My first iteration of this post was 3,000+ words long, and I managed to cut out a lot of unnecessary details so now it’s around 2,200 words. I had a lot to say about my LASIK experience, apparently! I wanted to be as detailed as possible, both for people who may be considering laser eye surgery and for myself so I remember what this was like for me.

There were a few reasons I decided to move forward with LASIK:

• I was a candidate for the traditional procedure and have very thick corneas so the procedure would be a pretty easy one for me.
• My eye center was offering a 20% discount on LASIK through the end of the year. LASIK is a very expensive procedure ($2,500 per eye) so this discount was very enticing to me.
• My eyesight is terrible. Before I had LASIK, I could not even read the big “E” on an eye chart; it just looked like a blob on the wall. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was in fourth grade and while my vision has stabilized in my thirties, I’m still essentially blind without corrective lenses.
• I have strong astigmatism, making it impossible to wear contact lenses (even toric contact lenses). They take forever to settle into my eyes (giving me blurry vision until they settle into the right position) and my eyes dry out easily when I’m wearing contact lenses. So I only wear glasses these days.
• A few friends had recently gotten LASIK and their positive experiences influenced me to go ahead with the procedure.

I took my time deciding on the procedure. I had a consultation in July and didn’t make a decision until late September. I spent a lot of time discussing it with my mom and with friends, and it just felt like the right decision for me. Full disclosure: I financed the majority of the surgery. I want to be super clear about that because I’m always curious how people afford very expensive (elective!) procedures or vacations or purchases. I used Care Credit and will spend the next two years paying it off.

My procedure was scheduled for Friday, October 20th at 1:00 pm. How did it go? I’m here to give you all of the nitty-gritty details. (Fair warning: I’m going to be as detailed as possible about the surgery so if eye stuff makes you squeamish, maybe skip anything related to the actual surgery.)

My mom and I arrived about 20 minutes early to my appointment and I was almost immediately taken back to meet with the surgical coordinator. We went through the consent form and she gave me my payment confirmations. And then we set up my follow-up appointment in three weeks. I was sent back to the waiting room until the nurse was ready for me.

Meeting with the ophthalmologist

A nurse took me back to a typical eye exam room and explained what I could expect over the next few hours. He also wanted to know how I was feeling on a scale of 1-5. I told him I was at a 3. I was mostly feeling nerv-cited: part nervous, part excited. After meeting with the nurse and then the ophthalmologist, the nerves started dissipating quickly. Everyone was so warm and accommodating, and I felt very secure in their expertise. For them, this was a normal Friday. I was one person in a long line of people getting an extremely routine procedure.

I met with the ophthalmologist who was kind and friendly. He even made a “I like thick corneas and I cannot lie” joke that immediately put me at ease. He did a quick eye exam with me and said everything looked great. I was cleared to get this procedure started.

Sweet, sweet Valium

After I spoke with the ophthalmologist, a new nurse came to get me to take me back to a waiting area. First, I was given a gown to wear as well as booties for my feet and a hair net. Then, she brought me the good drugs – 10mg of Valium and half a milligram of Ativan. I was also given prednisone and naproxen to help with inflammation. They want you to feel really relaxed for the procedure, so they allow at least an hour for the meds to work. (I was a dummy who didn’t bring anything back with me so I had an hour+ to just sit with my thoughts. Thankfully, I wasn’t feeling nervous by this time, so I mainly listened to what was happening around me, thought about blog topics I could write for NaBloPoMo, and started forming this blog post in my head. It helps to have an active mind!)

One of the patients who went in for surgery before me ended up having a panic attack during the procedure. They had to bring the patient back to the waiting room to give them more meds and try to bring their blood pressure back to a normal range. That must have been so scary! However, not to make this all about me, but the Valium had done its job as this patient’s panic attack didn’t cause my nerves to ratchet up. I was just ready to go!

The procedure

I was finally called back for surgery. I removed my glasses for the final time (!!!) and a nurse guided me to the room where the procedure was held. Another nurse guided me onto a table that had a headrest and was able to swivel from side to side. I was given a nice sturdy pillow under my knees and I felt very comfortable. The nurse then began the process of numbing my eyes using drops and placed a bandage over one of my eyes. (This bandage would move from eye to eye, depending on which eye was being worked on.)

The first thing that happened was that the opthalmologist used some sort of suction device on each eye. I honestly don’t know what the purpose of that was, but I do know that I somehow moved the first time they tried to suction my eye and they had to repeat the process. Thankfully, the second time it went fine. Whew. After that, I was terrified to move at all!

Once the suction was complete, it was time to get these eyeballs lasered! First, my eyelashes were held back by tape (or something of that sort) and then the ophthalmologist placed a device in the eye that would keep it from blinking. I felt a lot of pressure on the eyeball when he placed the device in my eye, but nothing too painful. I had to look at a blinking orange light and just keep my eye trained on it the whole time. I believe this is when he made the corneal incision and opened the flap because I could feel him doing something to my eyeball (it didn’t hurt, as my eyeball was fully numbed, but I could feel some pressure) and then suddenly, the laser was right there! One of his nurses gave me a countdown of how much longer I needed to hold still while the laser was doing its job, which was super helpful. Once the laser was finished, the ophthalmologist added a bunch of drops to my eye and I had to continue staring at the blinking orange dot for a few more minutes. And then I was all done! He covered up the eye that had just been lasered and got to work on the second eye. I knew exactly what to expect the second time around and everything went perfectly.

Brand-new eyes

Once I was done, a nurse helped me sit up and then placed two clear eye shields on my eyes. Even with the eye shields on, I felt like I could immediately notice a difference in my sight. When I was in the eye exam room before the procedure, I made a point to take my glasses off and notice all the things I couldn’t see. For example, there was this blue-and-white sign on one of the cabinets and I could see the colors but all of the words on the sign were a jumble of white blobs.

After my procedure, I was taken back to an eye exam room where there was that same blue-and-white sign on a cabinet. This time, I could read the words on the sign! They weren’t fully crisp just yet, but they were WORDS. I was amazed that I was already noticing the change in my vision.

One of the optometrists came in to check out my eyes and said they looked really good. I was given instructions for the rest of the day. The eye shields needed to remain in place for 6 hours and then I could remove them for a set of goggles they gave me. I would also then begin an hourly regimen of anti-inflammatory steroid drops. And I would use the eye shields again at night. However, the most important thing to do was sleep. They sent me home with a sleeping pill and it was after 3:30 pm at that point, so my plan was to have an early dinner and then sleep until the morning.

And that’s what I did! My mom picked up Chick-fil-A for me so I ate that, took my sleeping pill, and then snuggled up in the guest room to sleep. It was around 5 pm at this point and while I wouldn’t say I slept super deeply (I was having some eye pain and my eyes were watering like crazy), I was able to sleep for the most part. Around 8:30 pm, I woke up and went out to the living room. I was amazed at how crystal clear my vision was! It was really cool. I didn’t stay up for too long and went back to bed until the morning.

Post-op follow-up

I had a 7:30 am appointment at the eye center, so my mom and I were up early on Saturday morning. It was hard to tell how much my vision had improved due to the eye shields. They were clear but had little holes that were a little hard to see through. I could see things far away very clearly, but it was difficult to read anything on my phone. It was also really hard to keep my eyes open in the car because all of the lights had halos, which is a very common side effect of LASIK.

My appointment was quick and easy. Thankfully, we arrived right before a huge influx of patients (all of us looking very stylish in our eye shields!) came in, so I didn’t have to wait long to see the optometrist. She checked my eyes and thankfully, everything was healing perfectly! And I could even read the lowest line of letters on the eye chart, which was astonishing to me. I was given the all-clear to drive and lots of important post-op instructions. One of the nurses gave me a run-down on what I should expect over the next few days and how to properly use all of my post-op eye drops/lubricants. The best thing they did was give me a worksheet that listed what eye drops I needed to use and when with little boxes to check off my progress. This was insanely helpful!

The next few days

One of the things I was told by friends who have had LASIK is to be obsessive about the eye drops. Obviously, I was going to follow the eye drop schedule the eye center had given me, but I was also prepared to douse my eyes in artificial tears whenever I needed to.

Saturday was my busiest day for eye drops, as I was on an hourly schedule for one of the eye drops (the anti-inflammatory steroid drops). I also had to do an antibiotic eye drop and artificial tears four times on Saturday. And at night, I had to apply a nighttime eye lubricant that made my vision blurry for a bit of time. As the days progress, I will lessen my eye drops schedule (I dropped down from 15 anti-inflammatory eye drops on Saturday to 8 on Sunday and 4 the remainder of the week). I will do artificial tears and the eye lubricant for the next two weeks. And last night was the last time I had to wear my eye shields while sleeping. Yay!

It’s been five days since my procedure and everything has gone perfectly. My eyesight is startlingly clear and I haven’t had any troublesome side effects, like super dry or super watery eyes. I’ve been using my eye drops as directed. Every time my eyes feel just the tiniest bit itchy or irritated, I give them a few drops of artificial tears, which helps. But that hasn’t happened very often!

One of the biggest changes I’ve had to make is not sleeping with a ceiling fan. I love my ceiling fan and even asked the optometrist at my follow-up appointment how long I need to be ceiling fan-less (some docs say 3 months, others say 6 months, and some even say you should never sleep with a ceiling fan after LASIK). My eye doc is less stringent about these numbers, as they allow patients to use a ceiling fan if they wear a tight sleep mask, so that’s an option! She said we could discuss it at my follow-up in mid-November.

I am really glad I had the procedure done and it’s been amazing having a glasses-free life! I took a shower and was able to SEE. I don’t have to switch from my prescription sunglasses to my prescription eyeglasses every time I’m driving. I can wake up and immediately see everything around me. And this is only the beginning.

Have any questions about LASIK? I’ll answer any of your questions!