PRK Post-surgery - Day 1 after

Well, this is my 1st day after the surgery and I will need to keep this quick since it's pretty hard for me to see the screen.

I had my first follow-up with my local eye doctor and he said everything was healing fine. In fact, since my surgery was quite early yesterday he said I was slightly ahead of the curve. The family all went out for a good breakfast this morning and in general I have felt pretty good. I had a long nap in the afternoon and my energy level seems a bit low.


For most of the morning I really couldn't feel the bandage contacts at all and so far I have only had two extra strength Tylenols for the discomfort. I've had a bit of the "eyelash in the eye" feeling in one eye, but only occasionally.  Right now later in the day and after having been outside, and with trying to concentrate on my computer screen to write this, my eyes definitely feel tired and a bit scratchy.

My vision is very poor and probably worse than yesterday. I would describe it as about a third or half of my previous uncorrected -9 diopter prescription, so I can function at most things, but it is still tough - lots of halos and so on.

The strangest thing is my eyes look perfectly normal - they aren't blood shot or weepy or swollen or anything. As my wife says, if I had sneaked out and had the surgery, it would be impossible to tell! Even the bandage contact lenses aren't all that obvious. Contrast this with a friend of mine who had Lasik who had some bloodshot appearance a week later. I think that's because there is a ring they place on your eye for cutting the flap in Lasik that isn't required for PRK.

So, that's probably enough for now, but just to mention one last thing. If you are going for this surgery you definitely, absolutely will need a committed partner to help see you through it and the after care. Immediately after the surgery you are really pretty helpless and I still feel pretty helpless while I have the bandage lenses in. There is also a pretty complex regime of eye drops to manage. It gets especially complicated when there are also children to look after! My friends who have had Lasik are generally right back to fairly normal routine the next day, but that just isn't the case with PRK!

I made the dumb mistake of planning this for when our primary child care helpers (my in-laws) happened to be out of town which has made this somewhat more complicated than it might be normally. My wife has been wonderfully supportive and taken on the extra load without complaint and I appreciate it and love her even more for it! I will definitely make it up to her with some time off for her later in the summer when this is all over.