Ho there...
PRK was Tuesday. Fiery burning agony in the eyes was Tuesday night. It's not so bad now, but everything it still pretty fuzzy as the epithelium is growing back.
Tuesday night while it was all still scraped away I could actually see pretty clearly, but I'm all about a) having the pain gone, and b) making progress towards the stable end result. The bit of blurry vision in the meantime is a fair trade so far as I'm concerned. My eyes are feeling a bit dry and irritated but not on fire, much like the first afternoon, so I can refrain from using the tetracaine (eye drops) for now. That stuff is really effective at quickly stopping the pain, but it has its drawbacks. Using it more often than once every two hours (and no it doesn't last two hours) or prolonged use can damage your eyes, basically by melting the cornea. It's the same stuff they use to numb your eyes for the actual surgery, and they give you some to take home, but they suggest you taper off using it as soon as you can because of the potential damage, and also it interferes with the healing. I also have some antibiotic eyedrops, and some other stuff that helps with inflamation and dryness and whatnot, as well as your standard saline drops, and those coupled with motrin and percocet should be enough to get me by for now. I should be able to see pretty clearly by next week, and I can't wait! They say it may take up to six months for my eyes to completely stabilize, but IIRC they say within a couple weeks like 90% are 20/40 or better, and the final results the largest percentage of patients are like 20/16 with about equal numbers 20/10 as 20/40. I'm really hoping to be in that 20/16 or better crowd of course. It'd be handy for my job.
In other medical news, the leg is doing much better now! I'm still not getting around without crutches, which is a little disappointing, but at this point I'm happy to be in significantly less pain on an hour to hour basis and I'm doing some limited weight bearing. I'm definitely hoping to get out and see some folks this weekend, so let me know what's going on folks :)
As for Mandy, she continues to be fabulous and the best thing that ever happened to me. These physical upgrades are great, but I still say the best part of all this is getting to spend so much time with her. Waking up with her next to me every morning is one of the best feelings in the world :)
Tuesday night while it was all still scraped away I could actually see pretty clearly, but I'm all about a) having the pain gone, and b) making progress towards the stable end result. The bit of blurry vision in the meantime is a fair trade so far as I'm concerned. My eyes are feeling a bit dry and irritated but not on fire, much like the first afternoon, so I can refrain from using the tetracaine (eye drops) for now. That stuff is really effective at quickly stopping the pain, but it has its drawbacks. Using it more often than once every two hours (and no it doesn't last two hours) or prolonged use can damage your eyes, basically by melting the cornea. It's the same stuff they use to numb your eyes for the actual surgery, and they give you some to take home, but they suggest you taper off using it as soon as you can because of the potential damage, and also it interferes with the healing. I also have some antibiotic eyedrops, and some other stuff that helps with inflamation and dryness and whatnot, as well as your standard saline drops, and those coupled with motrin and percocet should be enough to get me by for now. I should be able to see pretty clearly by next week, and I can't wait! They say it may take up to six months for my eyes to completely stabilize, but IIRC they say within a couple weeks like 90% are 20/40 or better, and the final results the largest percentage of patients are like 20/16 with about equal numbers 20/10 as 20/40. I'm really hoping to be in that 20/16 or better crowd of course. It'd be handy for my job.
In other medical news, the leg is doing much better now! I'm still not getting around without crutches, which is a little disappointing, but at this point I'm happy to be in significantly less pain on an hour to hour basis and I'm doing some limited weight bearing. I'm definitely hoping to get out and see some folks this weekend, so let me know what's going on folks :)
As for Mandy, she continues to be fabulous and the best thing that ever happened to me. These physical upgrades are great, but I still say the best part of all this is getting to spend so much time with her. Waking up with her next to me every morning is one of the best feelings in the world :)