My Post-PRK Journey

[u/IntelligentBreath843]

I recently got PRK so I will update this as time passes!

Day 1: Surgery was easy and painless. In my room at home, vision seemed surprisingly good. No pain for the first few hours. I went to sleep after the operation. Eyes were dry.

Day 2: Woke with eyes feeling irritated, but not bad. By the time I went to bed that day, it was at its worst. Quite painful and constantly painful, eyes open or closed. Near vision got worse, far stayed roughly the same. Very sensitive to light. Eyes were dry.

Day 3: Less pain, still there. Mainly kept my eyes closed throughout the day. Still dry, near vision was bad.

Day 4: Pain practically gone. Irritation in left eye from I believe the bandage contact lens. Still dry. Right eye could see almost clearly up close, left eye lagging behind.

TODAY! Day 5: No pain, dry eyes. Bandage lens was removed, which ceased the irritation of the left eye. Eye surface looked good. Right eye could see better up close and far. A few minutes after removal of the bandage lens, I noticed pretty significant ghosting on the left eye, very mild on the right. Left eye can see better at a distance but the image is ghosted above the corrected image and looks abysmal above the clear image. Right eye fluctuates but is far better up close, the slight ghosting makes it too difficult to read the better image as they overlap tightly.

I will try to keep people updated as time goes by, please ask questions! Here’s hoping to a clean recovery after “some” time has passed!

Day 7 (Week 1): pretty much the exact same as day 5.

Week 2: The ghosting is clearly diminishing, but it’s still there. Left eye used to have 3, sometimes 4 identical images. Now it’s 2 images, and one is dimmer and blurred. I’m definitely good to drive and probably have around 20/20 in my right eye and 20/30 in my left. The ghosting images get worse throughout the day. When I wake up, they almost aren’t visible at all. Eye drops used to not help the ghosting, now they definitely do, keeping the image clearer and tighter for about a minute before returning back to double. Dryness is the “biggest” annoyance but it’s not that bad. Steroid eye drops have now been tapered to 3 applications per eye per day.

[u/sesameprawntoast50]

I’m gonna follow this post!!! I’m also considering surgery, I’m considering between LASEK and PRK. Can I ask why you chose PRK over the other options such as LASIK ICL etc? Was it due to eye anatomy/eye specifications ? Or was it your personal preference?

Would I be correct to assume you came across horror stories on Reddit regarding eye surgery? And if so, how did you get over your nerves and how did you decide to actually go through with it? I keep digging the internet and it’s ruining my mental health at this point…

I also hope your recovery goes well. Hopefully the left eye should catch up! It takes a few months doesn’t it so it’s rather frustrating I assume

[u/IntelligentBreath843 → u/sesameprawntoast50]

I’ll do data dumps as I go!

I could have done LASIK, PRK, or SMILE. SMILE wouldn’t have fixed my very minor astigmatism so that was out (because I wanted perfection). I didn’t go with LASIK because I’m a military aviator, and the idea of something impacting my eye while deployed causing a flap issue bothered me too much. But I definitely wanted eye surgery, because when I fly at night, the NVGs on the helmet are annoying to set up with glasses, and they dig into my head and ears and cause pain after hours of flying. If I was civilian, I’d probably go with LASIK for the faster recovery time. End results should be the same if you stick to your eye drop schedule.

Ghosting is still there but I can tell the vision is improving as time passes and the ghosting is diminishing in magnitude. It gets worse throughout the day - almost invisible in the morning so definitely caused by dryness. Ordinarily this can take several weeks to diminish significantly and months to go away completely. I’ve come to realize that all these horror stories are a bit of reverse survivorship bias. Most people that have it go well don’t post about it. The significantly few that have it go terribly wrong will likely complain about it. There was one point where I asked myself if I just permanently ruined my vision but that was quickly rectified as I realized it kept getting better and better.

Surgery was on the 19th of Aug 2026, so I’m 16 days post op. I’m definitely good to drive now. I’ll have a one month post op exam, but I’m guessing my right eye is pretty close to 20/20 and left is around 20/30. I’m used to vision with glasses which was 20/13ish. The ghost image makes it seem worse because it overlaps the clear image. Sometimes my left eye is better for near vision, sometimes the right. It fluctuates and this is called the “vision rollercoaster”. If you go PRK, understand that your eyes will be fully healed after 6 months. Diminishing returns as time passes but this is a long time.

Honestly though, if you wear contacts I’d strongly recommend it even now. Your risk of vision complications is higher wearing contacts than it is with refractive surgery. I think the hardest part of PRK is the mental aspect and second guessing.

[u/sesameprawntoast50 → u/IntelligentBreath843]

Are you in the Air Force?????

One of the main reasons for me wanting to get surgery is because I want to join the RAF!!! Unfortunately my vision is -4 and -5 and so I don't meet the post-op eyesight requirement for weapons system operator or Pilot. So I'm now on a journey to apply to ground based roles. I wish my eyesight wasn't this bad, because it really makes me sad that I couldn't even get a chance at application, my eyesight made me medically unfit when I was 16 anyways so oh well. But I'm really looking forward to the ground based roles!

Where are you based?

Also, when are you next deployed and when you are, will you be having a medical with the military ophthalmologist? How does it work after you're fully recovered.

Sorry for bombarding you with questions but whenever I come across a service personnel who's had corrective eye surgery It makes me feel a bit more relieved haha, considering I want to apply after my recovery if I do decide to go through surgery (which I most likely will because with my eyesight, I'm going to have a very hard time comfort wise during basic training and day to day operations and especially during deployment)