Post by leejunhui on May 6, 2014 5:28:29 GMT
Hi all, I am a 21 year old who just did LASIK to correct my eye degree in January. I will be sharing some information on LASIK, which I really wished someone would have told me or I had someone to ask before my operation.
To start off, LASIK is supposedly a pain-less process where a laser is used to correct your eye degree. This laser machine is pre-set before the operation, so there will be no human errors involved. There are 2 different types of LASIK procedures:
1) Intralase Bladeless Standard LASIK - ~$3000
2) Intralase Bladeless Wavefront-guided LASIK (iLASIK) - ~$4000
The first type is the standard package for LASIK surgeries, which is the choice of the majority. However, if your degree is exceptionally high, or your astigmatism is also extremely high, you will be recommended to do option two. Think of it as this: your shirt size is size 8.5, but option 1 gives you a size 9 shirt. It fits, but it's not catered to your body size. And option 2 is a custom-made size 8.5 shirt just for you. So yes, the 2nd option tailors the machine to work just for your eyes. Both procedures are exactly the same though.
PRE-OP
Now on to my experience. On the day of the surgery, I went to the clinic in the morning to do some eye tests. There were about 4 machines of tests to check if your eyes are suitable for the surgery or not. (If you're a contact lens wearer, you'll have to stop wearing it 2 weeks before these tests). Most importantly, they will be testing for your Cornea Thickness. The cornea will be cut during the procedure, so this test is to make sure that there will be cornea left after cutting it. Most people have a cornea thick enough to do LASIK twice in their life time, so don't worry too much here. After the tests, you'll be given an eye drop to dilate your pupils so that the doctor can check your eyes one last time and consult you on whether you should do the operation. Also, I was asked to watch a video on how the LASIK procedure is done. They kept on rumbling about how painless it was, and was it really painless? You'll find out later. My consultation was roughly at 11am, and the doctor gave me a green light. Right at this point, I could feel the nerves coming. I was so worried something might happen (touch wood of course), and I was considering backing out (even though I paid the money already!).
OPERATION
In the end, I stuck to my guts and carried on with the operation. I was asked to change into surgery wear and waited in the sitting room. The entire LASIK operation is a quick one, a 15 minutes procedure at most. And here's what happens: first you are asked to lay down on the operation chair and stare into this machine on top of you with rings of lights while waiting for the doctor. Then the doctor arrives and explains to you what he'll be doing, step by step. Firstly, I had to stare into this machine which is going to cut my cornea flap (
). What happens is the machine will shoot out lasers which will penetrate the surface of my cornea to a designated depth, forming a tiny air bubble near the surface of my cornea. This occurs millions of times in a circle, so that the bubbles connect and form a flap which can be flipped up. During this time, your eye lids will be held up, so no matter how badly you want to blink, you can't. This procedure takes about 20 seconds. It was not entirely painless, it felt like millions of ants were crawling on my eyeball. It was bearable, but extremely uncomfortable. I was squirming my toes and crushing the stress balls they gave me in my hands. This is done to both eyes. At the end of this part, my eyes were watering that I could hardly see a thing. The next step, the doctor will flip up that flap (YES FLIP UP). He used a small L shaped equipment to do it. I saw that equipment try to flip my flap about 5-6 times maybe because of the water in my eyes, the flap was not flipping easily. And finally, once the flap was up, everything was blurred up. It was like my degree shot up to 12390182390 degrees and I guess it's the closest feeling to being blind. Surprisingly, as gross as this part sounds, there was no pain or feeling in my eyes at all, but some people might find it uncomfortable for something to be poking and touching your eye balls even though you can't feel anything. Finally, the last step would be to stare at a red dot in a machine. This red dot is the laser I was talking about initially, pre-set to correct your degree. Depending on your degree, you will be asked to stare at the dot for different times. I had to stare at mine for about 20 seconds (300 degrees). I could barely keep my eyes focused for 20 seconds. My eyeballs kept drifting away because it was so tired, and the doctor had to constantly prompt me to concentrate. In the end, I concentrated hard because I didn't want to waste my $4000! After that is done, the doctor used the same equipment to flip back my cornea flap and used a brush like thing to flatten it, to make sure there are no air bubbles stuck underneath. Again, there was no feeling or pain at all, just a little funny seeing a brush brush your eyeballs. And the operation was done!
POST-OP
I was then asked to stand up and sit at another eye-test machine and the doctor checked my eye really quickly, probably to make sure the cornea flap was properly back in place. The cornea flap heals by itself, after 3 days it will be attached back, and after 3 months it should fully recover. I was then moved back to the waiting room where a nurse helped me put some eye drops and an eye shield, which I had to wear for the first 3 nights, to make sure I don't rub my eyes while sleeping and dislodge the cornea flap. As for eye drops, I had to buy 10 boxes of 20 eye drops. Crazy right, but I had to use one every hour while I'm awake, so those boxes ran out quickly. You had to do this for the first 2 weeks. At this point, I couldn't even tell that I had perfect eyesight, everything was hazy and blurry. I was given sleeping pills and told to go home and sleep. And that's the end of the operation procedure! After waking up, I felt like Spiderman and could see everything perfectly!
THE DAYS AFTER
After the surgery, you'll be assigned to return to the clinic periodically for checks, to ensure that your cornea flap is recovering well. You're also advised to wear sunglasses if you're going outdoors. It is very crucial for you to remember to put eye drops, because the dry eyes might be really bad after the operation. Sometimes, my eyes felt so dry it was like I had worn contact lenses for 3 days straight and not taken it out. But there was no way to get rid of the feeling except for sleeping. Of course, this doesn't happen everyday, it was just once or twice. After 1 month, there should be less dry eye spells and you would be looking at the world with perfect eyesight!
Now, I'll move on to the rough pros and cons of doing the LASIK surgery
PROS
CONS
To start off, LASIK is supposedly a pain-less process where a laser is used to correct your eye degree. This laser machine is pre-set before the operation, so there will be no human errors involved. There are 2 different types of LASIK procedures:
1) Intralase Bladeless Standard LASIK - ~$3000
2) Intralase Bladeless Wavefront-guided LASIK (iLASIK) - ~$4000
The first type is the standard package for LASIK surgeries, which is the choice of the majority. However, if your degree is exceptionally high, or your astigmatism is also extremely high, you will be recommended to do option two. Think of it as this: your shirt size is size 8.5, but option 1 gives you a size 9 shirt. It fits, but it's not catered to your body size. And option 2 is a custom-made size 8.5 shirt just for you. So yes, the 2nd option tailors the machine to work just for your eyes. Both procedures are exactly the same though.
PRE-OP
Now on to my experience. On the day of the surgery, I went to the clinic in the morning to do some eye tests. There were about 4 machines of tests to check if your eyes are suitable for the surgery or not. (If you're a contact lens wearer, you'll have to stop wearing it 2 weeks before these tests). Most importantly, they will be testing for your Cornea Thickness. The cornea will be cut during the procedure, so this test is to make sure that there will be cornea left after cutting it. Most people have a cornea thick enough to do LASIK twice in their life time, so don't worry too much here. After the tests, you'll be given an eye drop to dilate your pupils so that the doctor can check your eyes one last time and consult you on whether you should do the operation. Also, I was asked to watch a video on how the LASIK procedure is done. They kept on rumbling about how painless it was, and was it really painless? You'll find out later. My consultation was roughly at 11am, and the doctor gave me a green light. Right at this point, I could feel the nerves coming. I was so worried something might happen (touch wood of course), and I was considering backing out (even though I paid the money already!).
OPERATION
In the end, I stuck to my guts and carried on with the operation. I was asked to change into surgery wear and waited in the sitting room. The entire LASIK operation is a quick one, a 15 minutes procedure at most. And here's what happens: first you are asked to lay down on the operation chair and stare into this machine on top of you with rings of lights while waiting for the doctor. Then the doctor arrives and explains to you what he'll be doing, step by step. Firstly, I had to stare into this machine which is going to cut my cornea flap (
). What happens is the machine will shoot out lasers which will penetrate the surface of my cornea to a designated depth, forming a tiny air bubble near the surface of my cornea. This occurs millions of times in a circle, so that the bubbles connect and form a flap which can be flipped up. During this time, your eye lids will be held up, so no matter how badly you want to blink, you can't. This procedure takes about 20 seconds. It was not entirely painless, it felt like millions of ants were crawling on my eyeball. It was bearable, but extremely uncomfortable. I was squirming my toes and crushing the stress balls they gave me in my hands. This is done to both eyes. At the end of this part, my eyes were watering that I could hardly see a thing. The next step, the doctor will flip up that flap (YES FLIP UP). He used a small L shaped equipment to do it. I saw that equipment try to flip my flap about 5-6 times maybe because of the water in my eyes, the flap was not flipping easily. And finally, once the flap was up, everything was blurred up. It was like my degree shot up to 12390182390 degrees and I guess it's the closest feeling to being blind. Surprisingly, as gross as this part sounds, there was no pain or feeling in my eyes at all, but some people might find it uncomfortable for something to be poking and touching your eye balls even though you can't feel anything. Finally, the last step would be to stare at a red dot in a machine. This red dot is the laser I was talking about initially, pre-set to correct your degree. Depending on your degree, you will be asked to stare at the dot for different times. I had to stare at mine for about 20 seconds (300 degrees). I could barely keep my eyes focused for 20 seconds. My eyeballs kept drifting away because it was so tired, and the doctor had to constantly prompt me to concentrate. In the end, I concentrated hard because I didn't want to waste my $4000! After that is done, the doctor used the same equipment to flip back my cornea flap and used a brush like thing to flatten it, to make sure there are no air bubbles stuck underneath. Again, there was no feeling or pain at all, just a little funny seeing a brush brush your eyeballs. And the operation was done!POST-OP
I was then asked to stand up and sit at another eye-test machine and the doctor checked my eye really quickly, probably to make sure the cornea flap was properly back in place. The cornea flap heals by itself, after 3 days it will be attached back, and after 3 months it should fully recover. I was then moved back to the waiting room where a nurse helped me put some eye drops and an eye shield, which I had to wear for the first 3 nights, to make sure I don't rub my eyes while sleeping and dislodge the cornea flap. As for eye drops, I had to buy 10 boxes of 20 eye drops. Crazy right, but I had to use one every hour while I'm awake, so those boxes ran out quickly. You had to do this for the first 2 weeks. At this point, I couldn't even tell that I had perfect eyesight, everything was hazy and blurry. I was given sleeping pills and told to go home and sleep. And that's the end of the operation procedure! After waking up, I felt like Spiderman and could see everything perfectly!
THE DAYS AFTER
After the surgery, you'll be assigned to return to the clinic periodically for checks, to ensure that your cornea flap is recovering well. You're also advised to wear sunglasses if you're going outdoors. It is very crucial for you to remember to put eye drops, because the dry eyes might be really bad after the operation. Sometimes, my eyes felt so dry it was like I had worn contact lenses for 3 days straight and not taken it out. But there was no way to get rid of the feeling except for sleeping. Of course, this doesn't happen everyday, it was just once or twice. After 1 month, there should be less dry eye spells and you would be looking at the world with perfect eyesight!
Now, I'll move on to the rough pros and cons of doing the LASIK surgery
PROS
- Perfect eyesight at the end! No more spectacles/contact lenses.
- Almost painless operation
- Fast operation
- Extremely low chance of anything wrong happening
- Little or no human error during the operation
- Tests and surgery takes only a day
CONS
- Have to diligently put eye drops for the first 2 weeks
- Might experience dry eyes
- May have other vision problems like halos and night blindness*
- Might be slightly expensive
- Risk of degree increasing again**
* - The chances of such side effects are not high, and it is lower if you take package 2 instead of package 1. I'm not reccomending taking package 2 or anything because the risks of these side effects are low.
** - The chances of an increase in degree is the same as when you got your degree, i.e. it's like your eyesight 'reset', so if you don't take care of your eyes, the degree will increase.
I have tried by best to accurately depict the LASIK surgery to you, if you have any queries feel free to ask me! And PM me if you want to know the clinic I went to.
** - The chances of an increase in degree is the same as when you got your degree, i.e. it's like your eyesight 'reset', so if you don't take care of your eyes, the degree will increase.
I have tried by best to accurately depict the LASIK surgery to you, if you have any queries feel free to ask me! And PM me if you want to know the clinic I went to.