The pool water burns me when I open my eyes in the pool. I had PRK though where the flap is totally removed.
Kwando, I am not going to lie to you, it hurts. And I was out of commission for almost a week (blind-ish) And I was not able to look at computer screens for a month. It felt like I had steel wool scrubbed all over my eye. I at first couldn't open the eyes for very long, and you have to put eye drops in like every 30 minutes or so and that ramps down over the course of the month or so. You take steroid eye drops for 1 or 2 months. I occasionally need tears naturale eye drops but not much anymore. (it has been 6 years)
You also have to go back for follow-ups for a while to make sure your eye pressure does not go up. Those are 15 minute appointments. The procedure is a little longer because they remove the flap. So for me they used the round toothbrush looking thing to floor buff my eye to loosen the layer. and then they took it off, did the procedure, I read the clock, and they put contacts on my eyes that I wore for 3 days.
Looking back, I would definately do it again though.