My appointment for PRK eye surgery was scheduled at 1:30 in the afternoon. The staff told me to expect to be there for two hours even though the PRK surgery lasts about five minutes. And this is only slightly longer in time than the LASIK eye surgery. I didn't sleep very well the night before; I kept having dreams of knives in my eyes, so it wasn't very relaxing (even though no knives or scalpels are used in PRK surgery). To keep myself busy during the morning, I did my taxes and cleaned the house. If you have your surgery later in the day like I did, I highly recommend planning things that will occupy your time and mind!
I had my fiancé drive me to the doctor's office because they definitely don't recommend that you drive afterwards. I can tell you for sure that you'll need to secure a ride because there is no way you'll want to or be able to drive. The doctor took one last look at my eyes and then gave me 10mg of valium to calm my nerves. They cannot give you an anesthetic and knock you out because you have to concentrate your eyes during the procedure. Then the staff put me in a room with a television so I could relax and wait for the valium to kick in.
About 20 to 30 minutes later a nurse came to get me. And before I stepped in the operation room, I had to steady myself with a deep breath (a sign that the valium wasn't working well!). The nurse then taped my eyelashes back while I was lying down. The chair/bed then swung under the machine. I started to panic while the doctor was trying to put in the things that keep your eyelids open. He then stopped the procedure and told the nurse to give me 15mg more valium and to wait another half hour.
I can tell you that I felt like I had failed. It was terrible feeling that somehow I needed more to relax me than the average person! But after about 15 minutes, I didn't care. Apparently, 25mg of valium is about 5 times the recommended dosage! So by the time they came to take me in the room the second time, I didn't care about anything. I didn't feel different really or even like it was working, but it obviously was because I didn't flinch once during the rest of the procedure.
So after taping my eye lashes back and then inserting the things that keep your eyelids from closing, they then numbed my eyes with some drops. Then, the doctor put some circle looking thing on my right eye and added more drops of some sort. By the way, this whole procedure is so weird because it doesn't look or feel like it's happening to your eyes, but more like it is happening five inches above them. Then after the solution had sat on the cornea for a bit, he took what looked like a plastic scalpel and scraped the epidermal of the cornea away. That part was weird.
The whole time the doctor told me to focus on this blinking red light right above me. Then he asked me to focus on it again and this clicking noise starts. This is the laser working. It got harder and harder to see the red light blinking and I got kind of nervous that I would look in the wrong spot, but all went well. One gross thing that the staff and doctor didn't warn me about is that you can smell something burnt, and it's your eye! But, this is all part of the procedure and is nothing to be concerned about. Then he added some drops to my eyes that cleared the fogginess after the laser. I quickly glanced over at the ceiling to see if I could tell a difference. I could! I could see all the little holes in the ceiling tiles! He then placed a clear, non-prescription contact on my right eye and moved to the next. The procedure was the exact same.
I then went into another room where a different doctor looked closely at my eyes and said they looked great. They handed me a bag with my eye shields, sleeping pills and more eye drops. And as soon as I got home, I took the pain killer prescribed to me earlier, a sleeping pill and then did all three drops, five minutes apart. I then slept pretty much the rest of the day. Even without the pain killer, there was virtually no pain so far, as is to be expected. The staff warned me that it would get worse before it got better.
The next three days of recovery will be covered in my next installment, PRK Eye Surgery Part III. If you want more information on why I had PRK eye surgery instead of LASIK, check out Part I of this little saga.
Source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/206288/prk_eye_surgery_the_day_...