Colorado Laser Eye Surgery and Laser Eye Surgery Costs

Has anyone had PRK eye surgery? (not LASIK)?

I’m going in for mine next Thursday, and I’m nervous. I’ve read alot about it, on here and elsewhere, but, I could really use some testimonials from people who have gone thru it. Is it terrifying? How much pain is involved? What if I get scared and move? What is a realistic recovery time? Thanks in advance!

Hi QueenSupreme. I had PRK in mid June. I was nervous too. I did get a Valium before my PRK and that did help the anxiety quite a bit.

1) Is it terrifying? Honestly, the THOUGHT was more terrifying than the actual procedure. Just like you’ve probably heard other people say “it’s not as bad as I thought it would be”…ya just do not believe it til you’ve been through it.

2) How much pain is involved? During the procedure…none! Your surgeon will give you some numbing eyedrops a few seconds before he starts to position you. I tell ya…he tested to make sure they were working…5-10 seconds…no pain at all. I did have a tickling pressure sensation as he was removing the epithelium with this funny little thing that reminded me of the tooth polisher at the dentist lol It tickled a bit, but absolutely no pain. Recovery time was a little more uncomfortable, but my surgeon prescribed some Vicodin to take and gave me some numbing drops to use if it was just unbearable. The only time I used the drops was when I accidentally hit my eye with my artificial tear dropper (darn cat scared me). It was quite tolerable otherwise with scheduled tylenol and motrin every 4 hours alternating.

Your surgeon will probably hold your head while the laser is doing its thing. Just keep your eye on that little light…you will see it getting clearer and clearer!! The techs counted down the time…60 seconds per eye…in 10 second increments. You won’t be able to blink…they use this thing to hold your eye open…but once again, you feel absolutely nothing. After the laser is done, you will most likely get a drop of this stuff called Mitomycin-C…this is to help prevent postsurgery haze…I had it and never had a problem with it. 20 seconds, then your surgeon will rinse with plain saline, then place a no power contact lens as a bandage while the epithelium heals…that’s it…literally only about 5 minutes later…repeat other eye…10 minutes and when you get up from that table, you will be able to see! I started crying.

3) What if I get scared and move? Your surgeon will probably hold your head still. It’s actually quite comforting. If you’re real nervous, ask and see if they can do that for you.

4) what is a realistic recovery time? Day one, you’re not gonna feel too much discomfort…go home and sleep. Days 2-4 were the more uncomfortable for me with mostly burning and dry eyes. I started taking tylenol and motrin alternately every 4 hours aftre I woke from my nap…about 36 hours later I ended up taking a vicodin and just threw that into the mix whenever I couldn’t tolerate it.

You will find that days 2-7 your vision will be more cloudy and hazy, but starting around day 8, that fuzziness will start to clear. At my six week followup appointment, I was already seeing 20/20 + in each eye…and could actually read about 1/2 of the 20/15 line.

You should have your first postop appointment between day 1 and 4. They keep the “bandage” contact lens in for 3-4 days, then they remove it when they are sure the epithelium has grown over. You will find that working on the computer or reading is gonna be a little difficult the first couple of weeks, so take frequent breaks…and if you do not have a job where you need to work on a computer, that’s even better I was back to computer distance vision in about 3 weeks…my near vision healed slower than my far vision.

Here I am…now about 11 weeks out, seeing more clearly than I ever have, only dry eye is because of my allergies, still pretty light sensitive but have been my whole life (as close to normal as I can tell), and I would do it all over again if I went back in time.

Best of luck and you’re gonna love the result…just be patient, you’ll be seeing pretty good in about 3-4 weeks if you heal fast (my surgeon called me ‘atypical’ cause I healed real fast…more than most people do). I hope this helps and I know your nervous {{{{hugs!!}}}} I was scared to death! But you’ll see that it is so worth it in the end.

LASIK Laser Eye Surgery in Irving, Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas Lasik Surgery & Recovery

Tags: eye, eyes, lasik, prk,, recovery lasik eye surgery, surgery

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 2:08 am and is filed under TLC Laser Eye Surgery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.