PRK recovery logs

hello,
i am day 11 of prk recovery and am doing ok... but am losing steam
with my enthuciasm. Practically risked marital discord going through
with this surgery as my husband and in laws are MDS and are dead
against it.
wonder if there are any prk recoverees out there, with a time frame of
recovery. i don't know why but i was willing to wait weeks but it
seems like week 2 doesn' seem to get me sharp enough where i am
comfortable. was a 8.5 and 6.5 though. does anyone know if a more
myopic eye take longer?
any time schedule would be welcome. they should have support groups
out there for the long haul!
thanks
tania

 

Hello Tania,

At day 11 you are way too early in the recovery process to make any
determination as to the final outcome of your surgery.

I am surprised that your preoperative refractive error was so high
(8.5 and 6.5 diopters myopic) and your surgeon selected PRK. I can
only assume that the reason for this choice was your corneas were too
thin for LASIK. I also assume that the doctor used Mitomycn C
intraoperatively to reduce the probability of corneal haze.

Because of the large refractive error and the probability of the use
of Mitomycn C, you can expect your vision to continue to change for a
few weeks more. Some of your poor vision could be due to
undercorrection or overcorrection. When you see your doctor next, ask
for your current prescription.

If you are able to get excellent vision with corrective lenses, then
you can either use thinner glasses or consider enhancement surgery at
around three to six months postop.

In PRK the cells that constitute the outermost layer of your cornea
are removed. These are the fastest reproducing cells in the human
body, but it does take time for them to regenerate, fill up all the
low spots, and smooth out. While this occurs, quality of vision is
not great, even if you can see reasonably well.

For up to three months, if your vision is not really sharp even with
corrective lenses, you probably are still healing. If after three
months the quality of vision is poor, there is probably a specific
reason why you do not have excellent vision and that would need to be
diagnosed.

Something you can do now is make your eyes a good environment for
healing, and that means moisture. Dry eyes will disrupt the
epithelium, cause poor quality of vision, and possibly even cause
minor damage to those outermost cells. We have a detailed article on
dry eye treatment at
http://www.complicatedeyes.org/dry_eye_treatment.htm.

Last but not least, don't let your MD relatives know you received
advice over the Internet. If they didn't like your decision to have
surgery with a competent surgeon, they are really not going to like
you getting advice from faceless "amateurs".

Glenn Hagele
Executive Director
Council for Refractive Surgery Quality Assurance
http://www.USAeyes.org
http://www.ComplicatedEyes.org
glenn dot hagele at usaeyes dot org

I am not a doctor.