Been a while since my last eye update. My vision has stabilized since my last post, and my bandage contacts were taken out a few days after my last post. This time, I made sure to keep them really moist the first few days after taking them off to avoid any more bits of epithelium from detaching. There was probably little chance of it happening again after giving my eyes a few more days under the bandages, but I just wanted to be sure.So the big question you probably have is, how is my vision? Well, at my last visit, my eyes measured 20/20, so by most accounts, that’s “perfect” vision! However, in my opinion, I think my vision is a little less than perfect still. While I could see the 20/20 line, the letters were kind of blurry, so I’m probably more around 20/25 or 20/30 (I have no idea what those actually look like, just guessing here). I feel like I was able to read those last lines just through extra focusing power, but unless I look hard, things aren’t completely sharp without me having to try to focus on something. My vision still varies a bit, though, sometimes when I get some tears going everything gets a bit sharper, and other times I don’t focus quite as well. I think this is what they mean by “quantity comes first, then quality”. For the most part, my prescription is right now, but it takes a bit longer for everything to “smooth out”.

So how about those stars and halos in the night you always hear about? Not to bad at all. Not really much worse than before. I’m thankful they turned off the light and flashed a light at my eyes to show me how much I had before, because comparing it now, I see that the level of starring and haloing is about the same, just a slight bit more now. But again, this varies, too. However, I was able to drive home just fine from Pittsburgh with the last few hours of the trip at night.

The freedom is amazing. For a non contact wearer, it doesn’t seem like a few seconds putting contacts in and out matter much, but it does. It adds up every time you do it, having to clean your hands, put them in, experience that constant feeling of something in your eye, the end of the day gunkiness, carrying around gear when you travel. Contacts are just an overall hindrance. The best thing is the “get-up-and-go” ability I have. I can just sit up in the morning and do stuff, and I can jump into bed when I want to pass out late at night after writing a long blog post. Plus, with pretty severe myopia like I had, there’s a nice psychological component of not being totally reliant on contacts and glasses. When I went to Pittsburgh, I felt “lighter” as I packed and lived out of the bag. Just one less thing to worry about in a busy life.

I doubt I will go for a correction if it does turn out I’m not quite at 20/20. I’m pretty much fully functional now (except I can’t cut onions without crying profusely, still a little sensitive I guess) with the level of sharpness I have, though it’s a little less than what I had with my contacts (which apparently got me to 20/15, so I was a bit spoiled). Maybe I’ll try some of those natural vision improvement exercises. I have a book on them and I do believe they work for small corrections. They were out of the question for me when I was -7.0 diopters, but I hear they work wonders for people with a less than a couple diopters off.

All in all, the freedom is worth it. That’s all there is to it. The cost is totally worth it as it comes out to about the same over the long run. The safety is great these days with a good surgeon. It’s arguably better for your eyes than wearing contacts on top of your eyes for years. The pain of Epi-LASIK is a bit tough for the first few days, but is nothing really unbearable, and if you are not into contact sports, you can go for the more common, less painful, LASIK operation. So what it boils down to for me is the lifetime of freedom and “lightness” you get for those few days of discomfort. I feel it’s a good choice, and I am pleased with the results.

Kudos to Dr. Rubinfeld (surgeon) and Dr. Davis (post op care) at Washington Eye Physicians & Surgeons. They have my full recommendation. I will probably post some more intermittent updates from here on my vision, but I just wanted to leave you with a quote from Dr. Rubinfeld at my last visit regarding my new vision: “Now make sure you use your new powers for good, not evil!”

So the last few days haven’t been too hot for my eyes. It seems my epithelial layers weren’t quite ready for prime time. After removing the bandage contact lenses, my eyes were scratchy. This was expected as the surface of your eyes are sensitive. However, they got more and more scratchy and irritated as the day went on.

The next morning, I woke up and this same spot on my eye was still hurting. It felt like one single grain of sand stuck under my eyelid. When I looked into the mirror, there was a red spot with blood vessels kind of swollen around it. I got pretty scared as I thought I had some kind of ulcer in my cornea or something. I called the eye center and they told me I could come in right away. I got there and Dr. Davis looked at my eye and told me a little patch of epithelium had been lifted off. He said it was no big deal as some people’s epithelium are still loose for a while and come off if your eye gets too dry. He put a contact lens back in and said to stay on the drops and come in two days later.

Fast forward to that night, and my other eye started to have the same scratchy feeling in the same spot. I went to sleep early so it wouldn’t get any worse, but the next morning it was still hurting. It wasn’t as bad but I couldn’t really work well, so I went in again. He was a bit surprised to see me back again, and even more surprised to see the same exact thing had happened on the same spot in the other eye. He put another contact lens in and sent me home.

So apparently these little incidents won’t really have any effect on my vision or healing. I just need to use my antibiotics and wear the contacts a bit longer and I may get some more viscous drops next time around.

On a better note, my vision has really gotten a whole lot sharper in the last couple days. My right eye is probably about 20/20 at this point. However, my left eye seems to be lagging and is blurrier. It’s kind of annoying having an imbalance and I really hope they even out.

So I went into work today and got asked plenty of questions about my Epi-LASIK procedure. It definitely takes some extra explaining when you have Epi-LASIK because most people expect you to have perfect vision already and they aren’t as familiar with the Epi-LASIK procedure. It’s definitely fun when you can gross someone out with all the gruesome details of the operation.

Today is the Tuesday after my surgery, 5 days after the operation. I was able to read fairly comfortably at work and could do some work, but probably not super detailed work (not that comfortably at least) quite yet. However, I had to go in to the eye doctor for another checkup at noon. There, he checked out my eye again for any infection and tested my vision. I’m apparently 20/25 now, though I was straining to see the last line of text. I think I’m still worse than that. Apparently my vision is great forthe 5 th day. I’m not really sure if they say that to everyone, as it really is quite comforting to hear.

At this checkup, they finally removed my bandage contact lenses. Dr. Davis put some anesthesia in before doing so. After taking them out, I was expecting things to get clearer, this haze I felt like I was looking through to disappear. That didn’t really happen, if anything, things got slightly blurrier. I guess that’s just how my eyes are for now and only time will get rid of the blurriness.

However, after leaving the office, and the drops started wearing off, my new epithelial cells and their brand new nerves were exposed to the elements. The surface of my eyes were definitely really sensitive and scratchy. The rest of the day wasn’t much fun. It wasn’t the same burning and tearing as before, but more like a dry annoying set of contacts that are ready to be taken out all day. I hadn’t had any dry eye, but now I was yawning to get my tears going all day and putting in drops. I guess this new layer of cells needs to come in and toughen up.

So in my last post I mentioned that my left eye was really blurry and I was getting quite worried. Well, I took a nice long nap and when I got up, I realized that my left eye was as sharp if not sharper than my right. I guess there’s just a lot of variability in your vision quality as you heal from Epi-LASIK. My vision has really improved a good bit today.

It’s now Sunday, the 3rd day after the operation. I woke up with a little burning this morning, but after a couple hours, the pain has completely subsided! I can now comfortably keep my eyes open like normal with no problem. Everything is still blurry, but I’m able to sit close to my computer and read whole e-mails comfortably. Before I could real a few lines and had to stop.

There is one thing that is starting to worry me, though. It seems that my left eye is much more blurry than my right. Now, I read that usually one eye gets sharper faster than the other during recovery. However, I’m still worried, because the difference is quite noticeable. I really hope this left eye doesn’t need to be redone. It probably won’t be as bad since it’ll only be one eye, but I’d rather not have to go through everything I went through this weekend again for an enhancement procedure. At least Washington Eye does enhancements for free until you are happy with the results. I’m hoping everything will be clear when they take out the contacts. That’s supposed to be done on Tuesday but I want to see if I can move it up to tomorrow so I can get it done with and see how clear my vision really is now.

So it’s two days after the operation. My eyes are still scratchy, which is to be expected. Last night and Today are supposed to be the worst. Last night was pretty bad. For a little while it felt like I had a couple grains of sand under my eyelid and it killed whenever I moved my eyes. The drugs helped with the overall burning, but these specific spots in my eye still really hurt. I slept for a good portion of the day as a result. My roommate and I ordered from some new Chinese take out place and it was pretty terrible. That evening I hooked my iPod into our big speaker system and I turned down the lights and just listened to great music.

I realized how I don’t really do that much. Just really sit there and do nothing but listen to music. I always listen to it while doing something else for background. But it’s really different when you are sitting there with your eyes closed with all your attention on the music. You hear things you never heard before and get into it much more. I highly recommend it to anyone as a good way to escape. I think you really enjoy food a lot better when your eyes are closed like this. You just start to notice a lot more with your other senses when you’re not looking around as much.

Now don’t get the impression that I’m blinded or anything. It’s just it’s more comfortable to have my eyes closed whenever I can while my eyes recover from Epi-LASIK. I’m able to get around and go outside whenever I need to. Today those really annoying spots of pain have gone away and there’s just the overall scratchiness today. Nothing too bad. We’ll see if it gets worse tonight, but I think the worst may be over. I can’t wait to get the bandage contacts out on Tuesday. I hope my vision is good enough to get back to work then so I don’t miss too much. At my current condition, I could probably do meetings and draw stuff, but not detailed computer work. Things are supposed to clear up a lot over the first few days of the week. I can’t wait. But for now, I’ll try to enjoy using my other senses as much as possible.

Man, I’ve gotten soo much sleep the the last day, it’s amazing. I took two long naps yesterday and slept peacefully through the night. I could definitely get used to this.

However, my attempt to hold out on the prescription painkiller came to a swift end this morning. A little after waking up, my eyes were really burning and tearing up bad. It took a while before I could pry my eyes open to put my morning drops in. I took a bunch of Ibuprofin and then some Tylenol (is that bad to take those two together?) cause I couldn’t wait for the pins and needles to stop. Well if subsided a bit, and I managed to get my sunglasses on and head out to the eye doctor’s office for my post op checkup. I metro’d it myself. It was tough walking, trying to not move or open my eyes whenever possible. It got better as the painkillers kicked in. At the office my post op doctor, Dr. Davis, said I’m doing really well for the first day. The blurriness is normal and due in part to the bandage contact that I have on. The pain will get a bit worse tonight and tomorrow, apparently, and he said to make sure I get the prescription. I could potentially get the bandage lens out Monday or Tuesday.

After getting back, I got the prescription for Lyrica filled. After reading up on it last night, I found that it’s designed for pain relief when nerve endings are damaged, specifically for diabetes patients as I guess it happens a lot to them. Makes sense that this was given to me because in Epi-LASIK, they basically lop off all those epithelial nerve endings on your eye.

I must say, the Lyrica has been working pretty well. Still some scratchiness, but it’s under control unlike this morning. I went out to this all you can eat Kabob restaurant and it was amazing. I had some bouts of scratchiness and I probably could’ve made an exceptional Crying While Eating video if someone was there to film me. In reality, I probably looked like a wuss that couldn’t handle the mild spiciness of the food as I teared up while eating that tender grilled lamb. Apparently, you can get a lamb brain platter at this place. I’ll have to round up a few people and take that one on sometime. Ah, the joys of being stuck at home all day. I’m finding all the great lunch specials around where I live.

It is with great effort I bring you this installment. My eyes areclosed mostly while I type so bear with any typos and stuff.

So, the surgery was a success! I’m still seeing out of my eyeballs, I’m able to log on and typethis, walk around outside and interact with people, all with out glasses. Amazing. However, the road isn’t quite over yet as this is Epi-LASIK we’re talking about here, not regular LASIK. My operation was around11AM, and it is now nine PM. For a typical LASIK patient, they’d be seeing perfect and in very little pain by now. Epi-LASIK, however, means I’m seeing blurry still, and my eyes basically need to recover from a large surface abrasion.

My wonderful roommate Meghan drove me home afterwards and I could definitely feel the anaesthesia wear off and the bruning ensue. It felt like the scrathy, there’s something in your eye, feeling I read about. However, once I got home, everything was dandy, except for this one eye drop med I wasn’t able to find at a pharmacy, but it’s ok because I get can that tomorrow at the office. The pain was really minimal, so much so that I didn’t even get the pain relief med that they prescribed me. I’ve taken two naps and went out to some carry out kabob place nearby. I can make out larger text across the room, a feat that would’ve had me up against the poster to read before. I could probably drive on local roads now, but I’m still not at 20/20 yet. The blurriness should go away over the next few days or weeks. However, after the second nap, my eyes are burning a lot more. My doctor called this afternoon and told me I’ll probably start to feel the worst tomorrow afternoon and Saturday, then the pain will subside on Sunday. If it gets worse than this, I think I’m gonna get those pain meds they prescribed. Thought I just took a Tylenol and the burning is going down as I write this. Looking at computer screens is a bit tough as you gotta move your eyes around a lot which irritates them and I need to blow up the text real big. I feel like I’m on the other side of web design now. I’m the guy web designers have to make their sites look nice for when the text gets all blown up.

So I bet your darn curious about the actual procedure so I’ll go over that now. After reading about the lasik procedure I had a good idea of what to expect, but some things weren’t quite how I envisioned them. First I went in and an assistant set me up with all the forms and payment and was very nice and gave lots of reassurances. After that, a doctor came in, not Rubinfeld, but the doctor that was in charge of my post-operation care and checkups. I guess Rubinfeld just does the screenings and the surgery. I think it works out to have this other doctor do the post op because Rubinfeld is just so busy with the surgeries and everything else. At this point, that cold that I was starting to feel last night came back a little bit and I was having trouble focusing. But he went through all the eye drops and eye shields that I’d be using. He put it all in apouch with directions becuase most people forget what the heck to do by the time they get home. He kindly answered any questions I had which weren’t many since I had asked Rubinfeld most of them by now. This doctor also did a thorough check of my eye prescription again. Finally, Dr Rubinfeld came in , wrote some stuff, asked me for last minute questions and then gave me a pill to take. Now this was thep art I was excited about, the powerful mood altering drug. “Now let’s get you stoned” was how Dr. Rubinfeld jokingly put it as he gave me the pill. However, I was pretty disappointed by the results. For some reason, this drug didn’t seem to have any noticable effects. I felt the slight remnants I had of a cold did more to knock me out than this drug. They took me down to this dark waiting room with really nice comforting music and little waterfalls to help you relax. The staff people there were super nice offering snnacks and chatting with you the whole time. They really do everything they can to make you comfortable.

After I sat down, I saw the first patient emerge from the operating room. That was probably the most comforting thing of the whole morning. Seeing someone walking right out, happily chatting (and a little loopy) really made me think, this ain’t gonna be bad at all. However, it seemed like everyone else in the room was loopy except for me. I mentioned the lack of loopiness to the person down there and apparently, I had only gotten one pill of a different drug because I was doing Epi-LASIK. My heart was beating kind of fast when they called me in, but not really too bad.

However, what did work very well (thank goodness) were the numbing drops they put in my eyes after laying down. They had an ipod system in the room to play music. I was hoping for some Yanni as you can’t beat that for relaxing background music, but we settled for some Coldplay because they didn’t have Yanni. Rubinfeld ran a fast efficient operation. I guess that was to be expected from a guy whose done this like twenty thousand times. Pretty amazing when you think about it. This life changing operation of yours is just another blip on his record. That’s a good thing, though. You don’t want your LASIK to be a memorable one for him, since that probably means something’s not gone right.

So there I was, my head was slid under this machine with all kinds of lights and stuff. I could see his figure above me. The first thing was to get the metal clamp to hold your eye open. You can feel that part since your eyelids aren’t numb, but it feels like what you’d expect, a metal thing holding your eye open. Didn’t hurt at all, it’s hard to describe, it was more ‘tiring’ feeling than anything. It’s like when you’re stretching, after holding the stretch you aren’t hurting or anything, but you just want to release and go back to normal.

Blinking… I know for me that was the biggest nightmare. What if I blink and mess up the operation. Well, the metal thing does a good job of holding you open and the numbing drops make you not really need to blink. However, if you’re like me, just thinking about blinking makes you want to blink and you get this urge to. I did have that urge slightly, and if you do try to blink the clamp holds you open, but it gets rid of the urge. It’s hard to explain, but even for a compulsive blinker like me, it wasn’t too bad.

The worse part was holding still. For a fidgety person like me, lying still made me want to scream. However, they were prepared for that and gave me two stress balls as I lied down and I took out all my fidgetyness on them.

So the first big thing is the suction cup thing grabs on to your eyeball so they can cut your epithelium off (or cut a flap for you regular LASIK folk). That was the biggest sensation of the operation. Even though you’re numb, you can definitely feel them push that thing down on your eye. It really did feel like they pushed down really hard, so be prepared for that. Then, it stays there while the blade goes across and cuts. I rmeember some kind of vibrating thing and I don’t know if I was imagining it, but I felt like I could feel something going across my eye. Now, in the first eye they did, I think there was one active nerve or something. I felt an instant of pain, like a pin had touched my eyeball for a split second. I guess one nerve ending didn’t saok up any anaesthesia. It made me jump and not look forward to the other eye, but that’s about it. It didn’t happen again on the second eye. Everything goes dark when this cup is on your eye. It’s kind of like fainting. Everything fades out to black and fades back in when they take it off. Not sure why, maybe it cuts off the circulation or something.

After it comes off, he reminds you to keep looking at this little green light. Dr. Rubinfeld kept talking the entire time telling me how good everything was going. In one respect, everything seemed hectic and rushed with how fast they were going and talking, but on the other hand, I wanted that operation to be over as fast as possible, so I was glad for the fast pace. They did a good job with letting you know the status, some parts of the operation they could countdown, which really helped a lot because I knew how much longer I needed to hold still for. He had some little tools he would rub over my eyes with, some kind of squeegee or something to clear everything away. Then the laser started.

It looked wierd, you could hear sound, and see lights on the surface of your eyeball, those were probably the scanning/targeting lights, not the actual laser light. It looked like something out of the terminator where there’s stuff overlayed on your cornea. You could smell some slight odor which I had read about. Immediately after the laser he warns you he’s about to put some cold thing on your eye and he does the squeegee thing and counts down and does this cold spray all over your eye. That part actually feels kind of good and you know it’s almost over.

Finally, he lays a contact lens on your eye as a bandage (an Epi-LASIK thing, since you have no epithelium cells for a few days) and takes out the clamp. It feels so darn good to close your eyese. It’s like holding a stretch for a few minutes and finally releasing . Your eyelids feel really tired, but other than that, I felt pretty good. I got up, said thank you to everyone, and was walked over to this dark room with really nice recliners with heat and massage. I could already see better and no longer needed my glasses. The loopy people in the waiting room all waved to me as I walked past which made me smile. I still wasn’t loopy at all, though. I still want some of what they had.

After a few minutes they did a little final check before I headed out with Meghan to go home. The weather decided to get all sunny by the time I got out which was sucky because you are really light sensitive. Fortunately they gave me sunglasses, but it was still really freakin bright.

So that’s the story of my Epi-LASIK procedure. Now the saga continues as my eyes recover and the blurriness goes away. I’ll definitely keep postong on that. I hope this post will help those of you who are thinking about LASIK or Epi-LASIK or already have the operation scheduled and are trying to learn more about what it’s like. Overall, the operation was not bad at all. The worst part was seriously holding still. But I’m known for being a very fidgety guy, always moving and shaking, and I’ve had some nervous ticks in the past where I blink a lot when I’m nervous, so if I was able to sit still through it, I think it should be a lot easier for most of you.

My vision is still blurry, and my eyes will be burning and scratchy for a couple days (though that Tylenol I took when I started typing has kicked in and I’ve been typing with my eyes open for a lot of this post now). I chose Epi-LASIK knowing this, and the payoff is I had a less invasive procedure and won’t need to worry about a dislodged flap. I think even if my vision stays right where it is now, the operation was worth it. Before, I was absolutely helpless without glasses. Now, I can do most daily things without them.

I’m up and ready to head out to the surgery. Fortunately, I’ve woken up and my feelings of having a cold are gone! That’s definitely one big worry out of the way. Unfortunately I got a morning slot so I’m kind of sleepy, but that will probably go away once I get there. Plus, I’ll be able to sleep well after getting back. My roommate Meghan was nice enough to pick me up afterwards. You’re supposed to come home and sleep for a while to get over the worst of the recovery. Alright, here goes.