There is a lot of literature on the net for PRK surgery, so if you are looking for technicalities of the surgery this text is not the right reference. However, when I opted for the surgery I was looking for personal experiences which if is what you are hunting for you may find it useful.
I had myopic vision since birth and wanted to get rid of the glasses all along. However, right or wrong, I was always told by my optician that I have to wait till my body passes through growth age. It doesn't has to be true that's only what I was told and could have easily been an avoidance plan by my dad and doctor as they were friends :).
Surgery setup and Cost:
I had PRK surgery done on my eyes at 12 hours notice in a private clinic in Rawalpindi, Pakistan (Amanat Eye Hospital) and it costed me 26,300 (approx. 310 USD). There was no pre-surgery treatment although I was asked if had wore contact lenses in past 6 months, which I hadn't. There were a series of 4 different tests on different apparatus to judge suitability of eyes for operation and I was told "all is well".
Surgery:
Surgery was a 4-6 min process in which the doctor kept chatting with me. He was a real nice gentleman and was competent at what he did. During or after surgery I did not feel anything but only the smell of burnt skin (I must clarify nothing was burnt :P there are different explanations to the source of the smell as I don't know which one is correct I will skip all). I was asked to focus at a beam and do nothing else. Eye lids were fixated with something so I couldn't blink, however, not moving the eyeball was still my responsibility. I walked out on my own, was told to go home with special care of avoiding sunlight and rest. Pretty much did that.
Post Surgery:
Post surgery I had bandage lenses on the corneas and I was told
- not to rub eyes or put any water for 4 days after which lenses would be removed.
- I may feel uncomfortable and level of discomfort can vary from minor itch to major pain (I felt a minor itch similar to a misplaced contact lense feeling and it faded away every passing day)
- a combination of 2 eye drops were given to use for first 12 days with decreasing frequency, don't remember their names.
After 4 days, the lenses were removed and I couldn't even see as much as I used to without glasses prior to surgery. It ran shivers through my soul as I was never told it was expected. To add to my misery the guy who had the surgery the same day as me told me, after his lense removal, that his vision is 6/6 now (which was most probably a placibo affect as it is not even possible with PRK to recover in 4 days).
The journey then onwards demands patience, I had to put drops in the eyes (a different one) 4 times a day for 4 months with 1x dropping each month i.e. in 4th month its only 1 time per day.
As for the vision it kept improving. I was told the more I rest the faster it will get better, which I couldn't due to work nature. However, I felt that improvement continued till about 12 weeks, after which it has stayed the same so far (which is a year since surgery).
Result
The final improved vision is quite good, to a personal perception level I feel its the same as it was with glasses if not better. Although, I must admit that due to the fear of getting disappointed I have never got it checked by an optician.
I can play sports, read road signs at distances I couldn't before. So it is going good so far but my personal research says the surgery effect remains for about 6-8 years which if true is still pretty good I would say.
In short, it is more than I expected. So I feel content.
Side Effects
You can google and find a whole lot, I will only mention the ones I felt
1. Dry Eyes: At times I would wake up and my eye lid would be stuck to eye ball forcing to open eye would cause pain and watering. Rose water or moisturizer drops before sleeping helped. It used to occur on average twice a week for first 5 months and then disappeared.
2. Sun Sensitivity: Eyes remain sensitive to sunlight, sadly, I enjoyed this side effect as it forced me to wear sunglasses one of my childhood wishes :). The sensitivity has faded however a little is still there one year after the surgery, although it doesn't bother at all.
3. Halos: At times the vision gets blurry and you need to blink once to recover from it. This has also faded, however, occasionally it still happens.
Alternatives:
PRK is perhaps the oldest method of vision repair surgery. Newer ones are LASIK, LASEK and another recent one, a variant of PRK.
All the alternatives are more accurate than PRK
All the alternatives are riskier than PRK for whatever little risk is there
All alternatives offer quicker recovery than PRK, in fact INSTANT.
One of the two LASIK or LASEK, don't know which one, is more painful than PRK
All alternatives are also much more expensive than PRK
I hope any of this helps your decision and I wish you all the best if you decide to go ahead and get a surgery and if you don't, don't worry you will still do good :)
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February 10, 2012
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It has been 2 years and 6 months since my PRK eye surgery. The feelings are still good about the procedure, I haven't had the guts to go to an optician and see how correct they are but there is no problem in doing daily life activities without glasses.
The dry eyes side effect has completely vanished, no more dry eyes since the first 6 months. The halos and occasional blurring that goes away after blinking has persisted and I think it will if it hasn't disappeared till now. It happens most often in mornings but it can happen anytime, however, a mere blink get rids of it so it doesn't bother much at all.
On the feeling note, I have played two cricket seasons with PRK eyes and I have a feeling that my reflexes have slightly slowed due to the surgery. I am not sure if the two have any relation but I feel this slightly.
Bottom line, given another chance I will do it again as it is much nicer without glasses even with some side effects.
