All About My LASIK Surgery

One of my goals for 2021 was to get LASIK.

And. . .then instead we bought and remodeled a house and moved, and the whole year got away from me.

So when I was working on my 2022 goals, I knew LASIK was one of the things I REALLY wanted to get done this year.

And now I’ve done it!

Here’s what the LASIK process looked like:

lasik surgery

  • CONSULT. I had already decided I wanted to go to Waite Vision after a couple of my friends had recommended him and then when I looked him up online, the reviews were sky high. The consult took about two hours and they ran a bunch of tests on my eyes and then I met with the doctor who told me I was a good candidate for LASIK and by the time I left, I had my LASIK surgery scheduled for about three weeks later.
  • SURGERY PREP. I couldn’t wear my contacts for five days prior to my LASIK surgery (this timeline varies a lot by doctor – I’ve heard from lots of people who were told to wear glasses for two or three weeks before their surgery date. I also wasn’t supposed to wear makeup the day of my surgery.
  • LASIK DAY. On the day I had LASIK, they told me to plan for about two hours, with the surgery itself taking less than 20 minutes. I was also supposed to bring someone who could drive me home. When I got there, they rechecked my eyes to see if things had changed without contact wearing (they said they were identical to the initial measurements) and then they took me into the surgery room. You lay down on a bed by one machine and they numb your eye and then put a retractor around your eyelids so your eye can’t shut and then they make a little flap on your eye (with a laser) and then move you to the other bed/machine and its’ basically the same process except this time they’re using the laser to fix your eye shape so you have perfect vision. The actual hands-on part was just a few seconds per eye. Bart and Ella came along and they watched from outside the room – there are some big screens so they could see it all and Bart videotaped it (although I haven’t watched it yet).
  • POST SURGERY. I was super light sensitive afterward – I wore two pairs of sunglasses and a hood and didn’t open my eyes the whole drive home. They told me to come home and take a nap and by the time I woke up 2-3 hours later, I could see perfectly and all the cloudiness was gone. I didn’t even have a headache – I felt totally fine and my eyes didn’t hurt – they just felt slightly gritty, like they do if you’ve been swimming in the ocean. They gave me antibiotic eyedrops that I was supposed to put in four times a day for a week, plus eye drops for moisture that I was supposed to put in every 2-3 hours for the first week. The next day, I had a follow up and the doctor told me I’d be fine to drive myself there (which I was) and everything looked good so he scheduled me for a follow-up after a month.
  • RECOVERY. I never experienced any pain during my LASIK surgery or recovery and I could see well within a few hours of my surgery. There were no issues driving or reading or using my phone or carrying on with my daily routine. I DID feel like it took a full two weeks for my eyes to feel fully healed. I’d have days where it felt like I had an eyelash in my eye or a scratch and it was hard for me to not think about my eyesight constantly – I’d find myself sitting in the living room and closing one eye and then the other to compare my vision and wondering how sharp things could be. It felt like it just took my brain about ten days to stop noticing my new eyesight all the time. Now I go days without thinking about it. I also felt like for the first week, my vision was slower to adjust between distance and close-up, but now that seems fully resolved too. I used a LOT of eye drops in that first 10 days but now am just using them in the morning when I get up and when I go to bed.

Overall, it was a totally great experience and it feels miraculous to not have to put in or take off contacts, to put on my glasses to watch a show in bed at night, or have to worry about packing all my vision supplies when I travel.

I think it would be MORE life changing if my vision had been significantly worse. I would never leave the house with glasses or contacts but my vision wasn’t SO bad that I couldn’t function in the morning or evening without my glasses or contacts in.

I’m SO glad that I finally got it done!

Here were some of the questions you asked about LASIK:

QUESTIONS About LASIK

How painful is it? How much and when did it hurt?
It wasn’t painful at all – I literally experienced zero pain during the whole process. The most uncomfortable part was having the retractors that keep your eyes open, but it didn’t hurt – it just wasn’t that fun.

Was it hard being awake through the whole thing? Were you fully awake/cognizant? How do you not panic being awake for it?
Yes – you’re fully awake for the whole thing (general anesthesia isn’t without risks, so it’s safer not to do that when it’s such a quick and painless surgery). The doctor offered me a Valium if I was nervous, but I didn’t feel scared about it and told him I didn’t feel any need for it unless he thought I should take it. He said if I didn’t feel like I needed it, there was no reason for it, but if you’re nervous about it, I’d for SURE take it.

How much did it cost? Is it covered by a HSA? Did insurance help pay?
The total cost was $5700. My insurance didn’t pay for any of it, but we did use funds from our HSA (pre-tax money!) to pay for it, so it didn’t really feel like it was out-of-pocket since the money was just sitting there.

Why did you decide to do it now?
As you get your older, your vision is going to start to slip, so the earlier you do LASIK, the longer you’ll get to enjoy the benefits of it. Plus, the younger you are, the faster and more easily you heal. So once I decided that I was going to do it, I felt like I should get it as soon as possible. Every single person I’d talked to who had done it wished they’d done it earlier.

What was your prescription before you had LASIK? Did you have astigmatism?
My right eye was a -2.75 and my left eye was a -1.50. I didn’t have an astigmatism.

Was it terrifying? What was the worst part?
I mean, am I dying to go back in and have LASIK done again? No. Was it awful? Not at all. The worst three parts were the retractors (it’s just so weird to be unable to blink), the momentary burning smell when your eye is getting lasered and then the light sensitivity afterward. But those were all so quick that the long-term benefit is a no-brainer in my mind.

I’m terrified I’ll blink and mess it up. Is that possible?
Nope! They’re not depending on you to keep your eye open. They’ll use a retractor which holds your eye open – you couldn’t blink if you wanted to.

Is there a cut-off age for LASIK? Like a point at which it wouldn’t be worth it?
I’m sure there is but I wasn’t anywhere near it at 36. If you’re considering it, I’d go in for a consult and see what they tell you.

Where did you have it done?
I went to Waite Vision in Lehi, Utah and I was SUPER happy with the whole thing. Dr. Waite did a great job making me feel really comfortable about the whole process and even texted me that night to see how I was doing (and then I texted him a few days later with a question and he got right back to me).

Who took the video?
Bart took it. I haven’t watched it and might never. (My doctor actually told me not to google or watch videos about LASIK between my consult and my surgery and I wasn’t a bit tempted).

Did you get a reference through your regular eye doctor?
Nope. Just called up Waite Vision and made an appointment for a consult. But I’m sure you could get a reference from your regular eye doctor!

How long before your eyes felt normal?
Normal enough to function fully? Within 4 hours. Fully healed and not even thinking about my eyes? About two weeks. But during that two weeks, I worked normally, drove my kids around, went skiing, watched TV, read books, and all the normal things.

Are you able to use your phone/read?
Yep! I was using my phone and reading by early evening that same day.

How much help would be needed afterwards with childcare/household?
Bart was home all afternoon to care for the girls while I napped and my sister brought over dinner, but I totally could have made dinner and was fine to help put the kids to bed that night. It’s VERY little downtime.

Were you nervous?
No, I was actually surprised by how not nervous I was. I was just anxious to get it done and be on the other side of it!

Are you afraid of needles?
I don’t love needles (I’m fine with shots – it’s getting blood drawn that I truly hate) but I’m not super afraid of them. The good news is that there are no needles involved in LASIK!

Were there any surprises?
The burning smell when they actually used the laser definitely was a surprise. It kind of smelled like when you get a filling done and they’re using that burr on your tooth to get out all the decay.

Do you have any regrets?
Only that I didn’t do it fifteen years ago (on the other hand, I think it’s gotten better in the last fifteen years, so I feel fine about it).

Will you need readers in a few years?
I’m sure I will at some point. But I’ve spent the last 30 years correcting my vision 95% of the time with either contacts or glasses, so having perfect vision all the time right now and then in 10 or 15 years having perfect vision for anything distance and needing to put on readers for the times I’m doing close up work feels like a good tradeoff to me.

Why not PRK?
I don’t think they usually do PRK if you’re a LASIK candidate. LASIK is a quicker recovery time and if LASIK can give you perfect vision, that’d be the obvious choice.

Can you drive at night? Do you see a halo/blurry lights at night?
Yep, I can drive at night without any issue. I already had some very minor haloing pre-LASIK and it seems about the same now.

Do you have any issues with dry eyes now?
It’s too early to say for sure long term, but I would guess no. I did a lot of eye drops in the early days but now only use them in the morning and evening and my guess is that within a few weeks, I won’t even use them then anymore.

Did you get any of the upgrade versions? I know there is the basic and the extras.
Waite Vision does all-inclusive LASIK, so there are no upgrades or upsells for astigmatism, high prescriptions, or enhancements.

At any point could you not see?
Nope. It kind of FEELS like you can’t see when it’s actually happening because there’s basically nothing to look at except a little dot of light, but you can see the whole time.

Any other questions about LASIK? Happy to try to answer!

 

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2 Comments

  1. Glad it went so well for you! I had a different experience with LASIK — everyone I knew told me how easy it was, how it didn’t hurt, how they could immediately see more clearly. I found it to be surprisingly painful (although very brief). I also had blurry vision off and on for a few weeks after the procedure. I felt so much anxiety during these weeks wondering if something had gone wrong. Thankfully, my vision did stabilize and now I can see better than I ever have in my life. I do not regret the experience at all and am SO happy to finally be able to see without the glasses or contacts that I had been wearing since I was 8 years old. I wish I had heard a varying degree of people’s reactions to LASIK because then I would not have been so alarmed and worried by my own reaction. So hopefully that can be helpful to others reading this page too.

  2. I had the procedure done in 2005. Timed from when they started taping my eyes open to finish 8mins. I did have pressure pain on the 2nd eye. Dr said likely because I anticipated it. The location was a 2 hr drive from home and I had no pain medicine so it was a dull pain and ended up falling asleep. Got home slept some more finally at 9pm rook the bandages off and was amazed. I’m contemplating doing it again. This time my vision isn’t nearly as bad but I do have astigmatism in one eye.

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