were not enlarged due to computers being shared in the hospital. Sunglasses were definitely my best friend during the day time. c(:

Day 4

Work up in the morning needing about a full vial of refresh to open my eyes without feeling dry and grainy.  Then I had an appointment midday and a baby shower in the afternoon.  This was my chance to see if I'm able to drive and be able to work on Monday.  I can definitely drive, but needed to squint with my darkest sunglasses due to the midday sun.  So I ended up getting a ride from a friend for the baby shower.  Coming home at night, definitely see starbursts with the light a little worse than with my contacts but it gets a little better with lots of blinking.  Didn't feel like I needed a lot of the refresh drops, but I keep reminding myself to use them every hour or so. By now, I just feel like the contacts bandage needed to come out, it was beginning to irritate me.  I'm the type of person who hates wearing contacts to sleep, only occasional naps.  Again slept with my ipod.

Day 3

Today was slightly better, still slightly light sensitive and wearing my sunglass, but no pain. Thank goodness I'm one of those that had no pain.  Lots of refresh drops with scheduled ones.  Able to start read off my laptop with larger font.  On my Mac, it's about 2 swipes to enlarge the font. But not able to stare at the screen too long.  Overall, it feels like it's getting better, vision is clear but definitely ghosting and blurry.

Day 2

Today I woke up with the worst feeling for light sensitivity, but no pain.  I could barely keep my eyes open with my blinds closed and curtains drawn.  I even ended up wearing sunglasses indoor and minimal lights on at night.  Even the TV glare was too much for my eyes.  So I pretty much just keep my close as long as I could, nap if I could.  But every time I wake up from nap, my eyes were super dry and ended up using 1/2 vial of refresh plus.  Continued the scheduled eye drops with refresh plus.  Since I napped too much during the day, I just didn't feel sleepy at night, so I thought percocet would help. Bad idea, it actually kept me up. I did end up start using refresh PM for night time, so I had to keep my eyes closed and just listened to my ipod.  Thank god for ipod. :)

Day 1

No pain, but feels a little like something is under the contacts, especially the right eye.  The drops helped with the sensation.  Wow, I can see, don't have to squint like crazy to just see something right in front of me.  It's great that I can see across the room. 

First follow up appointment today.  Vision check was 20/70 right eye, 20/60 left eye but with pin holes 20/40 right eye and 20/30 left eye. So all in all, not bad.  Doc approved, no problem.

After, had lunch and ice cream with a friend and wandered around for a bit in the mall.  Feel a little light sensitive, otherwise no problem.  Had to keep reminding myself to put refresh eye drops in my eyes hourly so not to dry up. I wasn't sleepy at bedtime but could sleep, probably not deeply so I ended up taking tylenol pm to get me to sleep and not wake up in the middle of the night.

PRK Surgery

Today is the surgery.  And I'm post call, thankfully I was able to get some sleep throughout the night at the hospital so I was not completely exhausted, bleary eyed.

I took 1 valium as I arrived to the office then checked in and paid.  Then I was taken into their suite and was given a baggie of eye drops, lovely plastic sunglasses and sleep goggles and instructions. Lovely hairnet like cap placed and laid down on the surgical chair.  Numbing eye drops to each eye.  Right eye first, so a soft patch to left eye, then tape to protect the eyelashes and the eye lid spread to keep eye open to right.  The first I noticed was light sensitivity with the bright lights around the red/green laser area. Unfortunately, those bright lights are needed for the beginning during the cornea epithelium scraping. More drops are placed, some sharp looking thing picking and scarping, water to wash off, more scraping with a magnified glass and more water to wash off.  This part took at least 5 min and the laser itself was about a min. Then more water wash off, cleaning and finally the last set of eye drops and the contact bandage before patch goes on.  Then it's a repeat process for the left eye.  The whole process took about 30 min. After all was done, I could see but hazy/cloudy.  Sunglasses on once I left the suite.

For the rest of the day, pretty much slept on and off and continuous use of the eyedrops.  I didn't feel the pain that others have described. Everything is hazy and blurry and I had all my blinds pulled and kept my apartment fairly dark.  I put my audiobooks on my ipod to good use for the day.

The drops given:
Pink top: Prednisolone 1% - every hour for the first day, then 4x/day for 1 week, 3x/day for 2nd week, 2x/day for 3rd week, 1x/day for 4th week then stop
Beig top: Ciprofloxacin - 4x/day for 7days and done
Grey top: Diclofenac - 4 more times then stop
Refresh Plus: use as needed

Personal stock up and research additions:
Refresh Plus - stocked up from Costco, $19 for 100 vials, cheaper than Walgreen/CVS
Refresh PM - for night time to prevent dry eyes or stuck eyelids in the AM.
Humidifier - don't have one, so large bowl of water to allow for evaporation
Vit C/ Omega 3 - started about 2 weeks prior

Pre-Surgery Visit

I actually had the free consult at Cleveland Clinic about a year ago, April 2011, when I thought I should at least find out whether I'm a candidate for Lasik.  In my mind, I was only thinking about Lasik and didn't really think about other options.  The visit and exam were pretty thorough, took about 2 hours.  They checked my prescriptions and checked my cornea thickness with some form of mapping.  The results were that my left cornea was just under the limit for lasik and was about 10 microns too thin for it. My right cornea was ok.  Dr Kruger, my ophthalmologist, recommended PRK especially with my prescriptions and that in the long run, it might even be better.  I don't know much about PRK but understood from the appointment that it's longer process (takes at least 3 months to heal completely and up to 1 yr), may be more painful, scraping of cornea epithlieum instead of flap, but still done with customized wavefront laser and still will have dry eyes.  The total cost would be $3200 with the employee discount and I could use flex spending for it.

I did my own research on and off since.  In the beginning, I was kind of freaked out by other people's personal accounts on the internet.  There were lots of bad experiences especially people who had theirs done early 2000s.  They really put me off for for couple of months then researched again and found that it was not as scary.  So I finally decided that I'm going to do it and the question becomes when would be a good time with my residency rotation. I found a couple more recent personal accounts that were more helpful, in particular post op care. Through all the readings, I understand that my vision will not be absolutely perfect but I know that I can't wear glasses because it gives me headache from my nose up.  Contact lens were fine and I see starburst at night with them anyway since I don't have the astigmatism in them, so I'm used to the starburst look.  The only thing about contacts were that when I'm on call, I can't wear them and I have to look all over the place for my glasses if I get called when I'm napping.  I really just want to not wear glasses anymore.

Blog #1

Blog #2

I asked around as well, a couple people in my program has gotten PRK and their experiences were pretty similar to what I've read, a little painful, long time to clear vision and took up to a week off for recovery.  So I took 3 weekdays + weekend off before going back to work and just pray for the best that I will be able to function normal by day 6.

Surgery set for 3/6 and today was my official pre-op visit to finalize my cornea mapping and prescriptions.   It was more the similar exam as last year my prescriptions did not changed and had my eyes dilated for the laser wavefront mapping.  Got the scripts for valium and percocet and instructions.  I'm all set for surgery.

PRK Experience

I finally got my butt in gear and not be freaked out by the process (especially after scouring the internet for personal accounts) to have PRK done and get rid of my glasses.  I have decided to blog about my experience which I'm sure that it would be different from others as well.  So please take the post/ experience with a grain of salt.  No 2 people have the same experience.

A little background, I have been wearing glasses since I was 5yrs old and contact lens since 12yrs old.  I have worn RGP and then switched to soft, but I never liked the idea of wearing contacts overnight.  So by the time I was in college, my prescriptions were -7.5 right eye and -6.5 left with about +1 -1.5 astigmatism.  My prescriptions would vary about 0.25-0.5 every year but really about the same for good 10 yrs.  I have always said that I will have my eyes corrected after all my schooling were done; therefore not while in college or in med school.  Now I'm in my second year of residency and my hospital give a decent discount for it and the only issue is just making sure that the service I'm scheduled for won't be something that strain my eyes for the first month out. I've scheduled the surgery for 3/6 which is the last week of my general anesthesia service and then I'll start back up on PACU (recovery room) service, which uses less eye strain.

Pre-surgery consult
Surgery
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5/6
Week 1 (Day 7)
Month 1
Month 3
Month 6