I'm going to say a lot of things in this post, but the most important thing I'm going to say - I shall say first. I absolutely will not EVER recommend this procedure to ANYone! Let me make that crystal clear.
Granted, a lot of people out there have had it done, & they WOULD recommend this procedure. However, let me tell you WHY I am soooooooo not one of those people. In this post, I am going to tell you what the facilities that perform this procedure will NOT tell you.
To begin with, it IS a surgery. In spite of the fact that it's done in a minimally invasive way with a laser, & not your typical surgical tools - it is STILL a surgery. Having said that, I now pose a question to you. With all the people that YOU have known that have had ANY type of surgery, you may even have had one or two yourSELF, weren't those patients immediately prescribed something for PAIN? Were they left to suffer in agony until THEY said something about needing something for PAIN? The answer is "NO". They were NOT left to suffer in agony until THEY said something about needing something for pain. But alas..... With lasik eye surgery, they do NOT automatically prescribe something for the patient's impending pain. Nope. They sure don't. And when you inevitably end up calling their office to kindly request them to call a prescription for pain into the pharmacy - they will tell you quite firmly that they're no longer allowed to call in prescriptions to the pharmacies..........
So.... The two points of that prior paragraph are thus:
Regardless of the fact that it's done with a laser - it is STILL a surgery. Surgeries ARE a big deal.
The facility will neither automatically provide you with a prescription to get filled for impending pain, NOR will they call a prescription into any pharmacy for you after you've left their facility.
During the procedure itself, there will be a point wherein you will see nothing but BLACKNESS. Complete, & total blindness. ***Note: They WILL tell you THIS prior to the surgery. They will also assure you that your vision does return after the procedure is over. In our experience, this was factual.
They have NO type of heart monitoring equipment hooked up to the patient, nor do they take any vitals prior to the surgery, during the surgery, or after the surgery.... This is VERY BAD! Let me explain this the best I can, & keep in mind, I just watched all this yesterday with my own eyeballs during my Son's surgery.
If a patient begins to panic, a very real likelihood, their breathing becomes out of control, which can lead to hyper ventilating. Hyper ventilating can in turn head towards cardiac arrest, unless I'm mistaken on that, but I'm pretty certain that's accurate. Now..... If the patient's heart, & vitals are NOT being monitored the entire time..... Well..... Let's just say that those facilities can wind up in a whole mess of legal trouble if / when things go "wrong". Understand me?
The facility will repeatedly proclaim to you how painLESS the entire procedure is, & what a "breeze" the recovery is, how they've done so many thousand of these procedures, yada yada yada..... Listen to me. Hear me on this. Not every BODY feels the same, reacts the same, has the same genetics, has the same chemical balances, has the same pain tolerance, or the same ANY damn thing. Which is to say that just because Billy Joe Jim Bob "breezed" right through the procedure, & the recovery with "no problems" - it does NOT mean that Maximillion Thanks Amillion won't have any problems with the exact same procedure, & his recovery process will NOT be the same either. ALWAYS bear that in mind.
There are two parts to the surgery itself. The first part, the first table, is for prepping the patient. This involves putting drops into the eyes that are supposed to numb them, & using a metal CLAW that they position into the eye {directly inside the eye lids} to keep the eye open for the procedure. ALL the facility will tell their potential patient is, "we have a way of keeping the eye open, you don't have to worry about the eye instinctually trying to close"...... They intentionally try to make the device sound harmless, mysterious {so you won't push them for a specific actual ANSWER to your direct question} & like there's nothing for you to worry about. WRONG! As I said, it's METAL. I SAW it. Next, it's a CLAW with POINTS on it, that are being put INside your lids.......... Think about it. It oughtta hit you.
You get a groovy white net hat put on your head, & some cotton pads positioned on the areas of your face above your ears so that nothing runs into your ears {including your tears}. Then you're stood up, & taken to the next table where more horror awaits you. Now they are going to tape a Davey Jones eye patch onto one of your eyes while they "work" on the other one. This eye patch will be switched to the other eye when they are ready to switch eyes. The eye withOUT the patch is the one they're now going to "work" on...... This is where the laser comes in.....
The laser is used to CUT into your cornea....... A FLAP is made inside your eye...... Then what looks like a contact lens is placed on top of all that, & they take some sort of tiny white spatula looking thing to smooth out any wrinkles in that "lens" that they just put into your eye..... This is the gist of what happens on this table. There ARE variations.
When it's over, you're stood up again, & now have to pose for a publicity pic with the "dr." that just did all this to you...... Twice....... Once they have their publicity pic, you are rushed out....... You're no longer relevant....
You go home, gradually, & slowly beginning to feel a little better. You're seeing things you've never been able to make out before, & your mood is beginning to really spike high, & you begin to feel most optimistic about your brand new visibility ability, & the impending good things that is going to mean for you in your life. A couple of hours go by. Not doing great, but not doing horrible either. The numbing drops have well worn off by now, as has the valium they administered so that you'd be "calm" during the procedure. It's about to get ugly....
You took your drops on schedule. BOTH sets of drops {the antibiotic drops, & the sterile natural "tears" drops}... Every.... Two hours.... But you're a tough guy, you can handle it. After all, none of this "hurts". ALLLL you'll feel is "some dryness, maybe some scratchiness, or kind of a pokiness, but nothing unbearable or painful by any means"....... Those words in quotes are what you will be told by the facility. Ready for the TRUTH? Here it comes.
You will then proceed to try, I say TRY, to go to bed. You may even get to sleep for all of a whopping four hours, & THEN you will awaken to a BLAZING FIRE OF HELL FURY IN YOUR EYEBALLS. A fire that you cannot quench no matter how many useless drops you put into your eyes. A fire that a cool, damp wash cloth sitting on your eyes will do nothing to quench. A fire that assuredly prevents you from getting back to sleep. All you can do is cry, & cry, & cry, & cry, & FUCKING CRY!!!!!!!!!!! You are in a torturous, horrible, hellacious pain the likes of which NOBODY else can fathom until they go through it themselves.
Eventually, the following day when the facility opens, you place a call to the facility. You explain to them what you're experiencing. You do this while your eyes are STILL on fire, you've had ONLY that first MAYBE four hours of sleep ALLL damn night, you're still crying, & pitifully desperate for relief. You ask them to PLEASE call in a prescription for your pain, & you say that you canNOT take this. To which they will tell you, "we can't call prescriptions in"...... You say, "you're a doctor, & YOU "can't" call in a prescription"...... They say, "that's right"....... They then put you on hold..... ON HOLD!!!!!!!!!! They come back, & say, "you shouldn't be feeling any pain". To which YOU most assuredly tell THEM, "I'm telling you my eyes ARE LITERALLY ON FIRE, it DOES hurt". THEN, they tell you that you can come in ANY time today........ So you most definitely go. You're all fired up to take a piece of them!
You get there...... They continually INSIST that you shouldn't be feeling any pain...... As if you don't know what you feel..... Seriously..... They continually tell you they need you to open your eyes so they can see what's going on........ Opening your eyes is MORE torture! Therefore, "opening your eyes" is damn near an impossibility for you at this point. This agitates them......... "Well, I can't help you if you don't open your eyes".......... SERIOUSLY!!!!!!!!!!!! Eventually, they decide to add more "numbing drops" to the eyes...... This SHOULD have been done FIRST, but remember, you're "not in any pain"......... NOW you are able to open your eyes little bit, but it's still seriously painful, so you can ONLY open them a little bit.
After they see as much as they can inside your eyes, THEN they say...... "There's not any infection, so that's not what's causing the "discomfort", but they ARE inflamed." Note: ALWAYS be especially discerning whenever one of these "doctors" insists on using the word "discomfort". You understand me? FUCK the word "discomfort". The CORRECT word is AGONY!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's move on now. Let's now cover WHY the eyes are inflamed, shall we? Oh yes, let's DO!
You see, during this little visit, you are going to learn that the reason for this "discomfort" a.k.a. BLAZING FIRE OF HELL FURY IN YOUR EYEBALLS is becaaaaaaause..... There are bare spots on your epithelial layer...... EXPOSURE that's NOT supposed to be there........
THEN you're going to be told that we have to lift those lenses, rinse them out, seal them, & put a protective lens over all that for approximately 3 days...... You're going BACK to that damn table of torture........ WHILE you're on that table of torture, with that damn metal claw in your eye, & eyes that were JUST operated on the day before so OF COURSE they're MORE sensitive than normal, you will be repeatedly told that you're not in pain, that this does not hurt, you're over-thinking this {which is just another way of saying, "it's all in your head"}, & in a nut shell, be repeatedly made to feel like a cry baby that's just being a drama queen.......... K......... I told you I was going to tell you the TRUTH, & I meant it!
Meanwhile, as you're on this table trying to be as still as you can, barely able to breathe, suffering horrible amounts of pain on eyes that are sensitive anyway - but are even MORE sensitive after having had surgery by this same "doctor" just the day before, & being made to CRY because the insensitive son of a bitch is TRYING to emasculate you, bully you, & shame you, you start praying to Jesus. Eventually, it's over. Then, & ONLY then, are you provided with two prescriptions, one is for pain, & the other is for inflammation. You are also told to double the use of the antibiotic drops, & given a third set of drops that are supposed to help with numbing on an as needed basis once you go home again.
Ladies, & gents........ When I tell you that lasik surgery IS a big deal, I assure you those are NOT just words with me. This has been a HORRENDOUS ordeal the likes of which I NEVER fathomed! THIS is not what I wanted for my Son!!!!!!!! This is NOT what we are paying nearly $4,000 for!!!!! This is absolute, total, BULLSHIT!!!!!!!! All the way around! The ONLY thing I wanted, the ONLY thing I hoped for, was to be able to improve the quality of my Son's life, & HELP him to have an independence, & a freedom that he MORE than deserves!!!!!!!!! In order for that to be possible, he NEEDS a license! It's that damn simple. But without his vision, I could not, nor would I have allowed him to get his license. You HAVE to be able to SEE when you operate a vehicle. We all know this!
I'm gonna stop for now. It's time for the next drops again. I have so much I want to say, & that NEEDS to be said, but obviously I can't get enough time right now to even have an uninterrupted thought, so it's all gonna have to wait. I need to get back off here again.