LASIK WRITEUP

This serves as me recounting my own personal lasik experience. Please keep in mind that everyone's experience will be different, and only take mine as a personal anecdote and not anything more than that. For reference, my eye prescription at the time of my lasik was -7.00 & -1.75 on my right eye and -7.00 & -1.00 on my left eye. I'm 20 years old, and I have a very low pain tolerance.



The Day Before Surgery

There's really not much to say about this day, imagine going to the optometrist for a regular eye checkup with reading tests but a few more extra tests (retina imagery, eyeball pressure, tear expressions, etc).
It took about 5 hours ish (mostly in waiting rooms) and it was all for evaluating whether my eyes were suitable for lasik or not.


Surgery Day

After spending a few more hours in waiting rooms, I was called in the sterile waiting room. They put numbing eyedrops in my eyes and had me wait for about 30mins I want to say? I'm not sure since the entire waiting time there were no discernable clocks and I sat there without my glasses, so I was just chilling. During this time a few nurses came up to me to check my eyeballs, one of them wore a suit and explained the two machines used; 1 for slicing a flap in your eyeball and 2 for lasering your cornea into shape.
Finally they call me in the surgery room, they give me a brief explanation of the machines again and explained that I will mostly see darkness and a lot of flashing lights, and i will also smell some burning (of the lasers)
The entire surgery lasted about 5 minutes(?)

Machine One: Slicer

This one was the worst, like genuinely the worst. The doctor tried to put this soft suction cup over my eyeballs, but my body is very sensitive and the numbing eyedrops they put in during the wait time had worn off so I flinched in pain (injured my eyeball a little but it was negligible) and they had to put numbing not once, but twice so I can actually be comfortable.
Finally he puts the suction cup over my eyeballs and the suction my eyes out of my eye socket. This was one of the most uncomfortable blunt pain I'd ever felt, it was almost like tugging a string from the back of my brain.
The doctor told the machinist coordinates for the flap slicing, then they had a countdown. each eye took about 19 seconds to slice a flap in.

Machine Two: Laser

This one genuinely felt like nothing, the doctor clamped my eyelids open and told me to focus at a bright green light that kept blinking throughout the procedure. He pokes at my eyes a bit with some tools to open the flap and it just felt like a squishy feeling, no pain at all.
The doctor told the machinist coordinates again, then they had the same countdown, my right eye (-7.00 with -1.75 astigmatism) took 19 seconds while my left (-7.00 with -1.00 astigmatism) took 17 seconds.
I smelt a bit of burning throughout the lasering process but again, felt absolutely nothing. To be honest, after the slicer I was just thankful I didn't feel that weird ass blunt pain again. Afterwards he just pokes my eyes again to close the flap and puts protective medical contact lenses over my eyes, then the procedure was done!

Immediately after the procedure, my eyesight was a bit blurry but miles clearer than before. It felt like wearing old glasses if that makes sense. I didn't feel any pain, it genuinely felt normal save for the contact lens feeling since I've never worn contact lenses before.


The First 24 Hours

HOLY SHIT this was actually excruciating. We got home to the hotel and my eyes started tingling about 4 hours after the procedure. I decided to nap because I was exhausted and when I woke up about 2 hours later I felt like I couldn't open my eyes. when I did, my eyes felt like it was burning, though when I close my eyes though the pain doesn't subside, it just felt itchy. It felt like sand in your eyes permanently and you can't rub your eyes at all since the flap isn't glued down, so that would completely destroy your eyes.
It got so bad we called the emergency line, they said it was normal though, it was just the anaesthetic wearing off. I took painkillers though it didn't help, I popped the sleeping pill they gave and finally I could sleep (even though I was continually crying from the pain).
The next afternoon we went back to the doctor for a check-up and he took out the contact lenses. I felt miles better and we went back to the hotel to continue the rest of the recovery period.


Recovery Period

The recovery period of 2 weeks afterwards was just all about keeping up with the eyedrops they give you, taking care to not touch your eyes extensively, wearing eye guards to sleep, wearing sunglasses to go out, etc.
The worst of it is not being able to shower at all for the first 48 hours, then not being able to wash your face for the next week. My eyelashes were so crusty and my eyelids were sticky it was disgusting, but during this my eyesight gradually got better so it balanced out.
I was so sensitive to light though. We kept the curtains drawn in the hotel room and if it were open my eyes would get so tired and exhausted easily. Even now staring at a screen for too long would make my eyes very tired, but that's just my eyes getting used to the light again. I'm still wearing sunglasses if going out etc, but my eyesight is perfect it literally feels like wearing my glasses but better since there's no glasses


Final Thoughts

I recommend it! Keep in mind my pain tolerance is extremely low (paper cuts hurt me) so you'll probably handle the pain and stuff way better than me.
If you have some extra cash and really bad eyesight, I cannot recommend it enough. It's actually lifechanging, it was so strange at first to look at my face without any glasses clearly in the mirror. Also being able to see while showering is AWESOME. so THUMBS UP from me !!!

Edit
Pub: 16 Jan 2023 04:55 UTC
Edit: 22 Jan 2023 12:30 UTC
Views: 222