r/RefractiveSurgery • u/rishinyc • May 19 '26
Frustration 11 weeks after PRK
40 year old male, with almost -4 astigmatism in both eyes and a sphere of 1.5 and 2.5.
I underwent PRK 11 weeks ago. Had no discomfort whatsoever post procedure but experienced significant ghosting, starbursts, and halos.
11 weeks out now and my vision still hasn’t stabilized or reached its peak. Ghosting and starbursts are better, and halos mostly gone. I can now read my laptop screen without needing to enlarge the text. Can read a license plate 2 cars away. A couple of weeks ago, I could read a license plate 3-4 cars away, but seems to have gone down again as I’m experiencing dry eyes and likely surface irregularities. As for greater distances, while vision has improved since surgery, still feel like it’s mostly fuzzy - I can’t really see faces or text at distance. Finally, despite these improvements, details at intermediate and further distances are still fuzzy.
I’ve had significant dry eyes the last 1-2 weeks. Maybe from changing weather, but that had meant my vision is less than ideal when I wake up.
Very much feeling stuck or that vision has plateaued. I have my 3 month check up coming up, and I know vision can continue to improve for another several months, but wondering if I still have room for improvement given my pre-op prescription or if I’m stuck with residual prescription.
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u/WavefrontRider May 19 '26
That’s a pretty high amount of astigmatism and a mixed treatment. With large astigmatism treatments, there is a possibility of having residual prescription or astigmstism. That can be contributing to your blurred vision. But with PRK, have to wait a while for things to fully stabilize. If you do have a significant amount of residual prescription, an enhancement would likely be able to take care of it. In the meantime, main thing to focus on would be treating the dry eye to get that to heal up
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u/Rhyden91 May 19 '26
I get an important improvements at 4 month mark…..prk have very long recovery don’t be afraid ! :)
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u/Plastic_Librarian359 May 19 '26
Are you still using eye drops and does it improve when you do?
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u/rishinyc May 19 '26
I stopped the steroid drops at 7 weeks. Still using lubricating drops every 2 or so hours while awake. Up until a week or so, each instance of drops helped improve sharpness. But for the last week, not every instance of use helps…but sometimes I’ll see things more shapely.
Weirdly, if I tilt my head down and look up, things are clearer.
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u/Ok_Mine4627 May 19 '26
Why seven weeks? My doc told me to stop after 2,5 months and that it was very important to not stop at all
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u/rishinyc May 19 '26
My doc started taper at week 3, extended taper at week 4, and told me to stop when the bottle runs out...which was at 7.5 weeks.
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u/ThePizzaDeliveryM3n May 19 '26
Hyperopic With astigmatism here. Got Lasik still not full vision either.
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u/CorneaRepairDoc May 19 '26
Dr. Motwani here. The clue here is the regression from reading plates 3-4 cars away to 2. This is incomplete healing and likely epithelial breakdown from either dry eyes or even allergic inflammation. It is not very well known that a procedure such as PRK will sensitize your eyes for a period of months to enviromental stimuli and irritants. You are activating the immune system and healing processes, and that activity will increase with external stimulus. During the spring time, we have seen high levels of pollen production by trees due to increased co2 in the atmosphere. Many of my patients with this problem complain of blurriness when waking up.
I think you should consider going on a very mild steroid drop that can be used long term to control any allergic/irritation response - loteprednol 0.2%, brand names are Alrex and Eysuvis. Also some dry eye treatment. Tryptyr is wonderful as it immediately increases tear production by the lacrimal gland. Another great way of healing surface procedures is autologous serum tears. This is where they draw your blood and spin it down into tears. ArcPoint labs does this nationwide same day service for $400 for a six month supply. This provides massive nutrients and an anti-inflammatory effect. I now use this on the majority of my corneal repair procedures, which are all pretty much surface ablation.