PRK Laser Eye Surgery Recovery (6 Month Update)

I promised an update to my PRK laser eye surgery experience (check out my post-surgery blog here) and I wanted to make sure I actually wrote one since I remember being frustrated at the lack of other peoples' updates when I was feverishly researching any and all things PRK last year. Honestly, I think the reason they don't update is because it becomes so easy to forget life pre-surgery.

In my case, it has now been 6 months since I had PRK. I wake up and I can see everything perfectly, whereas before I couldn't even read the time on my bedside clock which was less than a foot away from my head. The feeling of helpless blurriness is totally gone and being free from contacts/glasses has been incredible, especially now that it's summer. I was never much of a sunglasses girl even when I wore contacts but since I do need to protect my eyes, I've become quite religious about wearing them. As you can imagine, my sunglasses collection has basically tripled in size!

I'm especially loving my Quay Australia sunnies (here and here)

When I left off in my 1 month update, my eyes were not settled yet. Things were still blurry, it was hard to use the computer, and my eyes felt very dry. The blurriness continued for a few more months. I followed my eye drop regimen according to the 9 week tapering schedule set by Pacific Laser Eye Centre. I also continued taking Vitamin C and Omega 3 capsules, along with Restatis (a prescription eye drop for dry eyes) and preservative-free eye drops when my eyes felt dry.

I would say somewhere around 4 months post-surgery is when my blurriness/dryness issues seemed to level out. While I still use preservative-free eye drops at work, I find I don't really need them at other times when I'm not staring at a computer all day. I was already used to liberal eye drop use thanks to my dry eye syndrome, so continued use of eye drops hasn't been a bother for me. I just had my 6 month checkup with my eye doctor and she tells me everything has healed perfectly. In fact, it apparently looks like I never even had surgery! I am seeing 20/20 in both eyes with very slight astigmatism (+0.25) which I'm told is done intentionally to account for regression over time.

If you are in the Vancouver area (or planning on travelling to the area) and thinking about laser eye surgery, I cannot recommend Dr. David Lin at Pacific Laser Eye Centre enough. I mentioned my reasons for choosing him in my previous post and I stand by those reasons. Even though I had to wait many years to finally be eligible for PRK due to my numerous eye problems, I'm so grateful it eventually worked out and that it was such a huge success!