Like many people, I have had refractive eye surgery to correct myopia and astigmatism.
I had two different procedures; Lasik and photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). My ophthalmologist suggested I have Lasik in my left eye, and insisted on PRK for the other due to topograhy of my cornea
I had a vision correction of -10 diopters, which means they had to ablate heck of a lot of cornea to achieve a good vision correction. In fact my vision was not correctable to 20/20, because the machine had to be set with a built-in ‘fudge factor’, as it’s not possible to accurately predict how the eye will respond when the vision correction is so steep. So the idea is you correct the vision within range of perfect, but err on the side of not correcting it enough, and then see how the eye deflates from there. It’s like getting a haircut in a sense – you can always cut a little bit more off, but you can’t add more hair.
In my case, my correction ended up right around a -.75. This makes my vision good enough for daily use without further correction. Keeping in mind what I started with, the results of the two surgeries were pretty good. Not extraordinary but absolutely within my realm of expectations.
I do have postoperative complications from the surgeries. My continuing side affects include spherical aberration, i.e. night glare, which is a degraded form a vision in poor lighting. Due to this, I have trouble seeing in darkened rooms, reading subtitles on televisions and in the cinema, seeing performers in concerts, and most of all tolerating bad lighting in basements, metros, and that sort of thing. I am now officially obsessed with lighting.
I wasn’t able to drive at night for a while. I can drive at night with glasses now (these cut down on the glare to the point where there is no glare) or if my eyes are sufficiently moisturized. Which leads me to the other problem I have experienced: Dry Eye.
The first year was the most difficult. I had to use drops several times per day and at least once during the night. I would wake up from sleeping and my eye would feel like the end of a piece of chalk. As much as I would blink I couldn’t produce ample tears. I tried many types of drops, and even used a gel, but the only product that seemed to both help me and not annoy me (afterall, who wants streaky eye make up?) was and is GenTeal Gel Drops by Novartis Opthamalics. These drops are thicker and more moisturizing than regular eye drops, yet lighter and more refreshing than gel. These days I use the drops no more than twice per day, so I’ve either become accustomed to the dry eye or I don’t have it as acutely anymore.
I’m not giving medical advice here, but if you are having trouble with dry-eye due to refractive eye surgery, talk to your opthamalogist and see if she thinks these drops might help you. They certainly did for me!
An interesting recent Q&A on Lasik brought to you by the US National Public Radio.
Available in: Canada, USA**
**Note: I got mine originally in Canada, but have since purchased them in the US. I have not seen them for sale in Europe but they may be trading under a different name or be by prescription only.
