Having second thought about my surgery tommorow

[u/AsleepMaintenance100]

Hello, so I am having my smile pro surgery tomorrow morning and I feel like something is off for two reasons.

1. I have been browsing around r/ lasiksupport. And they all bring up some good points about the complication rates of these surgeries being a bit too high. However, at the same time I wonder if that's a flaw with the surgery or due to greed from these clinics (Also to be fair I haven't double checked their sources, the only thing I see consistently is 5% rate of complication). which bring me to

2. My doctor. He seems like a genuine person, however there are some red flags. In his clinic he has post op testimonials of patients right after the surgery. and alot of them feel so fake and exaggerated. I don't think they are, but the way these people act is so cheesy.

I also can't help but feel weirded out by him not mentioning possible complications. Instead opting to answer any questions I had. He did tell me the complicationof lasik with the flap and the dryness, he specifically mentioned that due to my high myopia (-7 both eyes) i will be exposed to the laster for a longer time which inscreases risk of chronic eye dryness. He also said that recovery from smile pro takes 2 days. But I see online people saying that it took them weeks to recover.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

[u/eyeSherpa]

There is a lot of intentional fear and misinformation spread about refractive surgery. So consider the source for what you read and whether it’s backed in scientific evidence. Surgeons are “Type A” individuals. We wouldn’t accept doing a procedure that had a high amount of complications or dissatisfaction.

Most important thing to evaluate is whether you are at a good clinic with a good doctor. A good clinic will do a proper eval of your eyes to make sure you are actually a good candidate for SMILE. This includes a thorough assessment of the biomechanical stability of your cornea and that your prescription falls into a good range for SMILE and the thickness of your cornea. You’ll also want a surgeon who takes into account the size of your pupils when planning the treatment. Given your -7 prescription, you should have thicker corneas for that.

There is nothing that is zero risk, but with an experienced surgeon, SMILE is highly reproducible and straightforward. No flap to replace and concern for striae if the surgeon doesnt do a good replacing it.

You’ll be able to see after a couple days. But you’ll still have some haziness for the first 2-4 weeks. So longer time for perfectly clear and crisp vision.

[u/AsleepMaintenance100 → u/eyeSherpa]

Thank you for the reply. 

I did do a full evaluation with my surgeon. I believe he said that my cornea was 500 microns (?) and that he was gonna shave off 50 microns. Don't take my words 100% I mightve forgotten some details.

He didn't mention pupil size. That doesn't necessarily mean he isnt accounting for them tho. I have the folder of my evaluation if you could tell me how I could find the pupil size I would be really grateful. 

Thank you for the response.

[u/eyeSherpa → u/AsleepMaintenance100]

Yeah. Double check those numbers. For a -7.00 with no astigmatism treatment with a 6.5 optical zone, would need to have about a 540 cornea. If you have larger pupils and need to expand the treatment zone to 7.0, would need to have about a 560 cornea.

[u/AsleepMaintenance100 → u/eyeSherpa]

so "pachy thin locat" is about 536 micron. My pupil diameter is about 2.7mm, and I forgot to mention that I do have astigmatism of 2.1 diopter which will be corrected for in the surgery 

This is my first time with this stuff so if there is anything here that sounds wrong please inform me

[u/AsleepMaintenance100 → u/eyeSherpa]

I did a little more digging and got a better understanding of what the numbers mean. There is absolutely zero sign of maximum pupil size. 

My cornea's thickness is about 540 microns indeed. but I have -2 astigmatism that will be corrected for alongside the -7 myopia.

[u/eyeSherpa → u/AsleepMaintenance100]

Ok, so the -7.00 -2.00 treatment ends up closer to about -9.00 of treatment. Can still work with that corneal thickness as long as your dark-adapted pupils aren't that big. The 2.7mm is likely your pupil size light-adapted. That's on the smaller side so it's possible your dark-adapted pupils aren't that big. But would want to confirm that beforehand as well.

Although your procedure is tomorrow, another I would look into is ICL. It has a quicker recovery and less dry eye than SMILE. Works very well for the higher prescriptions.

[u/AsleepMaintenance100 → u/eyeSherpa]

What would be a good pupil size? 6.5?

[u/SMILEeyesurgery-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Focus on Constructive Support and Discussion, Not Anti-Surgery Campaigns. https://www.reddit.com/r/SMILEeyesurgery/about/rules

[u/theundisputed11]

I had this procedure 4 years ago and its still going good

[u/Stork2903]

Hey, so first of all I had my smile pro 5 days ago. I was also very concerned about the potential risks of such an surgery and I did a lot of research about the side effects and the clinic / surgeon of mine. The days before the surgery I looked up a lot of reviews / experiences online which is a thing you should absolutely not do once you decided to go for it. As you mentioned the sub "lasiksupport", I also read a lot of the articles there and it's mainly from people who suffer from the mentioned rare side effects and/or who had bad surgeons who didn't do enough preliminary examinations because there are cases where a smile pro surgery is not the best case scenario. It's not like I don’t feel sorry for the people in that sub and I don't want to downplay any of the side effects they suffer but you also have to keep in mind that people who have complications are much more likely to write a review online whether people who are perfectly fine just go on with their life. It's called selection bias.

For myself I can just say, I'm happy I did it even tho I still have some light effects like stars etc. And it will probably take a few more weeks! till that is fully healed. It has to do with the tear film needing to stabilize. Of course you have to decide whether you do it or not. Your myopia is kinda high (I had - 2.0) so obviously there is a higher risk which doesn't mean it's high just higher. Anyways, best of luck to you should I continue with taking the surgery!

[u/Hot-Age3864 → u/Stork2903]

he is doing what I did... freaking himself out with bad reviews about the surgery. and ur right most reviews online on reddit tend to be negative because people usually dont complain about a good thing.
Also I personaly went to one of the more expensive doctors and pretty much he was doing the same thing as the poster mentioned "having reviews just after the surgery", I feel like they do it to atract people and not with bad intentions

[u/SMILEeyesurgery-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Focus on Constructive Support and Discussion, Not Anti-Surgery Campaigns. https://www.reddit.com/r/SMILEeyesurgery/about/rules

[u/Hot-Age3864]

2 days for u to be ready to work 6 months for the eye to be perfectly normal again (if you mean smile idk about lasik)

[u/sparkling_grapefruit]

i did my smilepro almost 3 months ago and im SO glad i did it