Sunday, January 29, 2017

PRK Day 45: More Vision Ups and Downs

It's been 45 days--or over six weeks--since my PRK surgery in my right eye, and my vision still fluctuates a lot. I was surprised to hear at my last appointment that my eye was really dry, which is something I have never dealt with. I've been trying to stay hydrated and use lubricating eye drops often, but I'm not sure it's helping. I recently read about a research study that showed that 5% of eyes developed chronic dry eye after PRK, even though none had dry eye before the surgery! I hope that doesn't happen to me, but I also live in a dry climate now and spend a lot of time in front of my computer, so dry eye is a possible side effect.

What starbursts look like to me
I also reported in my last post that my ghosting/double-vision had resolved. Well, that doesn't actually seem to be true anymore. Sometimes I see ghosting and sometimes there's none, which again, is probably related to dry eye. Starbursts are still present during the day and night. My vision is still significantly better than weeks 2-4, which I'm very happy about, but it goes up and day throughout the day and between days. Some days I wake up with great vision and it stays pretty good throughout the day, other days I can't see very well for the entire day. The instructions from my surgeon say to use lubricating eye drops at least four times a day as needed, and the past few days I've been using them once every hour or two (while awake). 

I'm also looking forward to stopping steroid eye drops. I have to take them for three months and I'm about half way through. The first month I used prednisolone (tapered from four times a day for one week, to two times a day for three weeks), the second month I'm using fluorometholone 3 times a day, and the third month I'll use fluorometholone 2 times a day. They sting when I put them in my eye and leave a bad taste in my mouth. I think I had to use the drops for so long (3 months) because my prescription was so high (-6.5 diopters, +1.5 astigmatism). I've read that steroid drops reduce the risk of corneal haze, but they also slow down healing. 

PRK recovery is soooo slow, but I do think it's worth it to avoid additional complications that can come with LASIK. I wasn't a candidate for LASIK anyway, according to my surgeon, so it was PRK or nothing in my right eye. Still no regrets, and I'll keep updating with my progress. 

2 comments:

  1. Good to know that the PRK surgery went well. I have to admit, I think I would get sick of having to take the steroid eye drops all of the time but if that is what has to be done, then that is what has to be done. Hopefully the dry eye goes away as well. Good luck to you!

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