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I wish this was a triumph story, but all I can do is offer an update. I'm officially 14months post Lasik today and truthfully I'm not sure if I'm better or worse. In all honesty I think my progress has been a series of waves. If baseline for me is 100 I'd say I'm currently at 45. I had Lasik back in the beginning of Dec 2011, and I can say I hit 0 the day after. For the rest of the month I slowly climbed up to about 15 and pretty much stayed around there Till Feb. then slowly started to climb up to about 25 in March and 30 in April. As the summer started to approach I noticed I began to feel better and hit perhaps 50 in May 55 in June and flat lined at 60 till Sept when I believe I started a decline. I dropped to 50 in Oct 35 in Nov (got put on Restasis mid Nov). After starting Restasis things got kinda tricky. I did notice I was using less drops, and my visual acuity got better, nothing drastic but noticeable. During the first month of Restasis I noticed that I felt less and less of a feathery feeling in my eyes and got it replaced with an occasional burning feeling. I'd grade Nov as a 40 and the month of Dec as 45. Jan. was an interesting month, I had 4 temp plugs placed the third week of Jan and would say I felt about a 55, I did not experience any epiphora even though I was really hoping for it. I did notice that my eyes felt a bit minty from time to time and the burning subsided about 60%. It's about 2 weeks since having the temp plugs put in and I believe they have dissolved by now. Which is probably why it dipped and I'm not feeling like I'm at 45.
Sorry for all the grade there, but I try and track my progress and decedied to share it with all of you. I'm sure that there are several of you out there who can relate to what I just typed up. Some maybe a few months behind some maybe a few months later. Some of the things I noticed is that my eyes generally felt better in the summer, which may or may not make sense when you live in LA.
It is still my hope to get back to 100 but seeing how I'm 14months out I'm fairly certain that will never happen. It seems to me that the longer your symptoms last, the less likely they are to improve. My schrimers scores were 18 and 19 pre-lasik and I had them done at the lasik institute 2 weeks ago and got 5 and 7. This is substantially less and I expected these types of results at the 3-6 month mark. I'm 14 months, and I feel worse than I did at the 6 month mark (keep in mind I've been on Restasis for 2.5 months now)
My question to anyone kind enough to read and relate to my story is, anyone notice a significant upswing in how they felt after 14months post op? I'm in a rough place where I'm looking for hope but don't want any of the false variety. I've proposed the permanance of lasik dry eye over a 1 after surgery, on various Dr. forums and the consesus is, that it's not likely to get better. Then again this is all w/o an examination. I've seen 5 eye docs since, one of which is My Lasik surgeon who keeps saying that I'll get better, I don't trust his outlook though. One OD referred me to an MD who said I "might" get better, one OD doesn't know, and the other OD says he's confident I will although I feel he's just saying that to make me feel better.
I've been reading up on the progress of some of the veterans out there, and it seems like they don't heal up, or get near the 100 mark, and its just become a matter of finding treatment that makes the pain more tolerable over recovering by way of healing. If anyone has some thoughts I'd love to hear them.
Sorry for all the grade there, but I try and track my progress and decedied to share it with all of you. I'm sure that there are several of you out there who can relate to what I just typed up. Some maybe a few months behind some maybe a few months later. Some of the things I noticed is that my eyes generally felt better in the summer, which may or may not make sense when you live in LA.
It is still my hope to get back to 100 but seeing how I'm 14months out I'm fairly certain that will never happen. It seems to me that the longer your symptoms last, the less likely they are to improve. My schrimers scores were 18 and 19 pre-lasik and I had them done at the lasik institute 2 weeks ago and got 5 and 7. This is substantially less and I expected these types of results at the 3-6 month mark. I'm 14 months, and I feel worse than I did at the 6 month mark (keep in mind I've been on Restasis for 2.5 months now)
My question to anyone kind enough to read and relate to my story is, anyone notice a significant upswing in how they felt after 14months post op? I'm in a rough place where I'm looking for hope but don't want any of the false variety. I've proposed the permanance of lasik dry eye over a 1 after surgery, on various Dr. forums and the consesus is, that it's not likely to get better. Then again this is all w/o an examination. I've seen 5 eye docs since, one of which is My Lasik surgeon who keeps saying that I'll get better, I don't trust his outlook though. One OD referred me to an MD who said I "might" get better, one OD doesn't know, and the other OD says he's confident I will although I feel he's just saying that to make me feel better.
I've been reading up on the progress of some of the veterans out there, and it seems like they don't heal up, or get near the 100 mark, and its just become a matter of finding treatment that makes the pain more tolerable over recovering by way of healing. If anyone has some thoughts I'd love to hear them.