Damian

I had Lasik on my eyes on the 17th of December 2004. It's now 2 months to the day after that and I can happily report that my eyes have never been better. No fumbling for glasses in the middle of the night. No dry contact lenses falling out when away from the house. No red marks on my nose from wearing glasses all day.

I still get the four-eyes jokes, but only in an ironic way for old-times sake.

Before I had the operation I read every report I could from people like myself. This was immensely helpful and enabled me to get beyond the risks and realise that this was a straight-forward, routine procedure. As a result I wanted to start this blog to share my experience and to collect the experiences of others in one place.

Back to me.

I was forced to get glasses at age 12 when my best friend got sick of me copying his school work at the back of the class and told my mother. Nice one Shaun. For the following 19 years I wore a combination of glasses and contacts. Glasses for day, contacts for play. This wasn't such a big deal and many many people live the rest of their lives like this. It was annoying though. The annoyance built up over 19 years and boiled over when I lost my glasses on the way to work one day. That afternoon I called the Eye Institute and booked an appointment.

My first appointment was fairly typical for anyone that has ever had an eye examination. My prescription was checked and I was talked through a summary of the procedure.

My second appointment involved the application of eye-drops that dilate the pupil. I've read that some people found these uncomfortable. Now pain, and therefore comfort, is a very subjective thing. Years ago, I used to clean my contacts with Hydrogen Peroxide. Forgetting to neutralise that solution and then putting those suckers in your eye was uncomfortable (a screaming, yelling kind of uncomfortable). These eye drops had a slight stinging sensation but about as painful as an eye-lash getting in your eye. Once my pupils were dilated, the nurse sat me in front of a machine that maps the surface of your cornea and also measures its thickness. I had thought that my eyes were smooth and round like a table-tennis ball. In reality, they are more like an apple that has been dropped repeatedly on the floor. The result is a coloured map of your eyes. I'll put it up here shortly. This map is used to guide the Laser so as to get a perfect result. Previous versions of Lasik didn't do this map and the Laser cut based on your prescription. This took about an hour in all and I was back at work with no issues aside from boredom.

I waited 2 weeks until the operation. I could have had it done the next Friday - in fact I think they were keen to do it that day, however a couple of factors stopped me :

1. New Zealand was putting in tough anti-smoking laws in 2 weeks that ban smoking from all bars and restaurants. Nice if your eyes are healing.


2. I was too scared to jump into it so quickly.

On the day of the operation I arrived at 3:45pm and read a magazine for 5 minutes. My brain was hyperactive and had me thinking that this might be the last magazine I'd read (ahhhh!). The nurse led me through to the operating theatre and put a sexy pair of cloth socks over my shoes. I asked if I could take a pair home to help dust the house but she politely refused. She put some anaesthetic eye-drops in and had me lie on a bed for 10 minutes. I was then led over to a bed sitting under a rather large piece of equipment. The Laser!

This is where my experience goes from 'Rosy' to 'Dark and Stormy'.

A few things first. The stlye of Lasik that I was having requires a flap to be cut in your eye. This flap is then folded back and the Laser burns away some of your cornea from underneath it. The flap is then folded back over and hey presto you can see.

The doctor applies a device to your eyes to widen them as much as possible to allow the flap to be large enough so that your direct vision is not affected. If it was too small then you would have fuzzy peripheral vision. I can't recall anyone telling me that I had squinty little eyes. My mother certainly didn't, but then mothers'll love anything right? The problem I had was that as my eyes were narrow the distance between my cheekbone and eyebrow-bone wasn't sufficient. Due to this the doctor had to rachet the device until it felt like my eye socket was being stretched. I felt some empathy with those people who cut their leg bones to add some height. Odd comment but you can see where I'm coming from.

It wasn't so much that this stretching was painful. It wasn't. It was more that it was totally unexpected.

Then a device is lowered and presses into your open eye. It doesn't hurt but is a little claustraphobic. This device then slices a flap on your eye. This freaked me out. I could feel it cut my eye but as there are no nerves on the surface there is no pain. As soon as the cut is made you lose your vision.

Well that is the difficult bit. Compared to that the actual Laser was over in about 30 seconds. All I had to do was to look at a red light, something that I'm used to from the Auckland traffic. The nurse reads out a series of numbers which I took to be either the lottery results or the movement of my eye in relation to some set tolerances.

Now you don't have to worry that you'll move your eye and the Laser will make you blind. They have a eye-tracking system that locks on to your pupil and will stop the Laser if you move outside of some set tolerances.

The second eye was relaxing by comparison. As I was expecting the stretching of my eye, it was uncomfortable but not unbearable. The flap-cutting process wasn't as freaky the second time around. My red-light-staring skills had improved since the last eye and it went very smoothly. The flaps were folded back over and my goggles were applied. These goggles are made of stiff cardboard and are designed to stop you scratching your eyes. They look pretty goofy. Kind of like a white version of these Oakley sunglasses. I was then gently led to a darkened room. The lovely nurse said I could try to open my eyes. I thought that this was surely too soon, but sure enough I could see my feet. I wasn't blind! yay, that wasn't my last magazine.

After 10 minutes in the dark room I was ready to go. My girlfriend picked me up and took me home. I had been given a large bottle of pain killers, however I didn't need to take a single one.

Do you remember when you were young and still believed in Santa Claus? Do you remember waking up very early on Christmas morning and not being able to sleep? Well that was what I had that night. I slept well but woke up at about 6am - not exactly wide-eyed, but certainly wide awake. The first thing that I noticed was that I could see the clock at the other end of the room. I'd never been able to see that clock before. The fact that it read 6:01 and my appointment wasn't until 8am was slightly depressing. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to keep my eyes open or had to leave them shut, so I left them shut. It turns out that it doesn't matter as long as you don't touch them.

In fact, that's worthy of a new paragraph. The mantra. The bible. The koran for Lasik surgery is don't touch your eyes. If you can follow this then you'll do just fine.

7:30am rolled along and I got ready for the unveiling. My girlfriend lent me her sexiest eye-shades (picture to come), and we headed for the Eye Institute. The doctor said he'd never seen such spectacular eye-shades on a heterosexual man before. We went into a darkened room and he removed my DIY-Oakleys, put some comfort drops in and had me blink the gumminess away. I could see! I could see the whole room and my girlfriend waving from the other side of it. A fantastic feeling.

After a brief eye test I drove home - only 15 hours after the operation. No pain and only a slight sensitivity to sunlight. We went out to the newly smokeless pubs of Auckland that night. I had quite large bloody areas where the flap had been cut which a few people found disturbing. I told everyone that the blood was from where my girlfriend had hit me. Very believable.

The following week I was on leave and wanted to dig in the garden (I'm not old and boring, honest). I though that I shouldn't exert myself too much and was constantly worried about my flaps popping out (which sounds quite rude), or doing some damage to my eyes. They reccomend that you don't do any rigourous exercise for a week after the operation. And don't go swimming for 2 weeks. Turns out that these reccommendations are mostly to support the 'Mantra'. If you exercise, you'll sweat and if sweat gets in your eyes, you'll try to rub them. Bad. If you go swimming and your eyes get wet or you get salt in them, you'll try to run them. Again - Bad.

So I put some protective goggles on (see through plastic and non-goofy) and continued with the digging.

After 1 week I realised that I could see the shower floor. Ewww. And that I could see my back. Interesting.

After 3 weeks the blood had gone from my eyes.

After 4 weeks I had forgotten that I ever wore glasses.

After 8 weeks, I have no issues at all. My eye-sight isn't perfect. I still have a slight astigmatism in my right eye, but it's better vision than I had with my glasses, and more than I expected.

I'm tempted to say that I wish I had this done years ago, however I've heard from people that had it done then and it sounds a lot more painful. One friend had PRK Laser treatment and had to sit in pain in a dark room with no TV or books for 2 weeks. Compare that to my 15 hours with goofy goggles.

I would definitely reccomend Lasik to anyone considering it. The risks aren't as great as you think. Out of the 33,000 eyes that have been Lasered at my clinic, no one has gone blind and only 4 eyes have developed infections.

I think I was most worried about the flaps coming loose. My doctor said that after about 2 weeks it would take someone scratching their eye with their fingernail to dislodge the flap. Even then he was doubtful.

Cost: $2540 per eye
Doctor: Bruce Hadden
Clinic: Eye Institute - www.eyeinstitute.co.nz