I’ve been waiting to write this post until my vision became a little more stable and maybe I was a little less angry about the situation I’m in–but so many of you have asked about my eyes “How are they doing?!” that I thought I’d take this normal “Casual Friday” post and talk about how these last two weeks have been.
In a word, they’ve been difficult. Unexpected. Challenging. Hopeful. Emotional. Scary. Choose any of those. Even as I type this, my computer screen is zoomed in three times so I can make out the words I am putting on the screen. Not exactly an ideal situation for someone who blogs for a living.
For those of you who don’t know, Thursday, February 15, 2018 I went in for Lasik eye surgery. I had researched the surgery for about six months before making my first pre-op appointment at the end of last year to see if I was even a candidate. They did a series of tests that probably took 30 minutes and then later that week I got a call that I was an ideal candidate for Lasik. My vision was never horrible (both of my contacts were -1.75), but I worried the astigmatism in both eyes would rule Lasik out–nope! I set a date for my surgery in mid-February, having to have another, more in-depth pre-op appointment at the midway mark, two weeks before my scheduled surgery.
Two weeks before my surgery, I was no longer allowed to wear contacts–glasses only and this appointment was with, what they called, my surgery co-manager. A different doctor, closer to my home, that would double check to make sure everything was ideal with my eyes before surgery, and would also see me post op. This ended up being a very long appointment. I remember texting Chris cancelling plans we had because I was there close to 2 hours. In addition to a lot of the tests they did at my initial pre-op (done at the actual surgery center I was scheduled to have Lasik done), this doctor also dilated my pupils and did more in-depth…exploring? The truth is, I don’t know what they were checking for. They didn’t even tell me I was getting my eyes dilated that day. Which isn’t a huge deal–I just had to wear sunglasses for the next 24 hours. But he did answer all my questions. I had a lot of fears and concerns but he assured me Lasik was a breeze. That my surgeon was the best in the area and he had done over 12,000 Lasik procedures. I would be good as new, with perfect vision probably by the time the sun went down the day of.
One week before my surgery, I could no longer wear makeup and 24 hours before my surgery, I started a regimen of anti-biotic eye drops 4 times a day. There were also a lot of very specific, odd instructions. All of my clothes I wore the day of had to be freshly laundered because any sort of oils transferred from wearing them could interfere with the laser. I was to shower but not put on any deodorant. I wasn’t allowed to apply any lotion in the 24 hours prior to surgery either. And the instructions said if there was any trace of makeup found, I would be sent home. All of these things could interfere with the laser I was told. It was hard not to be nervous.
The morning of my surgery, I went in for my Lasik at 9 am. I signed a bunch of paperwork for it first thing and they said my surgery would be at 11, but they do one last round of tests beforehand. Chris looked at the clock and said he was going to go grocery shopping until it was time for my surgery (which he was invited to watch on a screen in a green room type setting). They, again, did a lot of the same tests they did in my previous two pre-ops. Look at the hot air balloon. Don’t blink. Don’t blink. Don’t blink. Okay, rest. I also did a few vision tests and then they made me watch a video about Lasik eye surgery outlining all the expectations and risks and I had to take a quiz on it–which brought me strangely back to high school. After the quiz, a third doctor came in, whom I had never met, and told me that they need to redo a test because one of the results “came back borderline.” I did the dot, blinky test again and went back into the lobby.
Within a few minutes, they called me back to the on-deck room. My surgery was up next. There was a sweet, older nurse there that handed me a surgery cap and booties. She gave me half a Valium and prescription Aleve while we waited for Chris. Soon the surgeon appeared and told me that my cornea was borderline too thin for Lasik and they were going to have to do something called PRK. “The recovery is a little longer, but the results are exactly the same” is all I was told. I texted Chris and told him they were switching the surgery. I had plans with my girlfriends that weekend at our cabin (a galentine getaway we had been planning for weeks) and I asked the nurse if I was still going to be able to make those and she said, “No, but you’ll probably be better by Monday.” I must have gotten a little bit visually upset because she gave me the other half of the Valium.
Chris showed up and they gave me the PRK consent paperwork to sign. (I need to pause here to say, I know now this is illegal. A patient cannot consent to surgery while they are drugged. Period.) To be honest, I don’t remember much else from that day. I remember the surgery smelled bad–like burnt flesh. I remember after the surgery, I could see enough to be ushered into a post-op room and then I remember my eyes shutting. The pain was so extreme. A nurse was teaching Chris how to administer eye drops by pulling my bottom lids open because my eyes couldn’t open.
There were 4 different eye drops. Numbing eye drops to be administered every hour for the first day only (no longer!), anti-biotic drops 4x a day for the first week, steroid drops (Predinisolone) 4x a day for a month and Refresh drops that I was told to put in as often as I needed, which was multiple times an hour for the first several days and I still drop them in my eyes around once an hour. The surgery has made my eyes incredibly dry. I was also sent home with Tramadol for pain and a prescription for Norco, too.
Like I said, I don’t remember much past the pre-op room that first day–that’s a side effect of Valium. But around 11pm at night, I was having trouble breathing. Every time I started nodding off, it’s like I would forget to breathe. I alerted Chris who called my doctor. The after hours nurse connected us to his personal line and he said it sounded like I was having an allergic reaction to the Tramadol and to give me Benedryl. Chris ran to the store to get some and I called my mom to try to stay awake so I wouldn’t stop breathing. I just remember it felt really difficult to breathe. Not like I was suffocating. But like every breath took an immense amount of concentration.
When Chris got home, I told him I was too afraid to take the Benadryl. I was afraid it was going to knock me out and then I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on breathing. Instead, I asked him to help me stay awake until the medication wore off. I don’t know how late we were awake (it’s really difficult to stay awake when your eyes can’t open anyway. Ha!), but I clearly survived the night.
Well, kind of. Remember, I was not allowed to take any numbing drops past the first day and apparently I was having an allergic reaction to my pain killers so everything to mask the pain from surgery gradually wore off. In the middle of the night, I woke up in the most intense pain I have ever been in. It felt like glass shards were in my eyes. Chris put some of the other drops in and I was able to go back to sleep, but by morning I was in bad shape. Coming from someone that never took anything more than Ibuprofen after having a baby, I thought for sure that would be sufficient for PRK. I lasted until noon before my back was arching and my toes were curled–in so much pain!!–I took another Tramadol. Which, when I think back, is crazy! But I couldn’t take the pain for one more minute. The pain melted away and miraculously, I had no trouble breathing.
I don’t know why for sure, but I have a theory (stemming from a steroid drops incident that occurred over the next few days) that the numbing drops are to blame for my difficulty breathing. They made their way from my eyes, through the pin holes in the corner (the lacrimal punctum) which is a gateway to your nose and down to your mouth and throat and eventually stomach. Everything was numb, and I think that was the cause of my breathing issues. The rest of the weekend was spent sleeping and trying to keep my eyes moist.
Tuesday (5 days post-op) I remember waking up and being able to see things I never saw before. I think I read the time on the stove and told Chris, “it’s fun to be able to see and read. I just want to go read things for fun.” I’m really cool. It didn’t last long. I’d go from being able to see pretty well to feeling almost blind within hours. I couldn’t drive because it seemed to come and go. In the morning things were clear, by night, I couldn’t make out any text on a screen.
Wednesday, 6 days post op, I took a turn for the worse. My lack of steady vision was giving me a headache and making me dizzy and the steroid drops were making me incredibly nauseated. This is when my anger at the entire situation started erupting. How could they pull this bait and switch on me!? How could they not prepare me for any of this!? Why did they tell me I was a perfect candidate for Lasik and then switch to a completely different surgery at the last minute?!Â
I still feel this way. I’m still upset. I’m still livid, actually. I feel tricked. I feel shocked that they could let someone undergo a surgery that they knew nothing about, with such an intense recovery time without any preparation or planning. They didn’t ask me what I did for a living or if I had any kids. I went in there for a one day recovery surgery and now they are telling me it could take up to 6 months to have the vision I thought I was getting that day. It’s disheartening.
I have since learned if I plug my tear ducts for 5 minutes, 4 x a day when I administer the steroid drops that I won’t get any of the nausea I was getting before. I have learned that my eye sight seems to be the best in the morning and tapers off by afternoon–so I try to at least answer my email first thing.
The eye guards seen above I wore day and night for the first 4 days and now just wear at night to make sure I don’t touch my eyes while sleeping while they heal. A lot of people tell me this will all be worth it. My doctor even told me that at my one week post-op where he removed my in-eye contact bandages. I told him that I was not prepared for this and that I felt tricked. He said, “The results will be the same soon.” I’ve since been back to see him for the Corneal Edema I’ve developed. My corneas have swelled up due to the trauma, making it even more difficult to see–we’re both glad it’s not glaucoma.
15 days, post surgery, I’m still hopeful it will all be worth it. But when someone asks me if I would recommend PRK surgery, I can’t answer that. Because in my mind, for the last 6 months I wasn’t getting PRK surgery. I was getting Lasik. And I know I didn’t get Lasik, I got PRK, but the experience has been tainted. If I knew I was getting PRK, and what that consisted of, I could have prepared. I maybe could have rejoiced a little more when I saw things clearly for a few hours. I wouldn’t have to spend the time I could see googling “is ____ normal after PRK surgery” because I would have already done my research. I wouldn’t be so unprepared. So angry. So lost. I would NEVER have done it when I did. At this point, I’m not sure I would have done it at all–but I’m not on the other side of it yet. Which makes you kind of wonder if that’s why they waited until I had popped half a Valium to spill that kind of news.
Hi, there.
Thanks for this post and I really hope your eyesight’s perfect now. I would love to hear an update – how long did it take you in the end to be able to see perfectly?
I’m going though the same absolutely frustrating experience. I had PRK about 3 1/2 wks ago and my vision is still not 20/20, far from it. I was not terribly near sighted either, about -2.0 in one eye and -2.50 in the other. Straightforward they said. 100% safe and 100% efffective, they said.
My surgeon said I could go back to work (I work in front of a screen for 10hrs a day) on day 5 and my vision would be perfect by day 10. I now know that this was a blatant lie and I have had a go at him twice already. Had I been warned, had I been properly informed by the two different, bloody ophtalmologists that I consulted with ,that PRK recovery is a 3 month process (or longer from what I;m reading in some blogs) I would have opted for Lasik. Or I would have backed out from surgery altogether. Or I would have done it at a time when I’d be less busy with work and other responsibilities. I was not properly informed and hence did not make an informed decsion. This is unethical (and potentially illegal).
So here I am now, not beeing able to read clearly on the computer, or my phone or a book. Really brurry vision for a couple of hrs in the morning and also again after dusk. Watching a film on the TV is also a struggle with lots of blurriness. And of course, the constant fear gnawing at me: what if my eyes remain like this for the rest of my life. While the doctor (two doctors again, as I wanted another post-op opinion) have said that this is normal (NOW they tell me), I’m still scared.
Apologies for the doom and gloom. I would love to hear an update on your eyesight from you.
Best,
Nayia , Greece
Wow. I have been reading all the posts here and it disgusts me how doctors downplay the complications, and conduct themselves so poorly. I never had any corrective eye surgery, but I was very close to getting ICL this year. If you don’t know what ICL is, in a nutshell its a lens implant (si ikar in a way to cataract surgery) that enables patients with high myopia, dry eyes, and who are not eligible for traditional Lasik/PRK surgery to see without glasses and contacts. If there are any issues with the implant you can have them extracted. However, the risks are very great in comparison to the rewards, if any. Let me explain further on what happened to me.
Without any corrective eye surgery done, I still stand as high myopic (approx -8.25 left and -8 right with very little astigmatism, enough to be negated altogether). I have worn glasses for about 31 years now and hate them due to the overall encumbrance, general misery, and really bad, sloppy opticians who do not know how to adjust frames properly, let alone supply adequate lenses. My old optician of 22 years abandoned me as well, but that is another story. Moreover, contact lenses are not an option for me because I naturally have dry eyes, albeit mild but still noticeable. It also did not help matters to be hyper sensitive, along with some OCD. So, I took the leap to see if I could be free from this visual “prison”. This is where things got interesting.
The first place I went to just did Lasik/PRK surgeries. Here I was automatically disqualified because I have hypothyroid and an autoimmune disease called Ulcerative Colitis, a form of irritable bowel disease. And I am also a suspect for Glaucoma due to high myopia and both my eyes having a large cup to fundus ratio. The pressures of my eyes have always been between 13-15 mm hg, within normal range since Glaucoma pressure is 22 mm hg and higher. Distraught and desperate, I did some more research and discovered ICL surgery. Where I live there are only 3 surgeons that do this procedure locally.
The first surgeon ran all the tests and said I was a perfect candidate for the ICL surgery, taking into consideration of all my previous stated health issues. He also told me that I will be able to achieve 20/20 vision (maybe even better) after the implant, something I wanted with any corrective surgery. I was almost sold but still cautious since the first surgeon lectured me of keeping my expectations realistic, etc. I was about to proceed with this surgery until I began asking and emailing the surgeon a bunch of pertinent questions. He did answer most of them earlier on but it was an information overload. I was also in shock to be a qualified candidate. Long story short, this surgeon refused to do the surgery because he said I asked too many questions, and did not feel comfortable proceeding. This was aldo partially due to Covid, since he also felt the entire clinic could not give me the level of after-care that I required. Of course I thought this was strange.
Distraught AGAIN, I sought the last local surgeon for ICL. There is another one but I have been to that guy for prescription glasses in the past and he had totally messed them up. Plus, he is known fir many botched surgeries, so he is definitely not an option. This last doctor, however, showed some initial promise. His surgical tech was very scattered though, and would constantly leave the room during the pre-screenjng; thus lengthening my appointment time by an additional 2 hours. At the end of the day, this last surgeon deemed me an excelkent candidate for both PRK and ICL surgeries. This was 4 months ago.
Here is where it got weird for me again. I was scheduled for ICL surgery a month later (August, 2020) but I was in a process of a large house move, so had to postpone it. There was no subsequent date made because the clinic needed prior approval for the following month to do the back-to-back surgery. Time went by, I settled into my new home and heard nothing from this clinic for nearly 2 months. By late September, 2020 I rang them and was told that the surgical tech suddenly quit the company in August, throwing everyone under the bus. They had no tech and were looking for one in the states (I live in Canada), but due to Covid they could not get one through the border. They had no ETA on this in the foreseeable future. Rightly so I was shocked and disappointed AGAIN. Had I not called I would have still been kept in the dark. I did not realize until a few months later to today’s date (December, 2020) that this was a blessing in disguise.
This last surgeon apparently owns and operates from at least 4 different clinics. I won’t get into specifics on this, suffice to say he HAS crossed the border the oerform surgeries. I know this because I did so.e research and found reviews that were written a week ago from his other clinics. So were they lying about the surgical thing? I cannot co firm this for certain but I smell a rat.
Last month I did another visual field rest to test my eyes for Glaucoma. I was in the clear and forwarded the results to that ICL surgeon, who then invited me to come back to be reevaluated for ICL candidacy. They need to do this anyway, so I agreed. 2 days ago I went to be reevaluated. The girl that took the measurements on my eyes was optimistic, saying if I was a candidate the last time I should still be one today. That gave me comfort cause I was super anxious. She also gave me a thumbs up on my eye pressure and everything else. Allseemed well until I saw the surgeon again. This time he was unprofessional and sloppy. When he took the measurements of my current prescription against what it was 4 months ago, he told me that my prescription got stronger. I was floored. How could it have so fast when my eyes only changed .25 or so from 2018 to late 2019? The prescription device was a bad experience cause the lens I had to look through had a lot of condensation and my mask kept fogging it up. We had to take my prescription a few times due to this, and because each time the surgeon was flicking through each lens comparison so rapidly. I told him to slow down but he refused to listen…another red flag.
At the end of the day, the surgeon told me I was still a candidate but not a strong one like I had been 4 months ago. He said it had to do with my prescription not being as stable as he wanted and me being a suspect for Glaucoma. I told him that my ophthalmologist gave me the clear on that. I once had to be checked every 6 months but because there were no changes on that end I am called to do it every year. Even so, the surgeon wanted me to come togothrough the entire gamut of pre-evaluations from scratch, including a visual field test in their clinic.
Some of you may think that this is good because the surgeon was not eager to jump on surgery right away. I agree, but there were a lot of red flags, most I have not disclosed here, regarding this particular surgeon. One thing I will say is that he did say that ICL surgery WILL raise the pressure of my eyes, regardless if you are a suspect or not. Even if I was the healthiest person on the planet this surgery comes with enormous risks. And if I ever needed to get the lenses out my vision and eyes overall will never be the same. This is something not clearly advertised anywhere. They say its a reversible procedure, should complications arise, but this is not the case. I feel alot is hidden for both Lasik/PRK and ICL surgeries. Another thing I was told is that there are NO guarantees that I will achieve 20/20 vision. I may still need glasses, with any complications that may likely happen. And my prescription will change.
I decided to NOT proceed. This was also due to the fact that they would likely need to do PRK on me to “top off” what ICL could not complete, leaving me with worse dry eyes than what I have naturally without any surgery. Its also a super expensive surgery, much more than Lasik/PRK. I was never given the exact figure or any safety instructions pre or post op, so that is another thin to be considered. Lastly, if I ever need to gave the lenses removed it would cost me about the same as when I had them installed.
No…technology today for thos dirt if thing is still too primitive and dangerous. Sure, there are success stories but there are no absolute guarantees. Everyone’s body is different and so are the surgeons, who you can be certain are motivated by greed. As for me, I’m glad I got all these red flags before I signed anything and went thru with the surgery. I had my doubts I would have remained a candidate anyway, especially given how quickly everything changed. I am still baffled by this because I see fine with the same eyeglass prescription that I have worn for the last 2 years. Weird.
I just wish there was something for unfortunate high myopia like myself. I heard there is technology for children to prevent the onset anc progression of myopia, but what about the adults still suffering with it naturally and after surgery? I dont know. That’s my experience anyway.
It does seem like you were allergic to one of the medication. Everyone is different, I had lasik as well and had an initial 2 hour assessment and then a scheduled date for surgery on April fools 2017.
That had a redo of tests 1 hour prior to surgery, I was given Valium prior nor was I told to use antibiotics prior.
My surgery lasted 15 mins qnd felt nothing. I did smell the laser burning my lens. Nothing uncomfortable.
After that I was sent on my way with teardrops and antibiotics. (I was told to not swallow or inhale while I put the antibiotics because it go to the other mucus membranes on the face) so basically she said I would taste the antibiotics.
Then I slept for 4 hours and all was great.
I’m sorry you had to go through this, I hope you found out or will find out if you had allergies to something.
Were you anxious or did they feel like you were anxious? Valium, Tramadol and Norco is quite extreme for eye surgery :(
I would seek other advice as well.
Best of luck !
Julia,
I am getting ready to have this surgery done. I am scared and worry about the pain. I don’t do pain well, and I also worry that it could be worse than wearing glasses. Can you help me with back up pain plans and what has helped you get though this.
Hello. I am in the same boat you were in, mostly. I have not had any adverse reactions to any drops or medications. But I am two weeks post op and bounce between hopeful and depressed. Do you mind sharing what your final outcome was or more of what followed post op?