A year after LASIK surgery

Hello everyone, I am writing this post because I've had friends/ people who are very interested to know more in detailed about my LASIK procedure I underwent in February 2016, so I thought I'd write about my experience in detailed and answer a few basic FAQs that you have in mind and hopefully be useful to all of you who are considering it. 

I wouldn't say that my vision is 20/20 now but I am grateful that I no longer have to rely on my glasses/contacts 24/7 like I used to before the surgery. It's great overall except I think my night vision is not as sharp as it used to be but I still don't need glasses as of now. I just have to pay extra attention when I am driving at night, that's it.

So basically the idea of getting LASIK surgery started when it got famous in 2012 but I thought it was not the right time to get it done yet as I was still in the university. There was a higher chance of recurrent myopia/shortsightedness even after the corrective surgery as my daily activities consist mainly of looking at near objects (books and computer) so I thought I might as well put it off until I finish my studies. My myopia was a bad one, almost -10.0 and I was literally blind without my glasses. The hassle of having to look for my glasses upon waking up, getting my broken glasses fixed (glasses chewed by my dog), getting dry eyes from contacts, lugging bottles of contacts solution on every trip have all contributed to making this decision.

After graduating from full time studies, (means using less of my eye power lol), I thought it's now time to reconsider it as I was getting sick of having to put on the contacts before going out, eye irritation from the concocts,  glasses getting chewed by my dog, glasses fogging up etc. I was pretty determined so I asked around and booked myself an appointment with one of the eye surgeons back home. There were plenty of those professionals now but back in those days there were only a few famous ones. 

The whole process started with an initial consultation which involved taking an eye X-ray (photo below), physical examination which lasted for a bout 3 hours , mainly just to check if my cornea is thick enough for the procedure. The surgeon then checked my X-ray result and when everything was good, I was scheduled for the surgery in 3 days' time. I could proceed to the surgery in such a short period of time mainly because I was already off my contacts for at least 2 weeks, which was a requirement for the surgery.

On the day itself, I got changed into a surgical scrub and the dr did a final eye check on me. Then I was asked to lie down on the surgical chair/bed and the doctor started putting anesthetic drop into my eyes. My eyes was clamped with my so that I could not blink and I was asked to focus on a green light on the machine. Lucky that I did not feel the need to blink after the anesthetic drop.

Mum was waiting outside so she took a video of the whole process

Then here comes the most uncomfortable part, the surgeon had to make an incision in the cornea to create a flap of tissue so the laser can be applied to reshape the cornea. There was no pain involved but  I could feel the pressure of my eyes being cut open. And, I could not move, or talk, or do whatever so it did not interfere with the process. I also saw some blood coming out so in my mind I was like what's going on am I gonna go blind. But I tried very hard to focus on the green light. And then during the reshaping process, I sometimes saw weird pattern and lost my vision for a bit and then all of the sudden very clear when the cornea flap is put back into my eyes. Then the same process went on for the other eye.

After everything was done I was still tearing and my eyes were sensitive to the light so I had to put sunglasses on for the next few days but I ended up wearing it for the next whole month. People might have thought I was crazy wearing glasses inside a restaurant. I tried to open my eyes once in a while to see how it feels like but i ended up seeing bruises in my eyes which did not go away for 3 weeks. I did take a photo but they were accidentally deleted so I had to get some photos from google and it looked exactly like the photo below. I had to apply antibiotic and anti inflammatory eye drops every 2-4 hours to prevent an infection and also lubricant eye drop every 30 minutes because my eyes were super dry.

I also had to sleep with an eye patch to prevent
rubbing my eyes accidentally in my sleep

Google image

Wearing sunglasses all the time ---even in the toilet 8)

That was basically my recollection of of my LASIK surgery. The process might be a painful but it was definitely worth it. Cause I can finally not to worry about where my glasses are in the morning, and it saves so much of my time wearing contacts before going out! :D