Lasik/PRK

[KevDen2005]

I and others went through with PRK over Lasik due to the flap issue. They basically grind down the front of your eye flat and then zap your eye with the laser and put a bandage contact in. The new cells grow under the contact and the contact is removed after 3 days. If you have an astigmatism, you will most likely have to do PRK. My wife had it done last year. I've had it done twice and may have to go for a third as old age is causing a vision shift.

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I have heard PRK recovery time is longer

[OneGuy67]

Yep, that is true. About 9 days total.

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[ray1970]

I already posted quite a bit about my experience in the other thread but will hit a couple of the high points.

First, I was blind as a fruit bat before my procedure and have been pretty much all of my life.

I had pretty bad astigmatism and some corneal scarring.

I am now better than 20/20 in both eyes.

I went with the 20/20 Institute and highly recommend it if anyone is looking for a place.

[KevDen2005]

I already posted quite a bit about my experience in the other thread but will hit a couple of the high points.

First, I was blind as a fruit bat before my procedure and have been pretty much all of my life.

I had pretty bad astigmatism and some corneal scarring.

I am now better than 20/20 in both eyes.

I went with the 20/20 Institute and highly recommend it if anyone is looking for a place.

Thanks Ray. The more I look into the more I can't wait. I have an astigmatism in my left eye. I got glasses for the first time 10 months ago and I just hate them. Especially working patrol in anything other than sunny days. Rain and snow or wind blowing crap on the glasses non stop is really annoying. Taking glasses off to look through scopes or other optics. Working out and needing to remove my glasses, then putting glasses back on and instantly fogging them up from over heating. I just never knew the pain of the people that wear glasses.

[Irving]

Everything OneGuy has said has been correct from both what I've read, and my personal experience. I had PRK done about two years ago and like Ray mentioned, it was the best money ever spent. I probably have 20/20 vision now, but I do see halos on some lights. It doesn't bother me much because I only even notice in situations like watching tv in a dark room where individual LED lights will have a halo. On coming headlights aren't even an issue. Oh yeah, this is MY personal experience, and I bet most other guys don't have this issue.

Anyway, I got PRK because my eyes were so bad that if I went with Lasik, they weren't sure if I'd be able to do even one more correction in the future as I get older. With PRK, they have to remove less material, so I may have enough material left to do as many as 3 corrections in the future. I should probably go back in and see what they think about the halos and see if I can get anything done for free. I thought I'd give it time to see if it would go away.

Let's talk about healing. As OneGuy said, they completely remove your lens, and it has to grow back. This makes the healing process longer, and more painful. They say it feels like you have sand in your eyes, and while that's true, it wasn't as bad as I thought, that may depend on how sensitive your eyes are though. I've been wearing contacts since the 6th grade, and usually not in good condition, so I have a decent eye discomfort tolerance.

Immediately after surgery, you can see perfectly, but your vision worsens as the day goes on. Over the next day or two as the pain goes down, your vision gets a little better, but then around day 4-5 it starts to get worse. This is because your lens grows back from the perimeter, and meets in the middle. When it meets in the middle, it fuses together like a mini mountain range, right on the center of your eye where your focus is. This is why your vision actually gets worse for a period right in the middle of your recovery. I could still see better during this time than before the surgery, and actually went back to work and started driving. With your profession, I would not recommend starting work again during this time, as you just can't see well enough to do what you do. This secondary blurring was frustrating because it's not the same as not being able to see like before surgery. Before surgery, even though I was nearly blind, if I wanted to see something clearly, I could just hold it closer to my face. During this secondary blurring, everything is the same amount of blurry at all distances, so I would often get my face very close to something, and never be able to see it better. It was frustrating and I felt stupid at the same time. That said, I could still see well enough to drive, and things that were very far away actually looked better, since I couldn't make them out before anyway.

EDIT: You can watch videos of the procedures on YouTube, but I'm not sure if I'd recommend that you do before hand or not. I'm not squeemish, but after watching the PRK video, my first thought was, "Oh man, I probably shouldn't have watched that first..." Once I watched it a few times, I got over it and it added another layer of fun to the surgery. When the doctor said, "Now we're going to put this ring on your eye. You're going to feel a little push, then we're going to fill it with medicine and it's going to be cold." I was thinking in my head, "Puh-lease, I know you're cutting my eye with a razor sharp cookie cutter, then filling it with acid to melt my lens off. Oh yeah, you never even mentioned how the next step is to scrap all the lens sludge off." haha.

[th3w01f]

What kind of prices are you paying for LASIK or PRK these days? I got LASIK at Spivack back in 2000 and it has been awesome.

I have a friend that wants to get it done but doesn't have a lot of $$$ so he's looking for a place that has reasonable prices.

[Irving]

Mine was 2100 in 2015.

[Guylee]

My PRK was done by the Army and now my vision is better than 20/20, so I guess it's probably pretty hard to mess up

It's a serious life changer.

[Delfuego]

I have a friend that wants to get it done but doesn't have a lot of $$$ so he's looking for a place that has reasonable prices.

Please tell him to save up and spend whatever the best doctor cost. I have a friend who's cheap corrective surgery went terrible. After several return visits, his eye are worse that before, still needs glasses and can never have another eye surgery.

[Irving]

Yup. If he wants to save money, he can carpool to the doctor, but eye surgery is not the place to be searching for Groupons.