My LASEK Experience

Watching patients going through LASEK or LASIK is one thing but having me lying on the operation bed is another thing.  Yes ~ Yes~ I had my eyes corrected using LASEK method on Nov 11th. The decision was made in the morning and together with my 2 other colleagues, we had our vision examined, Orb Scan and Wasca done by 3pm. At around 5pm, Dr. Kim examined all our eyes and we were sent to the operation room to get ready for our surgeries. I was the first one and of course I was a little nervous but with all my good colleagues supporting us, I felt assured.

After lying on the bed, they aligned my eyes with MEL-80 machine, my eyes were rinsed with saline and local anesthesia drops were provided. By then I felt my throat drying and I felt like coughing.  However, my colleague kept telling me not to move my head too much as alignment was done.  After Dr. Kim entered the operation room, the surgery was ready to start. Dr. Kim started off assuring me that as local anesthesia was put in my eyes, there wouldn’t be any pain. Afterward he used the speculum to keep my right eye open and more eye drops were provided. Subsequently, Amoils Brush was used to scrape off my top corneal layer and the procedure took only a few seconds with my right eye feeling a bit itchy due to the brushing. After scraping off my top corneal layer, my right eye was ready to receive Wavefront laser treatment. My right eye fixed at the green light and the laser started emitting a loud sound and a little burning smell. That was normal and it didn’t take more than 1 minute. After the laser finished, my cornea turned opaque and I could only see white light. Dr. Kim then used cold saline water and mitomycin to prevent the opacity, rinsed my eye with lots of saline and finally covered my eye with a contact lens to prevent inflammation. Whew~ I survived part of the surgery and I started to relax as there was really no pain involved and I hardly felt anything. 

With my right eye finished, Dr. Kim prepared my left eye for the laser treatment. The procedure was the same as the right side and the whole surgery finished within 10 minutes. For LASEK, the surgery was not difficult but the recovery period was not easy. After the surgery, I stayed at home for 3 days with constant tearing and sleeping since I could hardly open my eyes on the first two days especially on the 2^nd day with a little pain on the 1^st night.  I slept so much (as I couldn’t keep my eyes open for a long period) that I felt I lost track of time. However by the 3^rd day, I felt more at ease as I was able to watch some TV and keep my eyes open for a longer period with lesser tearing. To prevent any inflammation, I used my prescribed eye drops regularly and I actually finished the eye drops within 3 days. I ended up sleeping at 3 a.m that night due to the amount of sleeping I did for the last 3 days. 

I went back to work on the 4^th day and up till now, about a week later, I couldn’t read things well and everything seems blurred at times.  Well it will take about a month or two depending on the health of your cornea and regular use of eye drops so don’t get depressed because of it.  Just think about the future when I will not have to wear glasses or contact lenses again, I am letting the nature takes its flow and looking forward to the moment when I can see everything clearly again, and this time without glasses.