The Surgery

I arrived at Insight for my PRK procedure at 10:15 AM on Friday June 5th 2009. I was given a mild sedative to help me relax and a squeeze ball to help relieve anxiety. I also received several eye drops before going into the procedure. Immediately before entering the room with the laser I had one more visit with the surgeon (actually the first time I had met the surgeon...) he took one last look at my cornea but did no further vision tests.

I would guess I entered the laser room at approximately 11:00 AM or so. Before starting I had the surgeon humor me and tell me which correction would be done in each eye... it made me feel better at least!

The procedure started with some clamps placed on my eyelids to hold them in place. I expected this to be much more uncomfortable than it was. It's probably a combination of the numbing or other drops applied to your eye but it really wasn't that uncomfortable. I could feel my eyelids flinching occasionally as if they were blinking and it actually felt like they were closing and re-opening rapidly.

Next something that looked like a small ring on a stick was lowered onto the surface of the cornea. I could feel some liquid dripping on the surface of my eye and heard the nurse counting down from 45 in the background. This was the application of the chemical to remove the epithelium in preparation for the laser.

After 45 seconds the ring was removed along with the chemical. The surgeon then used something that looked like a miniature broom to remove the remaining epithelium. This sounds painful but was not - again probably due to the numbing drops. It felt a bit like someone was pressing on my eyelid with a pencil eraser.

Finally it was time for the laser. I was expecting something to hold my head or eye in place for this part of the procedure but I was mistaken. I just looked up at a green dot in the laser, located about 6-12 inches from my head. When the laser started it sounded a bit like a arc welder or some type of spark device going off raplidly. After reading other posts I had expected the "burning hear" smell, however it was even stronger than I expected and definitely unmistakeable. The laser took probably 10-15 seconds during which time the green light got wider and blurrier as I watched it.

After the laser, the surgeon doused my eye with cold water. It was minimally uncomfortable... I didn't experience the "ice cream headache" others have, it just felt very cold... especially on the sides of my eye.

Finally, a bandage lens was placed over my eye. This looked thin and clear, approximately twice the size of a normal contact lens.

The entire experience was repeated on the left eye.

When the surgery was complete I sat up on the table and instantly noticed that although my vision was blurry I could see much better than when I entered the room. This was reassuring.

I walked out of the room on my own and sat down in a chair in the waiting area. I was given another series of drops. In another 20 minutes or so I talked to the doctor again. He did a few more checks to make sure the bandage lens was in place and everyhing looked OK. I recieved a kit with eyedrops and instructions for the next 4 days. I left shortly after and was home around noon.