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It’s been a little over a year since I had PRK laser eye surgery. I think the last time I posted was when I finally had punctal plugs for all four of my tear ducts and before I left the doctor's office the bottom right tear duct had swallowed the plug. Well after a day or two of dryness and some punctal scratchiness I went back and he put in a .6mm plug to replace the .5mm. Things were ok for about 2 weeks and then the top right .5mm plug fell out while I was eating lunch one day.
I felt something scratching in my eye and I looked with my mirror and saw something white, but didn’t realize it was a plug till after I had wiped it from my eye then I was like....damn that was probably my plug. So I started looking for it and miraculously found it on the floor (quite possibly my biggest accomplishment ever.) I picked it up with a piece of tape and just as I was about to place it in my hand it popped off the tape. I somehow managed to find it again on my jeans and now have it for safekeeping. So I ended up going back to my doctor for my 6th plug and I convinced him to put in a .6mm instead of a .5mm.
Anyways things have been pretty good since then and I still have all four plugs ( two .5mm Eaglevison Superflex plugs for my left eye and two .6mm Superflex plugs for my right eye.) My eyes are still bone dry when I sleep and wake up in the morning but I’m pretty used to that by now. I’ve trained myself to always wake up with my eyes closed and I fish in a drop for each eye before I open them. Then I usually put in a few drops after I wake up just to get things started. After that I can pretty much go the whole day without drops. Basically what happens is the plugs prevent any tears from draining so if they’re feeling a little dry or something I can usually just yawn and that puts a little more water in my eyes.
My eyes do get overly watery sometimes but it’s easy to just let a tear drop out every 2-3 hours vs. having to fish out my packet of drops cause my eyes are on fire. So I now use one vial of Theratears a day and sometimes only half of one when I used to be using 8-12 vials…..life changing experience seriously.
And just for the record I would trade the whole experience for my glasses again in a heartbeat. Even now that my vision is good and my eyes are comfortable it wasn’t worth the pain, fear, anger, social isolation, 6 months of my life gone and forever having to manually drain the tears out of my eyes.
But overall it’s nice to not have to be thinking about how my eyes feel 24/7 there’s no way to explain the kind of relief that I’ve felt.
.5mm punctal plug balanced on Abe’s nose
https://pix.sfly.com/wBXh2M
https://pix.sfly.com/D6e9CP
$125 resting on top of a penny
https://pix.sfly.com/o3heB9
https://pix.sfly.com/qww_fT
I'm requesting How It's Made do an episode on punctal plugs!
I felt something scratching in my eye and I looked with my mirror and saw something white, but didn’t realize it was a plug till after I had wiped it from my eye then I was like....damn that was probably my plug. So I started looking for it and miraculously found it on the floor (quite possibly my biggest accomplishment ever.) I picked it up with a piece of tape and just as I was about to place it in my hand it popped off the tape. I somehow managed to find it again on my jeans and now have it for safekeeping. So I ended up going back to my doctor for my 6th plug and I convinced him to put in a .6mm instead of a .5mm.
Anyways things have been pretty good since then and I still have all four plugs ( two .5mm Eaglevison Superflex plugs for my left eye and two .6mm Superflex plugs for my right eye.) My eyes are still bone dry when I sleep and wake up in the morning but I’m pretty used to that by now. I’ve trained myself to always wake up with my eyes closed and I fish in a drop for each eye before I open them. Then I usually put in a few drops after I wake up just to get things started. After that I can pretty much go the whole day without drops. Basically what happens is the plugs prevent any tears from draining so if they’re feeling a little dry or something I can usually just yawn and that puts a little more water in my eyes.
My eyes do get overly watery sometimes but it’s easy to just let a tear drop out every 2-3 hours vs. having to fish out my packet of drops cause my eyes are on fire. So I now use one vial of Theratears a day and sometimes only half of one when I used to be using 8-12 vials…..life changing experience seriously.
And just for the record I would trade the whole experience for my glasses again in a heartbeat. Even now that my vision is good and my eyes are comfortable it wasn’t worth the pain, fear, anger, social isolation, 6 months of my life gone and forever having to manually drain the tears out of my eyes.
But overall it’s nice to not have to be thinking about how my eyes feel 24/7 there’s no way to explain the kind of relief that I’ve felt.
.5mm punctal plug balanced on Abe’s nose
https://pix.sfly.com/wBXh2M
https://pix.sfly.com/D6e9CP
$125 resting on top of a penny
https://pix.sfly.com/o3heB9
https://pix.sfly.com/qww_fT
I'm requesting How It's Made do an episode on punctal plugs!
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