It’s been a bit over a month since my LASIK surgery, so I thought I’d share an update.
Unfortunately, the news isn’t that great. The swelling in my left eye went down, so that part’s good.
However, my eyes are not producing tears well, and my tear film is basically awful. This means that my eyes are dry and dirty, which makes the vision blurrier. My left eye (the dominant one) is the worst. The problem is that cutting that flap severs the nerves, so my eyes can’t send the signal to my brain that they need some juice. On an offtopic note, my liver sent messages to my brain for years during college begging for water and alcohol-free liquids, which also went ignored.
The first thing we tried doing was putting temporary plugs in my tear drains on the bottom. This would block 80% of my eyes’ drainage. It didn’t work. I am still going to consider getting some permanent plugs because I’m sure it didn’t hurt.
Next, I was put on a prescription eye drop called Restasis for about two weeks. It is finally slowly starting to kick in, so we’ll see how it goes.
Moving to LA has also not helped the eye situation. This is essentially a desert climate, only near the ocean, so I’ve been dryer than sawdust. For two weeks I’ve been drinking gallons of water, only to remain thirsty and simply pee it right back out. This transition from humid Austin to dry LA has not been pleasant, but I’m slowly adjusting. I guess it’s been dryer here than usual too.
When I do get some tears going (from hot food or watching chick flicks [j/k]), my vision is incredible. But by the end of the day, my eyes are tired and my vision is bad. Especially if I’m drinking even a little, which dehydrates me. I have confidence that when my tears get going, I’ll be happy.
So at this point, I must say that I wish I had not gotten this surgery. Hey, we all make mistakes, and I’m not one to lie to myself. I ask myself, “Were contacts really THAT bad?” And the answer is “no”. I also realized that my eyes got very dry with contacts too, and I should have done something about that earlier on.
Despite being a computer geek, I’m typically a laggard when it comes to toys and gadgets. I think I did the surgery a bit too early in its “technology adoption curve.” I would put LASIK right at the later part of the Visionary segment in this chart, adopted from the fantastic book Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers. Normally I don’t use products this early because I don’t want to deal with the BS involved (my long-time usage of Linux is obviously a major exception), so why did I jump on this so early? I would say that if you’re more of a laggard like me, wait until they don’t have to cut your flap open and you can be out and 95% recovered within an hour.
So ladies, if you wanna break my heart and shatter it into pieces, please do so now, because for at least a little while longer, I can’t cry!