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February 22, 2006
One Week After
Well it has been over 1 week since I had my eyes lasered. I left my last post about the still grittiness of the left eyes on the Wednesday morning. This turned out to be a bigger problem that expected.
Last Wednesday I woke up with still some gerittiness on my left eyes, I called the centre straight away as requested. The receptionist of course couldn't answer and she said one of the opthamologist will have to call me back. I've waited for a while for their call back waiting to see if I have to go to work or go back to surgery. 8:15AM passed and that's the time limit I prepared to wait before I had to go to work. I had this feeling that they'll call me back in the middle of my way to work.
Sure enough, on the way to work I received the call back from them saying I have to come back NOW, they need to check my eyes straight away! That sucks, I was at the other side of the harbour already and now I had to go a big loop to go back north.
So I arrived at the surgery, this time the same opthamologist who saw me the day before took my case again. She took some measurement, didn't say much and decided to call the doctor straight away. The way they work in this surgery is that you won't see the (main) opthamologist straight away. First you see the assistant opthamologist and then they will escalate you to him (the main dude). For simplicity sake I'll call all the assistants the opthamologist and the main dude "the doctor" :)
Anyway this gotta be more serious, because the day before I didn't even get to see the doctor. He took some more measurement and didn't say much. He said I'm extremely dry (on the eyes). He changed a couple stuff. First he took me off Ciloxan, asked me to use Refresh Liquigel instead of Bion Tears. And just before going to bed instead of using Poly Visc I'm supposed to use a much stronger Chlorsig (a prescription only). So there you go you know my routine. That on top of the need to use to use Flucon four times a day. There you go, so that's my regime for the past week. All of them are in the convenient "blue bag" which now I have to carry everywhere. ChlorSig/Poly Visc is initially really hard to use. It's a gel, so you really have to open your bottom eye lid, squeeze enough gel and close your eyes. It's a bit hard to do it in the beginning, but I'm good at it now. Come to think of it, I've come a long way from keep missing those damn eyes when administering my own eye drops to a real pro heh :)
The dry eye thing is quite annoying, but not because it's irritating my eyes, but I can't see properly when my eyes are dry. It's strange but true. I never realised how important the tears are for your eyes. He gave me some drops and straight away I can see better. He asked me to come back to see him again in 1 week time (this Wed 22/02 to check on my eyes).
Fast forward 1 week ...
Today is exactly 1 week later, so what's happening? Well, my vision is still not 100% I mean not 20/20 yet. I know that 20/20 is a myth with refractive eye surgery but I can always hope :). My eyes are no longer light sensitive, I can drive without sunnies during the day but I still don't dare to drive at night. At night I'm seeing both the halos (it's OK) and starburst (bad!!). And I still can't work on my laptop with its original resolution. I have to put the resolution down and use large font size to be able to work comfortably. And, I found this really strange, I'm having problem focusing at near objects! This turned out to be perfectly normal, more about this later.
The halos are expected because of my pupil size. During the assessments, two centres that I went to both warned about the possibilities of the halos because of my pupil size. Whether this will go away, no one can give me a straight answer. Fair enough, but both centres are happy to operate me because all measurements are still under the accepted numbers. My optometrist friend who did his eyes said that he still see halos even after so many years, but it doesn't bother him at all. It should be OK they all said.
Well the halos turned out not too bad for me, it's nothing really, definitely not like Sandy Keller's halos so it doesn't bother me. But what really bad is the starbursting. In Sandy's simulation I'm slightly better than #6, but at a long distance cars really like #2. The problems with starburst is that I can't judge correctly both the size and speed of the incoming cars. This is damnably dangerous. It could be a 16-wheelers coming at me or a Daewoo Matiz, I wouldn't have a clue until it gets closer.
I discovered the starburst when I drove to Coles at night. I did OK because the road is empty, I know the route very well and it's less than 2Km away. But I won't be driving at night any further than my own suburb for a while.
So at 7:30AM this morning I was back at the surgery for my 1 week check-up. Again to see the main doctor, but first the opthamologist to see me first and take all the measurements. Right eyes are quite good, apart from the dryness, I'm seeing quite well on the chart. But the left one is still having problem. I'm seeing doubles and without the lubricant only up to the second line on the chart. That's bad.
Anyway I also complained about the near object thing and she did a quick focusing test. This is where you have to focus to a point, as she move the point toward your eye you have to say stop when it becomes double. Mine stop at about 30cm from the tip of my nose :) Wow! She said. Well try again, this time try to focus really hard. I did better the second time around, which much encouraging and after re-focusing several times, it stops about 2cm.
Then the explanation came, for short-sighted people, especially those who have been using their glasses for a long time, the muscles used to focus near objects become lazy. Because we never use them! It's too easy for us (short-sighted people) to focus at near objects, in fact we never have to do anything to see near objects. We're short-sighted ha! So don't worry she said, and she gave me some eye exercise that I have to do several times a day. The should be able to focus at an object at the tip of my nose without any strain on my muscle. That's the goal. At the moment I can, but I do really feel those muscle struggling.
So that's all done, I asked her what's my eyes measurement at the moment. She wouldn't say anything and let the doctor decide that :) She left me at that and said that the doctor will come and see me soon. Since this is very early in the morning, he came in really quick. After a quick chit-chat he said well my right eye is spot-on, perfect he said. Good! But .... not so on the left eye. There's a slight over correction. Damn .... I know that this is one of the risk, 1% he claimed at his centre but it really sucks to be that 1%. Part of the contract is that if there is under/over correction they will do another laser for free. Most centres will do it for free or for a very small fee ($100 for the other centre that I went to). However, he didn't say whether I'm going to need another laser eye surgery, or even if I can do another laser eye surgery. I remembered that he did say that he must get my right eye spot-on because my cornea was too flat to get another correction, but said nothing with the left-eye. So do I need another one? Well only time can tell for now.
What's causing the over correction? He doesn't really know, but thinks it is the slower than expected healing period of my left eyes. I asked him this time what's my eye measurement are? He said my right eye is seeing slightly better than 20/20, and it should be OK after a while. With the left, well there's a slight over correction but it's very small, almost negligible he said. We just have to wait and see for now.
He took a while thinking whether he was going to give me a stronger steroid drop than the Flucon, but finally he decided to upgrade me to Maxidex for now before seeing him again in a week time. In saying that he said he doesn't usually see patients this often :) Ha I have seen him 4 times in just over 1 week. 1) The surgery, 2) when the contact lens popped off, 3) when my left eyes are still having problem 4) today. And another for next week, must be a record for him. The only one day that I didn't see him was when they took my soft lens bandage off.
So there it is, I'm slightly disappointed with the over-correction on my left eyes and the fact that I'm still not 100% and not being able to drive safely at night. Although I do know that with this procedure a longer recovery time is required. I have high hope still, and I don't think I will start writing my story for Lasik Memorial just yet.
Posted by vhadiant at February 22, 2006 08:00 PM
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