Why I finally pulled the trigger

So it has been about a week since I got LASIK done. It was something I had been thinking about for a long time but had put off for a couple of years. I continued to tell myself that wearing glasses was not "that bad". In part, it's also because I never got around to making the call.

Weirdly enough I was talking to my grandma and about to bring up LASIK but right when I was about to she mentioned it to me. It was a weird occurrence that LASIK was on both of our minds. I decided at that point after she said I should get it done to schedule a consultation.

I had already done a ton of research on LASIK places in my area and had determined where I wanted to go. In terms of pricing, it was for-sure on the higher end when it came to custom LASIK.

My consultation

One thing I was concerned about was being eligible for the procedure. My eyesight for the last couple of years has degraded quite a bit because of working as a full-time software developer to the point of ending up ~-4.75 each eye. I was quite sure my prescription did not change much since my last appointment last year and thankfully I was right. They did not think it would be a blocker.

As for the actual tests they did. They first checked my current prescription by putting my glasses in some machine(I assume this got my prescription)

At that point they ran me through ~5 different machines and tests to see if I was eligible, eventually leading to my appointment with the person that was the head of the practice and the person that would be doing my procedure.

After very brief conversion and looking over my charts he said I was a perfect candidate. At this point, I was ecstatic because I was concerned I was wasting my time but also didn't want to do it if my chances of complications were high.

I went ahead and scheduled my procedure for 2 days after my consultation. Because I was having my procedure so quickly I had to go pick up prescription drops immediately as I would need them the next day. The drops needed were artificial tears(for after the surgery), drop antibiotics(for before and after the surgery) and drop steroids (for after the surgery).

Surgery day

I had taken my antibiotic drops the night before and that morning and just finished a full meal. I showed up at 1:30 pm filled out some additional paperwork. I was then brought into a room so someone could go over my drop schedule after surgery and some things I should expect. At that point, I went back and sat waiting for my procedure.

The office I went to had the procedure in an all glass room so you can watch someone else's if you want. If I went back I do not think I would have watched because it kind of made me more nervous then I was previously.

Skip if you want some ignorant bliss:

I watched a lady before me go for the same custom LASIK surgery I was there for. It was not at all what I expected. It was weird to me because during the surgery you could see the colored part of her eye basically go away briefly and it looked like a big pupil. I do not know if she just had a dark eye color or not but at this point, my nerves were through the roof. Then the doctor scraped a layer off her eye before getting to the laser and I also thought it was only a laser so that threw me off as well.

My Surgery

I was invited into the room for my surgery and asked to lay on the "bed" where the surgery would take place. I was then given some numbing drops.

Initially, the doctor hooked up these plier like things so that I could not close my eyes(doing the surgery one eye at a time). He asked if I was ready and then we were underway.

I was told to focus on the green blinking light. The doctor then used this handheld device and put it "on" my exposed eye while the other was covered. He mentioned my vision would get blurry and then momentarily go black like being blind.

At this point, the only thing I could feel was pressure on my eye. I thought the aspect of going "blind" momentarily would be way worse then it was. It just felt like that eye was closed and only after my brain realized that the eye was forced open did I notice what happened.

At this point, the doctor removed the device and mentioned the laser would now start doing its thing gently correcting my eye. I continued to stare at the green blinking light all while this was taking place.

The laser part was a little weird because you can smell your eye. It not bad or gross but might catch you off guard if you did not already know this was going to be the case. After around 30s the laser process was done and he covered my eye.

He then repeated the same thing on my left eye. I was slightly concerned about moving on because I did not know if I could see out of my right eye as it was covered immediately.

The only difference between my right and left eye was on my left eye I could not see the green blinking light initially after the handheld device until around 5 seconds later.

After that eye was finished I was asked to stand up so he could use a manual machine to check that everything went well. He told me everything went perfectly, handed me some glasses he told me I needed to wear and then I was on my way.

Post-op

At this point, my wife drove me home(around a 20-minute ride). I was not feeling "that" great mainly because it was hard to open my eyes as everything was blurry and the light sensitivity bothered me. It bothered me so much I kept my eyes closed the whole ride home. I even ended up covering my closed eyes(that had glasses on) with my hand because the light going through my eyelid was still too bright...I know weird right?

When I got home I was told to go try to sleep for 4/5 hours. I laid down but was having some real issues with sleeping because my eyes were VERY uncomfortable. It was a burning/scratching sensation and every time I opened my eyes it felt like water was just dumped out.

I finally fell to sleep and slept for 5ish hours. After waking up my eyes felt almost perfect, no scratching or itching. My vision was still slightly blurry(almost like your prescription being a year out of date) and I still had some pretty bad light sensitivity but other than that had no complaints.

I fell to sleep that night with glasses because I was instructed to wear them the first 3 nights sleeping so I didn't accidentally rub my eyes.

Day after follow-up appointment

I was told I could drive to my follow up appointment the day after to my surprise. When I woke up my vision seemed perfect minus some defects when it came to lights.

Specifically, I saw halos around lights and lights themself looked like stars. When driving to my appointment it was bothersome because everyone was going to work at this time so there were a lot of headlights.

I got to the office and had a 10-minute appointment where the doctor told me my eyes look great and that my vision is now 20/20. I asked about the halos and light issues. The doctor mentioned that this is normal for almost all patients that have the surgery done and that it would clear up over time up to 6 months but more normally should be mostly resolved in a month.

A week later

It's still mind-blowing that I have 20/20 vision without glasses. I still have halos around lights and lights themself starburst but even if my vision did not continue to improve(like its supposed to) I would still consider the surgery a success and get it done again if I were to go back a week.

It seems like LASIK is very controversial in that some people say you should never risk the side-affects and others say its the best choice they have ever made. I would say right now one week later I am leaning more toward it being the best choice I could have made.

Only time will tell if that remains to be the case but for now, I could not be happier!

Till next time. ✌️