Posts Tagged eyes

When people ask you, “If you had three wishes, what would they be?” my first reply for over three decades was “perfect eyesight!” Here’s my story of my wish finally coming true!

Of course your doctors tell you the clinical side of what to expect in great detail, but all of that information doesn’t really give you an idea of what to expect emotionally and experientially. In my research before my eye surgeries, I found several people who had blogged their experiences in great detail, including their uncorrected experience and following after their surgeries as they healed, so I thought I should return the favor.

(Previous: My Intraocular Lens Implant Surgery & Healing Experience )
 
 
After I had stabilized from my phakic intraocular lens implants and my LASIK surgery was scheduled for mid-March 2014, I was really looking forward to finally getting those glasses off my face! Then my surgery packet arrived in the mail, with the long legal release form that lists all the possible but not very probable risks and complications, no guarantees of perfect vision, etc, etc, and I got nervous, remembering all the reasons I had been worried about LASIK for so many years, and that, unlike the IOL implants, this time there was no possibility of going back. I kept reassuring myself that so many of my friends had no problems with their LASIK surgeries, and my level of correction needed now was no worse than theirs, so my experience should be as easy as theirs. That didn’t help my worries like what if my eye jiggles accidentally when the laser is going, or what if I sneeze during surgery because of all the pollen that just started floating around in the air? Keep calm!

I had to take the post-surgery eyedrops so long after my lens implant surgery that I had to get refills of both the really expensive antibiotic drops and the anti-inflammatory drops, and when I asked if I could use up those drops for LASIK, Dr. Mandel said that was perfectly fine. Since the LASIK prep and post-surgery drops were only one week total, I had plenty and didn’t need to fill the new prescriptions in my LASIK packet…whew! I even had plenty of lid scrubs left from November too, so that worked out great. The LASIK prep was lid scrubs for a week prior to surgery, then only the antibiotic drops 3 days before surgery, then only 4 days total post-surgery for drops. No eye makeup for 3 days before surgery again, and since Dr. Mandel only schedules LASIK for later in the week, that meant I had to go to work without makeup. Sure wish I didn’t have such sparse and pale eyelashes!

My mom arrived Thursday afternoon so we had that evening while I could still see, then Friday morning we had a nice short drive since one of Dr. Mandel’s four offices is only a few miles from my house. I only waited probably 20 minutes in the waiting room, then about 10 minutes more sitting outside the surgery room after taking valium, numbing drops, putting on booties and cap, and face cleaning as surgery prep. They stick big suction cups on your eyes to stabilize and keep you from blinking, but that was just pressure, no pain. I saw four red lights around the edges, and the green light blinking in the center which is the one they told me to focus on. My LASIK was a physical blade to cut the flap, not a laser cut, but it was painless, just pressure and buzzing noise. I could feel and see when the flap was pulled back with the hinge on my nose side, since everything got really blurry, then I assume the brightest light was the laser itself, which made it harder to stay focused on the green light since it was paler, but I did it. It felt like a very tiny smooth spatula or a brush to smooth the flap back into place for no wrinkles to heal properly. Same procedure on my right eye, with the cornea flap hinge on my nose side, obviously easier to be accurate to peel back and smooth back into place without the nose in the way, and then they taped my patches on and led me to the recovery room. My surgery must have been fast, since the previous patient was still in the recovery room they wanted to put me in!

They taped across my field of vision when securing the patches on both eyes, so even when I was allowed to open my eyes to walk to the car, eat or use the restroom, I couldn’t really see, so I couldn’t tell how well the surgery worked. My mom thought they did that on purpose so I wouldn’t be tempted to peek…heh! It was a quick drive home, and I went straight to my bed for a while first since I was tired and wouldn’t be tempted to peek. After about an hour, probably when the numbing drops wore off, my eyes were really scratchy and sometimes even burning, with lots of tears too, but not so bad to take any pain medication. I wasn’t sleepy at all, and I had saved some shows I had already seen to show my mom, so I kept my eyes closed comfy on the couch while I listened to her watch the shows I had saved for her. My checkup call from Dr. Mandel’s office was around 4:30pm, and since my pain wasn’t bad enough for medication, it was no concern. I only peeked a little when I ate my leftover pizza for dinner, then once around 7:30pm I peeked at my iPhone to see an email & text a reply, but my mom yelled at me. 😉

My first checkup was 8:45am about 25 minutes away, but since I went to sleep early, I was up by 6am with patches off and starting both eyedrops 4 times a day. My right eye was fantastic, but my left eye was far enough behind that it was hard to focus together, especially at reading distance. I let my mom drive to the checkup and she was shocked how I could read the freeway signs so far away, better than she could! At my checkup I tested 20/20 in my right eye but about 20/40 in my left eye, and told to be patient since often the healing process can take a couple weeks, especially for the non-dominant eye. We ran some errands, had lunch, and watched my teenage cousin as the Lion in his school’s production of the Wizard of Oz (yep still halos in dark settings), but I needed a nap around 5pm since that was a busier day than we had intended!

Sunday my mom went home since I was doing fine, and since I wasn’t supposed to do any gardening for 2 weeks and the dust of cleaning my garage probably wasn’t any better for healing, I took a walk to the grocery store, caught up on TV and went to bed early. My eyes trying to focus together made them much more tired than I was ever before, so that was frustrating, but at least being tired earlier hopefully meant more good rest to keep healing properly. My eyes were completely red on Saturday morning as I was told to expect, but most of that general red had cleared up by Sunday. I saw some redder spots of broken blood vessels, so I carefully lifted my eyelids wider and saw really scary-looking rings of broken blood vessels! From the placement this was from the suction cups during surgery, and I was glad my eyelids covered most of it…so don’t be scared if you see the same! This photo is from about a week after surgery, after the red ring wasn’t nearly as vivid anymore but still visible.

Week 1 Post LASIK:

Monday was my first day back at work with extensive computer reading but I worked really hard at taking breaks and very glad I have a window so I can focus far distances outside. Even with eye breaks I still got some eye strain headaches even with looking out the window. By about 4pm I thought my left eye might be a little better at iPhone and computer range, and I thought they were closer to the same driving home from work, but after dinner my right eye was a little blurrier than it was earlier for TV distance, so I went to bed early again. They said my eyes would keep changing, even fluctuating during the day, so I was going with the flow.

Mornings were the hardest to focus. My right eye worked pretty quickly but my left took a while to get going. My eyes got drier overnight than they used to so I used the artificial tears before I got out of bed. I would get headaches from computer reading so I at work I took breaks to look out the window and walk around. By around 2 to 3pm my left eye would be clearer at close range as well as able to read license plates across the parking lot out my office window, but my right eye tired and fuzzier. The first week an a half I closed my eyes for 30 minutes or so when I got home after work, which really helped. I kept reminding myself I was still healing, but it’s hard for me to be patient. 😉

According to the instructions I had to wait 3 days before wearing any eyeliner or mascara. Eyeshadow was ok right away but I didn’t bother. I waited 4 days until all the prescription drops were done and this was day 5. My sensitive skin makeup wipes work well even getting the waterproof mascara off rubbing only the lashes without rubbing my eyes. It felt so much better to look in the mirror again!

So many others had said how amazing it was to wake up and see after their LASIK, but I wasn’t feeling that yet. It was intellectually amazing that I wasn’t wearing anything on my face or on my eyeballs, but it was weird that it didn’t feel like a big change. I think that’s because the overnight patches I wore for 10 nights still felt like glasses, and I still had to be so careful about my eyes for 2 weeks not getting any water or shampoo in my eyes, no gardening, etc, that it emotionally seemed like my contacts were in. Now that I can wake up without patches on my face, it is very nice to see across the room! It is still weird though that since I can see, I assume my contacts must be in and need to take them out before sleeping. I guess that will take a while to break a 30+ year habit!

At my one week checkup I tested 20/20 right eye, 20/25 left eye, next checkup in one month. That night my first movie with my new eyes was The Lego Movie. I used my halo eyedrops before dinner and the screen was so crystal clear I wondered if it was 4k projection. Hooray for new eyes! The next morning I felt safe enough in my progress to clean out my medicine cabinet.

My mom gave me this lovely brass monogrammed contact lens case when I first started wearing contacts. Even though the mirror fell out and the spring closure gave up long ago, it traveled the world with me as I used it daily for over 30 years. As a big part of my life but thankfully no longer needed since one of my longest-held wishes is finally at last coming true, now it can move to a keepsake box, along with my old pairs of glasses, from the super-thick, to the recently-thinner!

Week 2 Post LASIK:

Week two started with my first 5-mile hike, very carefully not getting any sweat in my eyes and no dirt near my face. Good to get some exercise! That week I was able to read computer text for longer stretches at work without getting a headache, but stayed off the computer at home and went to sleep earlier again. The difference in eyes was what was giving me focus headaches. Sleep makes a big difference, since finally getting at least 7 hours a night, reading is easier by mid-afternoon, but by evening I still needed some eye rest. I did try a short project knowing I would need breaks, but even only 30 minutes of machine sewing after all day of computer reading at work had me unable to focus at TV distance for an hour after the sewing was finished.

Week 3 Post LASIK:

That Saturday I must have pushed myself a bit too far driving in horrible weather for 3 hours up to Napa with friends, driving back using the halo drops, then staying up later than intended that night. I thought I got enough sleep but the next day my left eye was blurry almost more like slight double-vision while cleaning the garage, pruning and doing yardwork since I was finally allowed to play in the dirt again. I couldn’t focus clearly at any distance, near or far. I made sure to get decent sleep and was back to the recent normal the next day, with left eye behaving by mid-afternoon. I learned my lesson, but it isn’t easy for me to take it easy!

The rest of the week my left eye would work better by around 2pm, but by when I got home in the evening both my eyes were tired for computer work. I could still see my iPad ok in bed and it didn’t seem to bother my eyes to read to fall asleep. I was still trying to remember the artificial tears, but except for when I woke up in the morning when both were dry, only my left eye ever felt dry. I put tears in both every couple hours though since they said to do that for 6-8 weeks. It would be nice if my left eye would just get to the afternoon stage and stay there!

Week 4 Post LASIK:

I’ve been used to being able to do marathon crafting sessions requiring long stretches of intense focus, like sewing, cookie decorating or other crafts, but now I’m trying to adjust my habits, since I’ve already discovered that focusing intently for too long at close distance like sewing or other crafts leaves my eyes blurry for TV distance or farther away, and if I’ve gotten to that stage, it takes at least an hour of distance focus or a night of rest to recover. This past weekend I was very careful to take breaks more often, focusing at the TV about 17 feet away for my distance stretch, then back to my crafting. That worked well, and all weekend my eyes were fine. Another hike on Sunday I was still careful about sweat getting in my eyes, but my eyes were focusing together at their new best, which is the left eye slightly blurrier than my right eye. Monday felt like the first day where my left eye seemed better even in the morning, like the 20/25 I tested last checkup. Up until then it seemed like my left eye was a blurry 20/40 in the morning, then finally getting to 20/25 by afternoon. I’m supposed to keep using the artificial tears for 6 to 8 weeks after surgery, but since my eyes don’t feel dry except when I wake up in the morning, I have to remind myself to do it every couple hours, so I set them out on my desk at work so I see them all day. I have noticed that if I seem to have focusing issues, the artificial tears seem to help even though my eyes don’t actually feel dry.

am definitely still having halos around points of light, but since the halo drops still work with no headache as long as I have enough light when I put them in, I’m ok with it. The ring is still where it has been since the lens implants, but I think the spokes of the wheels might be less. It’s harder to tell since it’s Daylight Savings Time so I’m not driving home from work in the dark anymore. There are still faint bloodshot marks where the suction cups were, so I am still thankful my eyelids cover the worst of those! From how they have been fading so far, I’m sure those will be gone in the next couple weeks.

I plan to post periodic updates how my eyes progress over longer time periods, but since it feels like I have a pattern now, and my next checkup isn’t until the end of Week 5, I’ll go ahead and call my eye surgery journey a success…and a wish come true!

 
(Previous: Wishing for Perfect Eyesight: Thick Glasses & Contacts Since Age 9 )
 
 
In April 2013, a few months before my “answer to life, the universe and everything” birthday, my mom had seen a daytime talk show with a young woman in the double-digit diopter range who had implantable contact lens (ICL) surgery and was overjoyed with her results. I had never heard of this surgery, so I looked it up, found it is more formally called phakic intraocular lens (IOL) surgery with a plastic lens with built-in UV protection surgically inserted behind your iris in front of your natural lens, that I was in the low range of the possible correction amount, plus if you ended up with halos or something you didn’t like, YOU COULD TAKE THEM OUT AGAIN. Of course it required a second surgery to remove them, but that was major to me! LASIK being a permanent change had always scared me, so this was a huge deal for my comfort level of being willing to try. My annual eye exam was that same trip, and I was finally 6 years with no change in prescription and in my early 40s, so hopefully stable for good until reading glasses, and I was still testing a few years away from needing those. I was so excited there might be a chance for my wish to finally come true!

Next was the trick of finding who could do this surgery for me. Since it was higher risk than surface laser correction and a newer surgery, I wanted someone with plenty of experience in intraocular lens (IOL) surgery, not just lasers. I was hoping to get a personal recommendation somehow, but all my LASIK friends had their surgeries so long ago, and were just referred by their optometrists, so I didn’t get very far. I did receive a local Better Business Bureau approved guide in the mail that listed a doctor who did almost every eye surgery under the sun and was listed as “the doctor’s doctor” but I was still stuck since I wasn’t sure if that was just advertising propaganda. I was also super busy with my summer parties and Halloween plans already. Finally in August 2013 I had dinner with an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while, the conversation migrated to my possible eye surgery and his LASIK years ago, and he mentioned “Don’t bother going to anyone but Dr. Mark Mandel. He’s the best in all of Northern California. All the other medical doctors, eye surgeons and their families go to him.” Lo and behold, that was the same listing I had found, so I considered that fate, and called for my free consultation appointment the next day!

Of course they’re a busy office, so the next evaluation appointment available was a few weeks later. I had lots of tests that afternoon for cornea thickness, pupil size as well as vision, then Dr. Mandel said I was a good candidate for IOL implants, but the best technique was to expect touch-up LASIK after the implants settled, especially since I’d been wearing rigid contacts for so long, we would need to watch what my corneas would do once they were “free” to move. Since I was so afraid of halos, he recommended using only -10 diopter implants since those were the largest refractive area, so theoretically less chance of halos being generated by my pupils dilating wider than the refractive area. He was hopeful that I would only need driving glasses after the implant surgery, then we would need to wait about 3 months to see what my “free” corneas would do before doing low-correction LASIK to get me to full correction. Due to my Halloween schedule and my mom’s busy life in “retirement,” we scheduled my implant surgery for November, the week before Thanksgiving, and my iridectomy by laser 3 weeks before then.

The laser iridectomy was the most jarring experience and the most painful recovery for me! No contacts that day of course, they give you numbing drops, stick a goopy giant lens over your eye that helps keep you from blinking, you lean in to rest your chin, then the laser pokes several holes in your iris so pressure can regulate after the implants are placed blocking where your pupil hole usually allows free flow of fluid between chambers inside your eye. This laser is LOUD, like someone is smacking something against the table for each zap, and it didn’t hurt but it was like quick rubber band snaps. Repeat for the other eye, then you’re done, longer in the waiting room than the actual procedure. They had said I could drive myself home, but the smeary goop stayed in my eyes for a bit before it flushed away. I had a long freeway drive home during rush hour in my glasses that were never great for night-driving, and I had a giant headache by the time I got home so I went to sleep early. My eyes were aching for a few days so much that I was really tired, but the anti-inflammatory steroid eyedrops started helping over time.

One reason Dr. Mandel is so highly-regarded is that his procedure is very conservative and designed for the least risk possible, even though it may not be convenient. You must agree to using over-the-counter lid scrubs, really expensive antibiotic drops, and antibiotic ointment on a dictated schedule before IOL surgery, and no contact lenses or eye makeup 3 days before the surgery. Other doctors might perform implants on both eyes at the same time, but Dr. Mandel refuses to do so. Since they are actually cutting into your eye to place the implants, they only do one eye at a time, non-dominant eye first, just in case of any complications. I definitely appreciate the conservative procedure, but be sure you plan what you will do for the time between when you cannot wear a contact lens in the eye that is still waiting for surgery and your glasses won’t work anymore for your surgery eye! I brought my glasses that had an easy screw to remove the lens, so I wore my glasses with only one lens between my implant surgeries.

The implant surgery itself was very interesting. Valium to relax, dilation drops and numbing drops on a schedule, shoe covers & hair cover plus a surgical gown over your street clothes, they used a marker on my forehead above my surgery eye, then walked me back to the surgery table. They placed a large sheet of sticky plastic over my entire face, cut a slit for my surgery eye, then grabbed all my eyelashes with the sticky plastic to keep them out of the way. No physical restraint to keep from blinking but the sticky plastic would have prevented that anyway. Since I couldn’t blink they put drops in my eye every so often to keep them moist. No pain at all, but I could feel pressure as the tiny incisions were made in my cornea, and I could feel and see Dr. Mandel inserting the implant and scooting it around inside my eye, rotating to get it into the correct place. There was a bright overhead light that was a lot of glare to my dilated eyes, but as he was moving the implant around I could see glimpses of clearer background every so often, but then it would move again back to blurry, back and forth. When it was over, I could see much better than before, but still not perfect, as we expected…but I could see my mom’s face from my post-op chair, and that would have been impossible before!

They want to be sure everything is settling properly and there are no pressure problems before you go home, so we walked to lunch then came back two hours later as they requested. I was fine, so we went home until the day-after checkup the following day. They didn’t give me any restricting drops after my left eye surgery, and at the next day checkup they commented how dilated I still was!

The post-op care is different than LASIK. You don’t need to keep your eye closed constantly, but you should rest as much as you can, and you need to be very careful the first few days about bending over or lifting things since you don’t want to aggravate any eye pressure as everything settles. They recommend artificial tears if you feel dry, but I never felt dry enough to bother with those, only a tiny bit scratchy the first day from the small cornea incisions. They give you a specific schedule for the antibiotic drops and the anti-inflammatory drops, and they differ, phasing the antibiotics out over a week, but the others phase out over a month. I wrote them all out on my daily to-do lists so I wouldn’t forget which drops to take when. For my first morning after wearing my first patch, I put on my pirate hat for fun. 😉 I only had to wear the plastic patches when sleeping at night, so I was able to watch TV with my mom, and she did the heavy lifting and bending over as we decorated my house for Christmas.

Dr. Mandel has four offices spread over the Bay Area, and these surgeries are only Mondays and Thursdays when he is in Hayward, so I had all of Tuesday and Wednesday of weird one-eye glasses and wearing one patch at night before my right eye surgery on Thursday. For my left eye, I didn’t wait as long after all my dilation and numbing drops, but for my right eye, they took long enough that I thought it wise to visit the restroom before surgery. I laughed when I saw in the mirror how giant my pupil was so I took a selfie while I was waiting. 😉 The only thing different inside the surgery room was that they gave me oxygen via nose tubing, so I’m not sure why that was different than my left eye. They also gave me restricting drops after surgery this time, so by the time we went to lunch before the initial checkup, I could actually read signs on the opposite wall of the restaurant!

Unfortunately by the time we were driving home in the evening, I could already not read the street signs and was seeing starburst halos around lights, so I was sorely disappointed that I would have to be wearing glasses for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, and for several months until I could finally have LASIK touch-up surgery. I did not expect at all that immediately post-implant surgery I could see much better than just a few hours later. For the emotional impact, I wish there was some way they could prevent that, since it is a horrible tease! I understand that this is because of the settling process, and the restricting drops they give you to undilate your eyes make it like you are getting better correction from squinting, but that is very frustrating to have clearer vision then lose it so quickly!

Thursday night and Friday I could see better than without glasses before my surgeries, but I had nothing to help me see clearly but squinting, so I was frustrated after being spoiled by 100% correction by glasses or contacts for so many years. I could see my bedside clock better but not across the room, and I held my iPhone and iPad up to my face to read them, but at least not all the way at my nose like before. Leaning in to read my laptop was too annoying to bother. At my next day checkup on Friday, they gave me my new prescription and we ran to LensCrafters to pick out new frames (mine had broken the week before so were taped together for the one-eye glasses all week) and get my first ever one-hour lenses. I’d always had to wait a couple weeks for special high-index, anti-glare-coated, beveled-edge expensive glasses before. I still wasn’t allowed to wear makeup yet, so I wore a new hat I made along with my new glasses at dinner with my mom and my friends that evening.

Interestingly even though my eyes were almost exactly even prescriptions before surgery, my post-implant vision needed correction of -2.25 diopters for my right eye and -3.25 diopters for my left. That was a much bigger difference than before, so much that I had trouble reading without my glasses since they wouldn’t focus together. Knowing that the same -10 diopter implant was placed in both eyes, this means my left cornea caused more of my overall myopia than my right cornea. Severe myopia is most likely a combination of elongated eyeball shape creating longer retina distance from the lens, squat lens shape and pointed cornea both focusing before reaching the retina, and the IOL placement is behind the cornea, only correcting the lens and retina distance. I’m not sure they can really test in advance how much of your correction is because of cornea shape vs. the rest of the eye, so this is why the LASIK fine-tuning is usually needed. From my experience, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to count on implants to correct completely, so expect you’ll need LASIK to get you all the way.

Remember how halos were my fear and we were trying to prevent them? Unfortunately with my left eye I saw wide starburst halos with fine radial spokes around all the streetlights when driving at night, and as long as I stared at oncoming headlights, the halos would shrink, but if I didn’t have a bright enough light source to focus on, I had a billion overlapping starbursts in traffic, especially scary driving on the freeway in the rain when the raindrops multiplied the points of light even more. Red taillights weren’t bright enough to focus the halos away unless I was stopped in traffic behind them, but headlights usually worked. When I saw Ender’s Game in the movie theatre I was relieved since that was fine, so it must have been mostly bright enough my eyes stayed contracted just enough to avoid halos. However when I saw The Hobbit, both eyes were so smeary from light spill that I was horribly disappointed. At my first monthly checkup, they used an infrared handheld camcorder to measure how much my pupil dilated in the completely dark room with the single point of light on the exam screen. Dr. Mandel said that from every measurement he took before and after, I should not be experiencing halos because even in complete darkness my pupil did not dilate farther than the refractive area. He kept hoping that the halos would go away as I kept healing, but they never did, so I must have some other reason for my halos. After the disappointing movie experience, I searched online and found other people who had luck with eyedrops to help their halos, so at that same checkup I asked and got a prescription for generic Alphagan, brimonidine tartrate, thankfully not expensive.

Here are some details about dilating and restricting drops that might be helpful to others. If you remember, I was given restricting drops post-surgery only in my right eye. Well, that eye stayed restricted all weekend, with mismatched pupils looking very odd in the mirror! I found online that individual reactions can be different to the dilating and restricting drops, and for some people it doesn’t wear off completely for 4 weeks or more. I suspect this is why I didn’t see any halos in my right eye until one month after my surgery, the day I saw The Hobbit in the movie theatre. Not only was the right eye possibly still constricted more than its normal behavior, but my left eye always seemed to pace behind the right eye when changing for ambient light. It seemed that the left eye always stayed a little too open, which would explain why it saw the halos first. By 2 months post-surgery I didn’t notice a visual pupil size difference any more, but the left eye still always gets the halos first, enough that I still turn to stare into my living room floor lamp to constrict my eyes if it annoys me while watching TV.

The first couple times I tried the halo drops, it was already dark when I put them in, and they worked great stopping the halos in about 20-25 minutes, but gave me a headache that felt like eye strain all evening, so I didn’t use them very much. Dr. Mandel was still hoping I might heal out of the halos so he had asked me to use the drops sparingly anyway. At my 2-month appointment I told him about the headaches, and those are not a usual side effect from the halo drops, so since I still hadn’t healed out of the halos, he suggested I use the drops more often in case my eyes needed to get used to them. The next time I put them in while it was still daylight since I knew I was seeing a movie later that night, and no headache…hooray! But even after several uses when I forgot to put them in until it was too dark, I would still get the headache. My guess is that by putting the drops in with enough ambient light, my eyes get used to the constricting effect gradually, but in the dark it’s so abrupt I have eye strain as they adapt. Even standing by a bright light in the dark was enough to control the headaches, so at least I know how to manage them. I never found anyone else online mentioning headaches from the halo drops, so hopefully this will help anyone else who might be like me.

Not only we were waiting to make sure my corneas were a stable shape, but this was also my time to decide if I wanted to keep the implants or remove them. If my halos could not be solved, I probably would have taken the implants out and gone back to rigid gas permeable contact lenses, but thankfully the eyedrops have solved the halos when I really need them to go away. Since the LASIK fine-tuning I still needed was as low or lower correction than all my friends who never got halos from their LASIK, I believed when Dr. Mandel said that I should not get any additional halos because of my LASIK. All my other reasons I wished for perfect eyesight were hard for me to evaluate since by still wearing glasses in the meanwhile, I wasn’t able to try the non-glasses daylight activities yet like swimming or hiking. I had to take those on faith that if my LASIK would give me vision like I was seeing through those glasses, then the final results would answer my wish.

Thankfully 3 months after surgery my corneas still hadn’t changed even a tiny bit, surprising Dr. Mandel since I had worn hard contacts for over 30 years straight. He gave the go-ahead to schedule LASIK, so with my mom’s schedule and mine, we scheduled for mid-March 2014, 4 months after my phakic IOL implant surgery….even closer to the wish fulfilled!

 
Next: My LASIK Experience & Beyond
 

When people ask you, “If you had three wishes, what would they be?” my first reply for over three decades was “perfect eyesight!” Here’s my story of my wish finally coming true!

In my research before my eye surgeries, I found several people who had blogged their experiences in great detail, including their uncorrected experience and following after their surgeries as they healed, so I thought I should return the favor.

When my mom took me for my first eye checkup when I was 5 and mentioned I had started reading at age 3, our family friend the optometrist said “you’d better watch her eyesight since she shouldn’t be able to focus this closely at this young age.” Usually children are born slightly far-sighted, then normally get more near-sighted until they stabilize around age 5 or 6. He was right, since I started wearing glasses at 20/60 when I was 6 years old, and I had progressed so badly so quickly that I started wearing hard contact lenses when I was 9 and already 20/400. Those were a miracle for years, such a relief not to be pushing my glasses back up my nose all the time, then when I had some protein deposit problems in high school I moved to rigid gas permeable (RGP) lenses, and continued wearing those for over 30 years, all under the excellent care of Dr. Scott Nygard, even driving back to Sacramento from the Bay Area for appointments for years after I moved. I was very lucky that I tolerated hard contact lenses so well and was corrected completely, but there were always things I couldn’t do, and I hated feeling so utterly helpless without any glasses or contacts. Perfect eyesight remained on my wishlist, but never expecting I could ever get there, since by graduating college I was almost -12 diopters in both eyes, far past where the 20/20 scale makes any sense, and kept having minor but noticeable changes in prescription in at least one eye every year anyway.

I had 3 years from age 25 to 28 with no change, but then I started getting worse again every year. During those years, LASIK was being refined and improved all the time with more data, such as high amounts of correction being more risk of complications, especially with halos, folds in the cornea flap, and other scary things. Since I had no halos with my RGP contacts, I really didn’t want to make myself worse, and the higher risk of complications scared me, so LASIK wasn’t on my options list even if I ever finally stopped changing prescription.

Around age 35 I started having trouble in the mornings being able to see with my contacts. They would be sparkling clean when I put them in, but within 5 minutes my eyes had thrown so much protein on them, it was like looking through foggy smears. I started being more careful about taking them out earlier in the evening to give my eyes more rest, waiting longer in the morning after waking up to put them in, even cleaning them with enzyme solution every single day, but it would still happen even with brand-new, fresh from the factory lenses unless I waited a good 90 minutes after waking up before putting the lenses in my eyes. Not very convenient for working or traveling, especially when I’m not a morning person in the first place!

In April 2013, a few months before my “answer to life, the universe and everything” birthday, my mom had seen a daytime talk show with a young woman in the double-digit diopter range who had implantable contact lens (ICL) surgery and was overjoyed with her results. I had never heard of this surgery, so I looked it up, found it is more formally called phakic intraocular lens (IOL) surgery, that I was in the low to midrange of the possible correction amount, plus if you ended up with halos or something you didn’t like, YOU COULD TAKE THEM OUT AGAIN. Of course it required a second surgery to remove them, but that was major to me! LASIK being a permanent change had always scared me, so this was a huge deal for my comfort level of being willing to try. My annual eye exam was that same trip, and I was finally 6 years with no change in prescription and in my early 40s, so hopefully stable for good until reading glasses, and I was still testing a few years away from needing those. I was so excited there might be a chance for my wish to finally come true!

 
Next: My Intraocular Lens Implant Surgery & Healing Experience