I received my LASIK here three days ago and I am so happy with the way things turned out. The staff in the LASIK center are the friendliest and most caring people and let me feel at ease the entire time. They answered all of my questions and anticipated questions I might have.
I went for my initial consultation on a Monday and had to wait a little while, but doctors' offices are always like that. During the first visit, they just use a couple different machines to measure things in your eyes: just have to place your chin on a little stand and then look at a few lights. April is the head of the LASIK department and she'll go over with you if you are a candidate for Lasik after she reviews the output from the machines that took measurements of your eyes. April is the nicest person ever and you can really tell that she loves her job. I stopped in to visit her after my surgery and she seemed genuinely happy to see me and was excited for me that my LASIK went well.
After your initial visit, you'll need to schedule another appointment with a doctor because they will be the final say if you are a candidate for LASIK; I got an appointment that Thursday (just 3 days later). During your second visit, they re-do some measurements if needed, dilate your eyes, and then you have to do the whole seeing-eye chart to confirm your prescription (don't worry, the machines on your previous visit took measurement of your prescription in a very advanced way so you don't have to worry or stress out about if "A or B is better", this is just to confirm the prescription). The doctor (I had Dr. Cohen) will review some things with you and then let you know if your still a candidate. now it's time to schedule your surgery!
I was able to get my LASIK scheduled for the following Thursday (only 1.5 weeks from my initial consultation). They let you put down a preferred time, but they don't make their surgery schedules until 2 days before surgery because it depends on what other surgeries they have going on that day. They also call in a prescription for you that you'll need on the day of the surgery so make sure you get those. On the day of the surgery, they first give you Xanax to help calm you down. I wasn't really nervous, but it's standard because they want you nice and relaxed and ready to take a nap afterwards (they suggest at least a 3-hour nap after the surgery to help the eyes heal). After about 20 minutes, they brought me back, took my glasses off, put numbing drops in my eyes and started the procedure. Dr. Stein is the doctor who performed the surgery and April was there as the technician. Dr. Stein walks you through each step that he is doing and tells you which lights to look at during the procedure. Total time for each eye only felt like about 2 minutes (he counts down for you while the procedure is occurring because let's be honest, it's dealing with your eyes and it's a little freaky but it's really not that bad and TOTALLY worth it). They do each eye individually and then when it's all done, they sit you up and he asked me to look at a clock across the room and I could see it clear as day. I couldn't believe it! Just to put it in perspective, the big "E" that is on eye-charts...I could never even see that before: I was a -6 in both eyes. I got a little emotional because I've needed corrective eye wear since I was 8 and am just in amazement of the whole thing. I was feeling a little lightheaded afterwards (but that's normal for me because I get dehydrated easily and I'm sure the relaxing effects of the Xanax didn't help), so April kindly took me in the other room and gave me graham crackers and water.
Afterwards, my mom took me home (you need somebody to drive you), and I took a 6-hour nap. That evening I woke up and could see so clearly. You do need to wear silly safety goggles when you sleep so you don't accidentally scratch your eye out and they're not the most comfortable, but I am NOT messing around when it comes to taking care of my eyes. The next day you have a follow-up appointment for them to make sure that things are healing up correctly. Surprisingly, you can actually drive yourself in! The next day, my vision was at about 90% and they said it'll get the rest of the way in the next 2 weeks why my eyes still heel. You do need to put in eye drops throughout the day so things get a little blurry when you do that, but that's normal with eye drops.
If you've been wanting to get LASIK and are on the fence about things, I'd say go for it! I hike, rock climb, bike, camp, and do a lot of other active activities and not having to deal with contacts or glasses is going to be amazing. I wore contacts for 20 years and then started having problems with them so I've been wearing glasses for the past 1.5 years and have hated every second of it because my depth perception is so thrown off. After having LASIK, my depth perception is basically what it was with contact: PERFECT! read more