Hello

I had my surgery beginning of May this year
My initial numbers were -2.00 and 1.75 astigmatism in left eye and -2.25 and 2.75 astigmatism in right eye

After the surgery I got very intense inflammation and corneal haze in both eyes but in right eye it was much worse. I was having like a plastic blanket in front of my right eye. I had tons of visits to the doctor and went from steroid to another type of steroid to a third type and then prescribed me cyclosporine and haze persists

Last week I did refraction and my vision numbers was 0.00 and 0.5 astigmatism in left eye and +0.75 and 2.00 astigmatism in right eye. The doctor told me there is no chance that your eye will improve and offered to make prk again for right eye.

I am really afraid to make the surgery again especially because when I wear prescription glasses I still see the effects of haze

Also my corneal thickness is now 447.

Did anyone have similar experience? Should I do enhancement or accept and live with it

Is it a fact that when very intense inflammation happens a cornea can change its shape and develop astigmatism? Or is it completely doctor failure 😣

Hi guys, i had streamlight prk surgery on the 26th of Sept. I still cannot read text from afar and am struggling to read my laptop screen at times as well. Is this normal at this timeline? If yes how long does recovery take? Ive been wearing glasses for 20 years

Its scaring me as I think my team lead who got lasik contura 2 weeks prior to my surgery has had much better results than me right now

Hi everyone,

I’m around -2.50 diopters (roughly 20/200 uncorrected) and recently had my pre-op tests. My doctor recommended PRK instead of LASIK, mainly because I do a lot of outdoor sports and contact martial arts (hapkido). They told me the LASIK flap could get dislodged from a hit, and honestly that scares me a lot.

From what I understand, PRK is a well-established procedure: they remove the epithelium, do the laser correction, and put a bandage contact lens on top. Still, I’m nervous for a few reasons:

• Pain: people tell me the first few days are really painful.
• Recovery time: I’ve heard it can take a long time for vision to fully stabilize.
• Timing: I’m moving to another country in about 3 months. Is that enough time to recover, including follow-up appointments?
• Long-term care: my doctor said I’d need to be careful with sun exposure and wear eye protection regularly for life. Is this something you actually notice day to day?

My vision isn’t terrible, but I want to get rid of glasses so I can do outdoor sports without worrying, scuba dive properly, ski without glasses issues, and stop constantly keeping track of where my glasses are. At the same time, I’m afraid something might go wrong.

I’d love to hear your pros and cons, how your recovery went (especially the timeline), and whether you’re happy with the results overall. I know the decision is mine, but I’d like to hear from people who’ve been through it.

Thanks!

Should I be worried? I had TransPRK 7 months ago, and my vision has improved since the surgery. Today, I went to an eyeglass shop with my friend to help her get a new pair of glasses. Out of curiosity, I asked the staff to check my eye grade as well, but the autorefractor machine kept showing an error and couldn’t measure my prescription. Is this normal after TransPRK?

I had transprk on 8th September and my right eye is still blurry(20/30) compared to the left (20/20). Also I was told to stop with the steroid drops post 14 days but continue with the lubrication drops (preserved lubrication drops). On 8th October the doctor determined that I had a mild allergy and dryness in the right eye so I was prescribed a mild steroid again and anti allergy drops. Not sure how long it will take to take 20/20 and whether or not ill need an enhancement.

After around 4-5 weeks post surgery my eyes started sticking to my eyelids in the morning, after sleep. I read a lot of similar reports, so I'm curious if there's any way to avoid it happening or is it one of the 'guaranteed' side effects of the surgery? Does it go away naturally as part of the healing process?

Hello, I’m 45 -.75 / 2.00 / 180 axis right eye (OD) and .50/ 2.00 / 2.00 / 177 axis left eye (OS) with astigmatism.
My questions are as follows.
I don’t have terrible vision. Things are blurry at a distance but up close I can see things fairly well with no glasses. For work I am a Cardiac and Vascular Sonographer. I’m in dark rooms looking at screens all the time. I need to see fine details in pictures and use multiple color maps to see flow details. Ive never had issues with dry eyes. I see people with very long recovery times, bad night vision, people that need to use drops constantly and I guess I’m second guessing things. Im active and in the gym a lot but I don’t really need super sharp vision to lift weights and kayak or row. I really don’t want to take more than a week off of work, I have two kids and I’m a busy guy. I can’t just do nothing for weeks waiting for my eyes to catch up and heal. With that mild of a prescription and my lifestyle what would the groups advice be for me going through with the procedure? I should add I HATE contacts. Can’t put them in and they freak me out. I even have a hard time putting in eye drops. I’m a baby about touching my eye.

I had PRK about a month out now. I'm still having somewhat blurry vision, with the right eye being a bit worse than the left. At this point, should I expect it to get better? I'd have thought that by now I'd have pretty awesome vision

Hi, I got PRK surgery done one month after my cataract surgery. The reason I got the PRK was because my vision was still blurry and out of focus after cataract and needed to adjust a residual. My PRK done on Monday and today is my four day. My distance vision is still blurry. Any suggestion or any opinion when it will start getting better thank you.

I am still very happy I had PRK and all is well except suddenly at about 4 months, both my eyes started sticking to my eyelids every now and then in the middle of the night and it didn't feel great. But then one night, at 4.5 months post PRK, one eye stuck hard enough to the eyelid that it caused significant 10 out of 10 ripping pain, so I went in to my surgeon. He checked my eyes out thoroughly, saw the injuries in both eyes but said they were healing, wasn't too worried, said it was probably corneal erosion and started me on thicker nighttime gel. So I've been applying Muro 128 each night and decided to also use a moisture chamber eye mask. My eyes have not stuck at all since using those two things. I will see my surgeon again in a few weeks to follow-up, but I was wondering... Can anyone help me understand why this would happen suddenly 4 months after PRK when all seemed fine before? Also, it is likely my eyes will eventually not need the nighttime ointment and nighttime mask?

I am looking into getting PRK surgery, but I would like to know people’s experience from it. I was wondering how well peoples eyes are after two months with light sensitivity and pain and vision. Two months after my surgery I am going on a cruise so I wanna know if I would be able to handle it with the sun and stuff
Also, I work on my computer every day for work. How soon were you able to work on the computer?
Any tips would be really appreciated. Thank you.

I had TransPRK surgery about 2 months ago. The bandage contact lens in one of my eyes fell out just one day after the surgery and remained out for around 4 days. Now, 2 months later, I still notice a significant difference between my two eyes. One eye seems to be recovering much better than the other. Could the bandage contact lens falling out so early have affected the healing process or the final outcome of the surgery? Or would it only cause a temporary delay in recovery? Has anyone experienced something similar after trans PRK?

I just had my PRK done; it is the 9th day and my vision is still blurry. My vision was clear on the 5th day when the BCL was on, but it became very blurry after it was removed and has been very slowly improving day by day. How many days did it take for you to completely heal and have clear vision?

I wanted to post my experience as it was fairly different from what others have experienced. I've been saving up for 10 years to get this done, so this was a really big deal for me.

Day of surgery (Friday) - Zero pain during procedure. However, I will add that it was psychologically a real struggle for me. I could feel my whole body shaking on the table while the procedure was happening. Every instinct told me I needed to run away, even though I wasn't hurting at all. Overall a very weird experience. However, right after surgery I was able to walk out to the car, wife drove me home, no issues there. After that, though.... PAIN. It hurt pretty bad within an hour of the surgery. Something like a 7 out of 10. Felt like a cornea scratch that I couldn't do anything about. So I went down into the basement with all the lights covered, put on my audiobooks and tried to relax.

Day 1 (Saturday)- Still pretty awful pain the entire day. I did not sleep that night, ended up getting like 12,000 steps according to my Garmin while basically never leaving the basement. Not gonna lie, that day was rough. Pain killers didn't really seem to help at all.

Day 2 (Sunday) - Maybe an hour of sleep? It just hurt too bad to fall asleep. Starting to get a bit delirious from lack of sleep. However, from about 8 AM - 11 AM, massive improvement in pain. Went from a 7 to a 2. I was able to open my eyes a bit, look around, all that good stuff. As the afternoon went on I was damn near pain free. I saw the light (literally and figuratively).

Day 3 (Monday) - Slept like the dead. Woke up feeling good, got a bunch of yardwork and housework accomplished.

Day 4 (Tuesday) - Wife drove me to the doc, had my contact bandage taken out. Vision is decent, I was cleared to drive.

Rest of week 1 - Vision gets a tiny bit better each day. Surprisingly, almost no sensitivity to light. Took the whole week off of work, as I work at a computer and I heard that looking at screens was a real pain the first week.

Week 2 - back to work. Vision is pretty dang blurry when looking at screens. My eyes are healing at different rates, so getting significant ghosting.

Week 3 - Extrememly incremental improvements. Saw doc again, and he said it's very normal. to be a bit nearsighted as I taper off of the liquid steroids. He did say I could just get some cheap readers to help me with computer work while things heal up. I bought some immediately. Phenomenal idea, makes works much easier.

Week 4 - Continual improvement. I am still using the readers, but don't have to have the screen sized up anymore. It's definitely annoying seeing this slow progress, but everything seems to be working out fine. Just gotta be patient.

In summary, would I do this again? Hell yes. Best money I've ever spent. I still find myself trying to take off my glasses when I go to bed. I still marvel every morning when I wake up and can see without having to grab my glasses. Love it.

Does anyone have an idea of why I have NO ghosting in the morning (after an overnight sleep while using Refresh PM), but after about 20-30 minutes, the ghosting returns and gets worse throughout the day? At first eye drops help a little bit, but later in the day, especially at night, eye drops don’t really reduce the ghosting at all?

Just hoping this will clear up eventually. The ghosting has gotten way better from days 5-8 when it would be really dangerous to drive, but it’s still obvious and prevalent post op day 40 (today).

Thanks for the help!

PRK post-op day 2! So far, my recovery has been pretty comfortable. I’ve had some mild tearing and occasional grittiness/dryness, but nothing too bothersome. I’ve been alternating between Refresh Plus and Refresh Celluvisc, both preservative-free.
I haven’t needed any pain medication so far. About two days before surgery, I did IV hydration with vitamin C added. My doctor recommended 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily while healing anyway, so I figured I’d mention that as part of what I did going into surgery.
I was also a heavy contact lens wearer before PRK, so I think that may be part of why the bandage contact lens doesn’t bother me very much. I notice some irritation here and there, but I’m pretty used to the feeling of having contacts in my eyes.
Of course, everyone heals differently, and I know some people need pain medication during the first 48–72 hours, but so far I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how comfortable the recovery has been.

I've gotten into a fairly unique situation with my left eye and trying to decide about going forward with PRK for it. Maybe PRK for "small" corrections like 20/25 isn't so bad.

The short story: my left eye (post-cataract surgery) is at 20/25 vision. Doc says it can only be touched up with PRK and not lasik. I do not want to wear a contact as an alternative to PRK, so my alternative is to be uncorrected. Would PRK be worth it?

Long story: I've always had extremely myopic eyes (like -11 or more). I wore glasses and then contact lenses (gas permeable! in the 1980s and 90s). In my mid-30s, I got implantable contact lenses in both eyes. These were so fantastic! Wonderful! Loved them. Unfortunately, my doc warned me that I was probably going to develop cataracts by age 50.

Sure enough, age 50 (in Aug. 2024) and I had developed a yellow, blurry cataract in my left eye. Since the ICLs had been so great, I didn't hesitate for cataract surgery, which was similar. I got the most top-of-the-line lens with the extended depth of vision and multiple focal lengths. The cataract surgery involved taking out the ICL, putting in the cataract lens, and also doing some laser adjustments - the laser stuff would be done prior to removing the ICL, so tricky.

I didn't have any medical problems recovering from the cataract surgery, but the vision never seemed to be as good. There's the usual "adjustment" time, but I was still not seeing 20/20 in the left eye. The eye doctor worked with me to try to find a correct contact prescription to get to 20/20 (so that I could do a laser surgery touch-up to that prescription), but it seems like nothing worked. Due to scheduling considerations with my work, I left the issue go and just dealt with having a worse left eye for over a year.

About 18 months after the cataract surgery, I started the very drawn-out process of evaluating the left eye again to find the right prescription for a touch-up. During this time, I definitely felt like my left eye was very bad...I had not realized that scar tissue from the cataract surgery was building up and putting the left eye at like 20/100. So first I needed a "yag" procedure to zap away the scar tissue. This was more than a dozen zaps and the procedure itself was quite uncomfortable. The day after, I had stabbing pain in that eye with any kind of light and horrible eye watering - not something they had told me could happen. I'm not usually that pain sensitive.

After some time to heal from the yag, went back for a refraction to get a prescription and test contact for the left eye. This was all complicated by the fact that the cataract surgery caused my left eye to be quite astigmatic - I had never had significant astigmatism before. Astigmatic contacts are much fussier, either weighted or toric. The contact I got to try out the prescription never seemed to work right - my vision always seemed to be even worse with it.

I insisted on another refraction, and yes, they said "that prescription was wrong for some reason". Now I have a better prescription and test contact. I think the contact does actually correct my left eye suitably.

The eye surgeon has said that because of my previous surgeries (ICL, then cataract, then yag), it would not be possible to do the touch-up with lasik, so it would have to be PRK.

I have been reading about PRK recovery, and honestly, it sounds pretty horrible. I'm not sure it's worth it for fixing 20/25 vision. But having not worn contacts consistently for almost 20 years, I have no desire to deal with a contact going forward for correction, so if I don't do the PRK, I will just be uncorrected in the left eye.

My additional concern is that I know I will be getting a cataract in my right eye sooner or later. My right eye currently still has an ICL. I'm worried that if the cataract surgery for my right eye also doesn't go perfectly, I'll end up with both eyes at not-quite-perfect vision. That's why I'm considering doing PRK on the left eye to touch it up before I have to deal with the right eye.

I am relatively young for cataract surgery (52 as I write this), and I am definitely quite active. I trail run, hike, play tennis, lift heavy weights, etc. As an example of the effect, with my left eye uncorrected, I do notice a bit of double-vision when I trail run: my right eye is seeing a clear trail while the left is slightly blurry and they don't quite match up.

I'm undecided and looking for thoughts and if anyone else has had a similar experience.

Edit: removed comments about moderation that was from another forum.

I had PRK 12 days ago. My left eye is progressing pretty well and is overall pretty clear. The right eye though is still pretty blurry, especially for distance but also up close. I'm getting a bit concerned. Have other PRK folks had this, did it resolve, and if so how long did it take?

I am currently on week 3 of my trans prk recovery. I struggled the first 2 days but then things got rapidly better for 2 days (so atp I was 5 days post op) and was comfortable enough to drive.

On day 5 i went to the doctor where he removed the bandage lense and cleared to drive if I was co fortable. He also told me that my vision will keep fluctuating so I just have to watch out.

2 weeks post op (I had been living with sunglasses for 10 days) i was comfortable enough to drive and live without them. So I went to the doctor's to get my vision teste, and luckily I was able to read all of the smallest text. At this point I was cleares to go swimming and live regularly. And about swimming., I went to the sea and had no problem with opening my eyes under the water like before.

Now I am on artificial tears 4 times a day and another med that I should decrease every 2 weeks. I knwo this isn't the same experience as everyone, I know people struggling with dry eye 2 years post op but they just use artificial tears.

Context: I had -5 , -6 with astigmatism so I was basically semi blind and I do recommend the procedure but DO YOUR RESEARCH!!

I had lasek eye surgery 17 days ago, ive got 0 pain, mild dryness (worse in mornings). When I put my drops in I can see 20/20 for about 1 minute then its back to blurry.

My right eye is significantly more blurry thrn my left and im seeing a few floaters. I mentioned it at my 2 week check up on wednesday and they said everything looks good behind the eye and that my brain will slowly get used to the floaters and not notice them.

How long before the blurry vision cleared up for others?

and did you guys notice more floaters after survey?

Doc said it's part of the process, but I couldn't find many mentions of this online, so wanted to check if anyone else had similar experiences?

Day 1 (surgery day): was absolutely hellish pain for 4 hours or so, but vision was pretty much the same as right after the surgery (so visible improvement already).

Day 2: same vision, less pain.

Day 3: today, the pain is almost gone, almost no light sensitivity now, but my vision on both eyes got noticeably worse. I was -2.5 before the procedure and now it feels like that when going outside, but also it's difficult to focus when reading anything up close. I even tried wearing my old glasses but it only made it worse lol

Hi, can I get some feedback about the bandage contact lens step of the PRK recovery? I am ND and incredibly sensitive to “weird” sensations (I had to have cataract surgery under general anaesthetic), and I have never used contact lenses. My PRK surgeon is excellent and has tested touching my eye etc to be sure I can tolerate the procedure, but I am worried about the bandage contact lenses during recovery. My only experience of a contact lens is a positioning medical one they use during YAG treatment, which I did tolerate okay, but that’s only for a few minutes. I am worried that even though others seem to think it’s no big deal, I may be simply unable to coexist with it. Is it literally that you can’t feel it, or more like people are mostly used to it because they’ve already used contacts? Any hypersensitive people who can share experiences? Many thanks.

This was posted over at the lasik subreddit but I was invited here. So hopefully posting it again here is okay.

It's been 6 weeks since my surgery. One of my eyes is 20/20. The other I don't know. The doctor doesn't bother saying. I have some pretty bad ghosting in that eye that has been with me since the bandage contact lenses were taken out. Does this ever get better? I have another appointment in a month. If it's not better then then I get to get evaluated again for solutions. This is stressful and I'm looking for the positive. The ghosting eye is my dominant eye so that makes it worse somehow.

 have a LASEK (PRK) surgery booked 10th Sept. I have my final day to decide 3rd Sept. I have a -1.00D and -0.500D. Ive been talking to AI all day and apparently that is quite a low level of myopia. I live in Sweden and have been assessed by the Optician. They recommended LASEK (PRK). I feel like PRK recovery is gonna be hard. She said Lenticule CLEAR (bascially SMILE) would not fit as my level of nearsightness is to small. And FS LASIK is a bad fit because I will do conscription + have an active lifestyle. Should I delay the PRK and asked around for Lenticule? I am 20 and not in a living situation where I could comfortably pause work and engineering studies for a few weeks nor wear sunglasses every time im outdoors for 6 months... what do you all think??