Here's to better vision!
Hopefully, today will be my last day ever wearing glasses or contacts! Tomorrow morning I go for LASEK surgery. I am looking forward to no longer needing anything besides my eyes to see. If you think of it, please say a little prayer - this is a very routine, very straightforward procedure, and I'm not really nervous, but still - these are my eyes. The only two I get.
I have been thinking about doing this for a long time, but finally got fed up with wearing glasses and contacts earlier this year. As an active person, sometimes the contacts just slowed me down. And my vision is bad enough that I have to wear something all the time. If I want to function. When my seasonal allergies get really bad, I have a lot of eye symptoms, which are only made worse by wearing contacts. Most likely, in 10 or so years, I'll still need reading glasses, but I feel like that will not be nearly as annoying as needing to wear something all the time.
The procedure I'm having done is called LASEK, which is not the same as LASIK. In LASIK, they actually cut a small flap of your cornea, lift it up, and reshape underneath. In LASEK, they just move the cell layer on top of the cornea and then reshape the top of your cornea. This way has a longer recovery and more pain but fewer long term complications, which is why I decided to go that way. Plus the cornea specialist I went to recommended it.
I'm not sure what I'll feel up to doing over the next few days, but hopefully I'll be back here in a day or two to let you all know how it went. Being a patient when you are a doctor is always an interesting experience....
I have been thinking about doing this for a long time, but finally got fed up with wearing glasses and contacts earlier this year. As an active person, sometimes the contacts just slowed me down. And my vision is bad enough that I have to wear something all the time. If I want to function. When my seasonal allergies get really bad, I have a lot of eye symptoms, which are only made worse by wearing contacts. Most likely, in 10 or so years, I'll still need reading glasses, but I feel like that will not be nearly as annoying as needing to wear something all the time.
The procedure I'm having done is called LASEK, which is not the same as LASIK. In LASIK, they actually cut a small flap of your cornea, lift it up, and reshape underneath. In LASEK, they just move the cell layer on top of the cornea and then reshape the top of your cornea. This way has a longer recovery and more pain but fewer long term complications, which is why I decided to go that way. Plus the cornea specialist I went to recommended it.
I'm not sure what I'll feel up to doing over the next few days, but hopefully I'll be back here in a day or two to let you all know how it went. Being a patient when you are a doctor is always an interesting experience....
Comments
I had LASIK in 2008 and it was one of the best decisions of my life. Getting right out of bed to walk the dog without putting in contacts? Priceless.
A word of advice: if they offer to let Jeff watch the procedure, he might want to decline. I'm sure it's not as gory-looking (without cutting the flap) but Scott nearly passed out watching the live-feed of my surgery. That's one time you really DON'T need HDTV.