Lasik
One month ago I got LASIK. I can't believe I actually did it, the thought of having my eyes open and sliced with a laser sounded like the most terrifying thing in the world but I had reached a point where it had to be done. My glasses had been giving me headaches for the past few years to the point where I was going through a bottle of ibuprofen every month and my contacts we're creating an allergic reaction that caused my eyelids to itch and my eyeballs to ooze, really disgusting.
After my preliminary exam it turned out I was not only a candidate for Lasik but a new thing called contoura which cost $300 more. I was a little skeptical because they said not very many people qualify for it but I do, which always makes me feel like it's a scam. Supposedly you have better vision and a quicker recovery time and in the end I decided it was worth it (was it actually worth it though? That is yet to be determined…) We ended up financing the whole procedure which in total cost $3,600 which was a lot more than I was anticipating.
I took a Valium before the procedure to calm my nerves but honestly I don't think it helped at all. When they called me in for the surgery my heart sank and I thought to myself is this really happening, am I actually doing this? Even though I had been assured so many times that the surgery would be painless and very quick like 15 minutes total it was still hard to feel okay about it. When I sat down on the table my legs were violently shaking from the nerves. They pulled my eyelids open with some type of contraption put in numbing drops and then talked to me through the whole procedure. First, pressure was put on the eye. They described it to feel like when they take your blood pressure on you arm but I could hardly feel it. Then the cornea was sliced open and peeled off with a laser. I could somewhat see the tweezers (or at least that’s what it looked like) that the doctor used to peel back the sliced layer which sounds terrifying but surprisingly it wasn’t. Everything was a little bit blurry and a lot less scary than I thought it would be and there was zero pain or discomfort.
The next step was a different laser and all I could see were a bunch of red and green dots followed by a very gross smell. They counted to ten, told me to look straight ahead and be very still. I swear it felt like the whole thing took 45 seconds per eye total. That was it, the procedure was done! They took me to a room to look at my eyes one more time and then gave me some dark glasses and sent me away.
Tim drove me home and the doctors told me to take some Tylenol PM and go to sleep and try not to open my eyes for the rest of the day. It was around 1pm at this point. They warned there might be some stinging and it might feel like I had sand in my eyes but it shouldn't be too bad. I got home and didn't take any pills because I thought I would easily fall asleep but about an hour later lying in bed I was still awake and suddenly my eyes were hurting quite bad. It felt like hot sauce and sand was being rubbed in them and they were watering like crazy streaming down my face non-stop even with my eyes closed. I kept thinking back to that scene from Minority Report when he gets his eyeballs replaced and they tell him not to open them or he'll go blind. I thought for sure that if I open my eyes I wouldn't be able to see because everything felt so weird, so swollen, so sore and watery. It was a little scary but it all passed very quickly . I took two Ibuprofen, the pain subsided, fell asleep and woke up a few hours later. There was no more pain which I was so relieved about and I open my eyes just enough for Tim to put in the medicated eye drops they provided, ate dinner with my eyes closed and went back to sleep for the rest of the night.
The next morning I woke up and finally got to take a look at my eyes, they had red splotches all over and they were a little sensitive to light but no pain at all, my vision was considerably better from where I started but still not clear. That day I went in for my checkup and was really terrified when they had me cover up my left eye and look out my right eye to read the words and I found that everything was very blurry. I had been told so many times after lasik you would wake up and immediately be able to see perfectly so when this happened I had a huge panic attack thinking that Lasik didn't work and I spent all that money for nothing. The doctor assured me that this was completely normal though and that my eyes would continue to fluctuate and change over time, even up to 6 months. They sent me home and I was directed to use eye drops every hour to help the healing process.
About a week after the surgery everything remained about the same, my eyes were very very dry, I went through almost 100 eye drop vials. Now a month later everything feels normal. I just went in for my eye exam. My vision is absolutely better but still not perfect, particularly my right eye, but they said it’s still improving and everything looks good.
Overall the Lasik experience was so easy and so worth it although everyone has a different experience. For anyone considering it I would highly recommend it.