13 November 2007

No Lasik For Me

I've been wearing these Drew Carey glasses for over two weeks now, so you can imagine my dismay when I showed up at my Lasik surgery appointment today and learned that the doctor was recommending that I not have the surgery.

Apparently, despite having already completed two different pre-operative visits to perform testing and eye measurements, today was the day that I found out that my corneas are too thin to safely undertake the procedure.


I'm all for caution when it comes to shooting powerful lasers into one's eyes, but still it is disappointing to go away uncured. Especially when it turns out that my option is now to have PRK surgery instead.


PRK is basically a better surgery. No flaps have to be cut into the corneas, so thickness of the cornea isn't an issue. Long-term testing shows that PRK offers clearer, longer-lasting vision correction than even the best Lasik procedures (currently Intralase is the rage in the Lasik field). Fighter pilots are authorized to have PRK, but not Lasik.


The downside is that the recovery time is 3-5 days of intense pain and suffering. I will be covered head to toe in bandages. I will be on pain medication, and I won't be able to go to work (or help out around the house at all - drag).


Compared to the 3-5 hours of recovery time with typical Lasik surgery, the PRK gig doesn't sound very appealing. But I'm getting it in two weeks.


And I get to keep wearing the Drew Carey specs in the meantime.

4 comments:

Aaron said...

I would be pretty upset at this if I were you. I would demand that the doctor at least hold me down and shine a bright flashlight in my eye so as to simulate the experience.

Scott said...

PRK also sounds like a Basque terrorist organization, so it's clearly a cooler surgery.

Anonymous said...

I can't wait to see the glasses next week!

Supercords said...

Make sure and post to your blog once the pain medication sets in.