Published April 25th, 2008
So today CNN has a story on a subject I’m actually peripherally qualified to pontificate on - LASIK surgery. Apparently there’s a rising clamor for the FDA to look into so-called “success stories” that aren’t successes at all. Some people get their 20/20 vision, but they have such awful complications they are miserable - some to the point of suicide.
Now of course I sympathize. That sucks - you go in for a procedure that you’re told is safe and reliable - and something awful happens. But sometimes, you have to accept it. Not EVERYTHING bad that happens is unfair or negligent - it’s just bad. First off, it’s not a 100%. And if you went to a competent physician, you were handed a waiver that discusses all the things that could go wrong (scary) and that it DOES happen (scarier) a certain percentage of the time. And then you sign the waiver and laser beams shot into your eyes. If it goes wrong - well, you were warned, and you signed acknowledgment. It blows but…it happens. Feel free to investigate for fault, but it might not be anyone’s fault.
However, sometimes it’s your own.
Colin Dorrian was a college student when he was told he wasn’t a good LASIK candidate, but went ahead anyway — and his father, Gerald, described six years of eye pain and blurred vision before reading his son’s suicide note to a Food and Drug Administration panel: “I can’t and won’t continue facing this horror.”
If a doctor, an expert on this, a medical professional, tells you that you’re NOT a good candidate - then DON’T have the surgery! I wasn’t a good LASIK candidate - and I didn’t for a minute consider it. In fact I was really upset when the doc said “You’re not a good LASIK candidate” because I wasn’t aware of an alternative. He explained it a few seconds later, but at first - I was pretty disappointed. It took me a long time to get up the courage to start the process, and so it was very deflating. But this guy should have had the alternatives offered to me. I can’t say for sure if he did, but if so - take the doctor’s advice.
The article discusses dry-eye as a main side effect - so bad it causes severe pain in people. I can sorta understand this - I do have some dry-eye problems. Some days are especially bad for me, and often upon waking up I’ll have bad dry-eye. That’s why I have eye drops. And everyone I know who’s had LASIK uses eye drops. So this is pretty common - the severity is of course, random. This is a risk.
Any surgery is a risk. I’m all for studying and improving vision correction surgeries - but don’t act like you weren’t warned. If you weren’t, that’s malpractice - but if you were, you can’t go claiming this was unexpected. The world is not a perfect place.
That said, if these people can’t currently be helped, then there should be some research into developing ways TO help them.
Category: Personal, opinion | Tags: LASIK, PRK| Be the First to Comment »
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Published August 21st, 2007
The healing continues, still. Every day is a little better at least. But not by much, improvements are slow. I’m still having a lot of trouble with tiny print and my vision over all isn’t sharp. But my vision is OK overall. Reading a computer screen is still one of the hardest things though, I can really feel it straining my eyes by the end of the day. But watching TV is no problem, unless the room and screen are dark. Then any bright item has a pretty significant halo around it. The low-light vision is still not great, lots of halos and very little detail. Driving at night isn’t fun, and I have yet to drive on a freeway at night - so many bright light sources with halos. It’s hard to judge speed and distance. I could do it, but I’d be more nervous than usual, that’s for sure.
Am I satisfied? Yeah, so far, I guess so. I’m not ecstatic about the time it’s taking to heal though. It’s frustrating. But it’s not even been a month yet. I’ve been reading actual people’s experiences (one great thing about the rise of blogs) and PRK patients typically have a very long heal until their vision is great, and lots of fluctuations during that time - up to a year. But within a month or two I should be at about 95% final vision. I’d say right now I’m at about 80%.
I am just an impatient person when it comes to results. What’s the point of gratification if it’s not instant!
Category: Personal | Tags: prk| 1 Comment »
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Published August 13th, 2007
Well on my way to recovery. Everything looks good according to the doctor. I still am having trouble seeing small print and detail, but otherwise I can see alright. Every day it gets a little better. Driving isn’t really a problem, though at night I’m still having some halos and it’s a little hard to see sometimes. Hopefully by the end of this week I’ll be in real good shape. I guess I just need to take it slow today at work (back at work, blah) and rest my eyes a lot. Using the computer for too long kinda hurts.
Category: Personal | Tags: prk| 3 Comments »
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Published August 9th, 2007
Well, still having trouble seeing, but I think there’s been improvement. Nothing so drastic as clear vision, but I sure hope I’m getting there. It’s hard to say until about now (mid-afternoon) in the day whether I’ve had improvement or not. It takes about this long for all the goop to rinse out of my eyes. Instead of words on the screen being super-fuzzy and near impossible to read (yesterday), today they’re only fuzzy in a double-vision sort of way. I am still having great difficulty reading small print, but if I get close enough, I can make it out. I had to shop for some pants and a shirt today, and it was really hard to see sizes. But hopefully this keeps going at a fast pace, I don’t want to have to miss going to work on monday. Well, sorta - but you know what I mean. 
Seriously, I just want to see again. It’s incredibly frustrating and annoying. I haven’t been able to see straight for a week now. Its almost like I’ve forgotten what clear sight loooks like!
Category: Personal | Tags: prk| 1 Comment »
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Published August 8th, 2007
Day 4:
More misery. Goddamn my eyes hurt all day. The contacts felt like twigs in my eyes. There was no relief except for one eye drop that I had to use every hour. Which granted relief after 15 minutes, and 30 minutes later the pain returned. I took Vicodin to kill the pain and get some sleep. It only caused me to have bizarre, jumbled yet vivid dreams and wake up at 6 am.
Day 5:
Maybe the Vicodin did something, because this day wasn’t as bad. I could sorta see out of my right eye, but my left was useless. Went to the doctor, he said everything was progressing OK. Took out the contacts…and my eyes hated that. More pain and discomfort all night. Loss of what vision I had gained. More Vicodin. More dreams and early morning insomnia…
Day 6:
Today I had to be up early anyway, as my parents had new doors put in all over the house. Which meant drilling. And sanding. And dust. Great. So I spent all day outside, with sunglasses on and a cap and a jacket over my head. Sunlight hurts. Vampires would feel sorry for me. Today absolutely sucked - being outside wasn’t fun. I have to keep my eyes from drying out, so I had to use artificial tears constantly since there was a breeze and it was warm out. Once when walking through the house, I got a speck of dust in my eye. That burned like crazy, I had to wash it out with artificial tears. My vision today has improved a bit, I can sorta see - but no detail, noting up close. I’m barely able to read this as I type.
Hopefully tomorrow will improve.
Have I mentioned I have to tape plastic eye shields to my face every night? It’s ever so fun. The stickyness won’t come off either. And I have to put a vaseline-type substance in my eyes at night to prevent drying out. It’s great. Yeah. I’d better be able to see in a couple days, or this will have been the biggest mistake ever.
Category: Personal | Tags: prk| 7 Comments »
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Published August 5th, 2007
I hope this will be the worst day. I woke up with my eyes just on fire, feeling like sandpaper was rubbing all over them. I’ve been using my eye drops as much as is allowed, and spending most of the morning lying down with a cool, damp rag over my eyes. They feel pretty crummy today, its very aggravating. Feels like they’ve been rubbed raw, but whatever was the irritant is still there. Eye drops and a cool rag are my only recourse. My vision is pretty bad today too, stuff that was clear yesterday is no longer. I hope this is the worst of it. I really am envious of LASIK patients at this point, since they’d be pretty close to healed by now. I still have 4 days to go. Ugh.
Category: Personal | Tags: prk| 2 Comments »
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Published August 4th, 2007
After having worn plastic shields on my face all day and night, I was anxious to get them off. Went back to the doctor, who said everything was all right so far. I had about 20/60 vision - but he warned it was going to get worse before it got better as my eyes healed. Great.
Went home, did a lot of sitting around and some napping. By the end of the evening I could tell my vision was getting worse.
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Published August 3rd, 2007
(written in the future)
Today was operation day. The morning consisted of going into the docs office and doing a lot of waiting around. They ran some of the same tests they had run at consultation, then dilated my eyes and checked the retinas. Everything was OK, so I was sent home for lunch.
Upon my return, it was time to get ready. I was feeling pretty nervous by this point, and gladly accepted a Xanax. They started with some eyedrops, put a paper hat on my head and paper on my feet and let the drops go to work. Then, it was into the laser room.
The operating table is just a long table with very big machine hovering over. The headrest is in a U-shape so that you can’t roll around. So I slid under, looking up at a triangle of white lights around a flashing red light. They taped up my left eye, then taped my right eye open and placed a metal retractor on it so that I couldn’t close it if I tried. This is where I started feeling pretty nervous and weird. The doc started squirting anesthetic in my eye, and using a foam swap to spread it around. I couldn’t really feel anything, nothing at all by the time the anesthetic worked. He then said “Tracker on” - meaning the computers started tracking my pupil so that the laser couldn’t miss. And then the laser started - holy crap I was scared. But it wasn’t too bad, I did my best to stare at the light and not twitch my eye too much. The doc said to breathe through my mouth so that I wouldn’t smell it too much. It smelled like the dust from a dentist drill. I’ve smelled worse. Thirty seconds later it was over…they washed out my eye, put a contact lens on and taped it shut to work on the left eye. The procedure was the same.
The doc said all was well, and sent me home. My vision wasn’t perfect, but it was better than it was when I walked in! I went home, started the 5-bottle eyedrop routine, and went to sleep as soon as possible. I was pretty tired.
Category: Personal | Tags: prk| 1 Comment »
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Published August 2nd, 2007
Hopefully not permanently. I have started on the painkiller eyedrops today for my laser surgery tomorrow. I have been anxiously awaiting tomorrow for some time, and I can barely concentrate today. I really want to get the surgery over with! And start the recovery process. I’ll be under doctor’s orders not to stress my eyes for about the next 5-6 days, so that means no reading, no tv, no computer. If anyone needs to get me - call. I imagine I won’t have much else to do! Yes, the books-on-cd option has been discussed, but they’re expensive. Apparently libraries have them though. I wasn’t particularly aware of this. You’d think with the number of book people/librarian types I know, I’d have realized this. I did not. Oh well - it’s only a week.
So today is really my last full day of wearing glasses (if things go according to plan, right?). I can’t wait. I’ve worn glasses full-time since I was in 2nd grade. I can’t wait to get rid of them!!
Category: Personal | Tags: prk| 3 Comments »
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