Yeah, I mean, even if you are a relatively fast healer, driving in 5 days would be pretty good. Sorry if that's bad news, but with PRK the healing just takes a bit longer.

I might have driven on day 5 or 6, I can't remember exactly since it was 7 years ago, but I can't imagine it was earlier than that. The light sensitivity is a real bitch until the cells that were removed grow back. You'll see, there's really just almost no chance you could drive sooner than that, you'd never make it out of the parking lot without running into something with all the squinting and tearing you'd get from the light exposure. I had to have bring someone with me to drive me for the week I was at the hospital in Germany, but the next week I was back on regular duty - the only profile restrictions were that I could wear sunglasses whenever I wanted (for a year) and a no running profile for a couple of weeks.

For me the dry eyes weren't very bad at all, and I quit needing to use any eye drops after 3 months or so. I don't ever use eye drops now.

are sunglasses not effective, scott/sgt rj? when i had the tests done this saturday they dilated my eyes and were like "o ya go drive home", i couldn't ****ing see a thing in the parking lot, it was awful.

i'm going to be getting this **** done on Oct 20th.

they offered me a valium scrip, the girl who was offering was hot she was like "if you're gonna be nervous we can give you a perscription for valium" i was like uhhh i'm not gonna tell this smokin hottie that i'm going to be nervous "nahhh im good"

now i'm a month away and thinking about this procedure is keeping me up at night, lollllll.

Don't worry about it at all. My PRK went just about as badly as possible, and I'd gladly get it done again in a heartbeat. I won't go into details for fear of dissuading you, but it was a pretty miserable first month. I'm an outlier though, the vast majority of procedures go through without a hitch, and little discomfort.

Pay attention while you're getting it done. Just before they start the first eye, the world is it's usual blurry self. Fast forward just a few seconds, and everything is sharper and crisper than you've ever seen in your life, or will ever see it again. Kind of a surreal experience seeing through the freshly cut lens with no cornea on it. Incredibly vivid detail that you'll never experience again once your cornea returns.

Or maybe I'm just easily amused.

no i had the same experience, once the epithelial tissue was wiped away it was really clear and I was very surprised

I have been researching a lot and it seems PRK is the way to go for me. I do a lot of contact sparring and having a flap come out of my eye is scary. Downside with PRK is recovery time and pain. If you guys have to work , I would recommend doing one eye at a time.

General Tsao will probably give us a good idea of the differences between the two.

Anyways I still might have to wait for my prescription to settle first. I'm 23 and both my eyes are -5. My eyes are still getting worse but small changes

The recovery time is really not that long. I had surgery (PRK) on a Thursday and went back to work on Tuesday. I wore sunglasses for a little while and preferred to work in the darkness, but even working in front of a computer and going to well lit meetings wasn't much of a problem.

I think they prefer that your prescription has been steady for 3+ years. Minimizes the chance that they will have to do 'touch ups' or repeat surgeries. It's in your best interest to wait also.

Yeah, the world getting clearer is pretty amazing. After I sat up from my surgery, they asked if I could read the clock on the wall. Now, my vision was never really horrible, so I probably could have made out the time even before the surgery, but to look up at the clock and have it look like it was right in front of my face was pretty sweet.

Sunglasses - Yeah, I mean, they definitely worked, but for the first couple days, it didn't matter, ANY light had the potential to be blinding. YMMV, I guess, but from what I was told this was pretty common/normal. I showered without the lights on and wore my sunglasses at all times. Most indoor lighting, unless you are going into a commercial space, is pretty diffuse, though.

Opening the refrigerator was a nasty surprise. Once the cells grew back, though, it was only the brightest of lights that made me wince with sunglasses, and before too long the sunglasses made even really bright lights comfortable. A slight increase in my light sensitivity is the only real long term impact of my surgery, so I take my sunglasses with me pretty much everywhere.

And while there is some pain (actually more of an itchy/burning sensation), to me it was well worth the trade off. The pain isn't significantly worse from any other semi-major injury - maybe the equivalent of a moderate sprain, and it gets better pretty quickly. Which isn't to say that the first 48 hours post surgery aren't a major drag, but it seems like a pretty decent trade off all the same. A few days of discomfort for years of being able to ditch glasses/contacts. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

oct 17th; 2:00 pm, it's set!!

the day i lose $4,000, and possibly my vision!

gl

when i set up my appointment with her today I was like

"remember how I said i didn't need the valium? when i got home i read all the liability-releasing forms I have to sign and now i definitely need it"

she was like 'lolol np we'll call it in"

i'm like -5 and -4.5 both my eyes

i wanted lasik but eheh.. kind of scared.. wonder why buffet or gates didn't do it or other smart rich people and just backed off cuz of that

broke my glasses and haven't worn them in almost 2 months.. been wearing glasses since the 4th grade

never felt better in my life and my vision is improving.. i still watch tv go on the computer and drive a car with my vision.. i drive freeways in traffic everywhere... at night is very difficult to drive.. other than that

i have no other complaints.. just have to wait and wait and train to get my eyes 20/20.. wonder if it will ever happen


when i play poker i can't see a damn thing... i have to wear pinhole glasses which makes me see everything.. and i can have the same effect as shades..

before you would have to wear stupid contacts then wear shades

GLGL. I doubt you'll regret it.

First, you can't "train" your eyes to 20/20 just by not wearing glasses. If it were that simple, the glasses industry would have disappeared long ago.

But you should check to see if your driver's license says "corrective lenses required". It probably does (if it doesn't your eyes aren't that bad anyway). If you get pulled over for something, and the cop sees you have no glasses, it can be a big fine on top of whatever else he pulled you over for.

It's now been a full week since my LASIK surgery. My eye sight is horrible. It's hard to say, but it might be even worse than before...it's definitely a little different one way or another. My glasses do still help me see better, but they hurt my eyes so obviously, it's the wrong prescription now. All I hear about is success story after success story so this really sucks.

I can't even read a street sign at a stop light right now. I can't put anything in my eyes so I can't wear my contacts (I had from before) and I have 2 vacations coming up back to back so I'm basically screwed and am going to bad eye sight for the next few weeks. I go back in between my trips (next Thursday) and will obviously tell them how horrible my vision still is. They said that if the surgery is jacked up I get a free "enhancement" so I'm assuming I'll qualify for that.

Such a bum deal.

Did breaking your glasses make you write incoherent posts? I have almost the same bad eyes as you and there is no way you should be doing anything without your glasses

damn, sorry.

the consent forms i have to sign say they can't go back in for a touch up surgery until minimum 3 months later. IDK if that's the same for your doctor, or if my doctor even follows that or if its just there for legal purposes.

lol ya, i'm like -1.5 or something and i don't find it particularly safe to drive without contacts or glasses.

I'll have LASIK soon. Still discussing with my health insurance how much of the costs they are going to pay.

It'll cost me €5200 ~ $7000.

IMO it is very important to check out that
- they use new laser technology
- the surgeon is very competent.

The latter is very often not valued high enough. Just think of it this way. The laser is like a formula 1 racing car. Nice. But "worthless" without a good driver.

Don't go for "cheap" deals. You might regret it. The centre where I'm going to have my eyes lasered are also one of the few in Germany that does "repairs" of "botched" surgeries. They have regularly patients from foreign countries (like turkey).

I know a few people that had LASIK done. Every single one of them is very very happy:
- a friend from belgium had PKR. The healing process was quiet long, but he is 100% happy now.
- a work colleague had lasik a few years ago. His eysight is now above 100%.
- my wife, her sister and her brother had lasik 9+ years ago in South Africa. All of them have perfect eyesight since then + no problems.
- my brother just had a lasik 4 month ago and is perfectly happy. Even his night vision improved.

I'm sorry to hear that

Where did you go? Country, clinic etc.?

Which method did they use?

Which laser did they use?

Agreed, I was around -1.2 IIRC and was fuzzy enough that I wore glasses to drive as well.

LOL that you can "train your eyes" to 20/20. Congratulations, that is hands down the dumbest thing I've heard in at least a month.

After the surgery and once you have an eye exam where they tell you your vision is 20/20 or thereabouts, request a letter confirming that you had LASIK and that your vision is now "perfect" and keep it in your car until the next time you have to renew your license (if that's relatively soon). If not, still request the letter, but look into what you need to do to get the license restriction dropped from the DMV, most likely you'll have to suck it up, go into the DMV one day, and take the eye test, then they'll mail you a new license in a few weeks. I hate the DMV (I needed a new license when I got out of the military anyway, so I just did it then), but to get the restriction dropped so you don't have to worry if you are pulled over, it's probably worth it.

I'm grunching here.

I got Lasik about 10 years ago. My eyes felt like I had sand in them for the rest of the day but this feeling gradually went away. Within 3 days any discomfort was completely gone.

The doctor that did this offered up an option to not adjust one eye to the max to increase the length of time I would be able to go without reading glasses, which I agreed to. If I had this to do over again I would not have done it. My long range vision is fine, but not as crisp as it could have been. In the last year or so, I've had to start using reading glasses anyways.

But, the bottom line is, this was life-changing for me. Absolutely no complications.

Lucky you. I hear way more stupid stuff on a daily basis

There are a hell of a lot of people that believe that you can "train" your eye. Even literature and websites about it. (Check out "Bates method" on wikipedia).

There is some "truth" to it. Where this "eye training" doesnt really change your eyesight it helps the brain to process the blurred image it's seeing. Basically it trains the brain to become better at guessing. Thus the subjective impression of your eyesight becomes better.

I had to wear glasses when I was kid. I wore them for a few years and then around the 8th grade I stopped because I hated them. The next time I went to the optometrist a year or two later I had 20/20 vision. He was pretty surprised.

He shouldn't have been. Happens quite often.

Has anyone who has had Lasik done noticed an increase in allergies? I had my eyes done in 2007 and couldn't be more pleased with the results and it's almost a requirement in my line of work, but I have noticed much more severe seasonal allergies and itchy eyes since I had them done. I am wondering if there is actually a correlation or if it is a coincidence.

Heh, guess he just sucked then.