Results from a reader

I received this note in the comments section and I thought I'd share it via a post. When I first started this blog, I'd hope that the information would be useful for others. I'm glad that this blog has been of use to at least one person. If anyone else has a similar story to share, please send it to me and I'll post it.

Hi KD,
I wanted to stop by and say thanks again for taking time to put this blog together and for answering my questions so quickly. I printed out the questions and brought them with me to my pre-op exam and that helped me get the answers I needed to feel comfortable with surgery.
I thought I would quickly share my experience for others that stop by. So far my experience has been similar to what you described for your wife. I had custom Lasik in both eyes, my prescription was -6.00 in both eyes with a very slight astigmatism in the right eye. Dr. Furlong said they would be removing about 75-80 microns. The Laser /ophthalmic tech named Will was awesome he answered a lot of my questions and quickly replied to my emails and also kept the mood light on surgery day which I really appreciated.
The Procedure:During the procedure everything happened pretty much as you described except my right eye didn’t go completely black when they applied the pressure it was more of a grey. Also to avoid the burning smell that people described I made sure to breathe through my mouth when I heard the clicking of the laser. This worked well. The only part of the surgery that was uncomfortable was the bright light that was on for a few seconds before the laser started.
After Surgery:After surgery my eyes were very light sensitive, they stung and kept tearing. I could barely open them for the drops. The numbing drops they proved helped but only lasted a few min. After using them 3 or 4 times I gave up and decided to try and sleep, which was hard to do. Having the windows covered help with the sleep and light sensitivity. My surgery was around 3:30 pm; I went straight home, straight to bed and tried to sleep as long as I could. After finally falling asleep I woke up around 9pm and my eyes felt much better. The stinging/tearing was gone, but still sensitive to light. I Ate some dinner and went back to sleep.
1 day postWoke up around 8am eyes felt drastically better. Sensitive to light, right eye felt scratchy and it was a bit hard to focus, but vision was clear and functional. At the post op exam they said I was seeing 20/20 but I still saw halo and rainbows around bright lights. I didn’t feel ready to drive but I was able to watch TV look at my phone and go out for dinner but required lots of eye resting in between.
Today is 4 days post-lasik and I’m back at work, I’m still using antibiotics and steroid drops every 4 hours and sleeping with eye shields (which I thought would be uncomfortable but really aren’t bad). Right eye has felt scratchy ever since surgery, haven’t had much trouble with dry eyes but it’s a bit worse today being in the air conditioning at work. Left eye feels normal and I’m using the lubricating drops every hour as directed. I drove a little bit today but its gloomy/raining out so people have their headlight on which means halos and rainbows for my eye which are still a bit light sensitive. Hopefully this gets better as my eyes heal.
Two other things I would mention are my eyes tend to lose focus often and I have the strange urge to take out my contacts.
Thanks Again and Congrats!!!
Congrats! 

For having a prescription of -6 with astigmatism and the fact that you are seeing 20/20 the day after, I would declare that a resounding success! I think you stand a good chance of hitting 20/15 by the 6 week check up. If you do, please let me know so I can post your results.


Your experience is a little different as you are seeing rainbows. My wife did not experience the rainbow effect, however she had the exact same light sensitivity. By the way, the contact in the eye feeling and the feeling of scratchy eye is basically symptoms of dry eye. So yes, you are experiencing dry eye symptoms. I hope it clears for you soon as that is the worst symptom of all post LASIK. I should mention that there is a difference between dry eye symptom which everyone gets immediately post LASIK surgery and chronic dry eyes which is what you don't want to get. If the symptom persist...ugh.


I've got good news for you though, my wife's halos has just about gone completely away. I think you can at least look forward to the halos decreasing as well. My wife can read the default font on the new Retina IPAD  from reading distance so I hope to see 20/15 for her result this week. If not, then we can chalk her up to being one of the unlucky ones who can only achieve 20/20. =)