Question for Rebecca Please

[Ccoughlin]

Rebecca,

Hi - I wanted to ask you a question please. I've written others before, but no one seems to ever answer my posts, so here goes:

I had Custom WaveFront LASIK 6 months ago (to the day) - my visual acuity has greatly improved in the last 2-3 weeks - a lot less blurry, sometimes perfect, worse by the end of the day and in low-light situations. But, overall, I'm encouraged. I keep doing Restasis, the drops, punctal plugs, you name it. I'll keep on that. But I notice that my eyes ache more even when I can see better. So, is that the corneal nerves growing back which causes the pain/discomfort? Basically, as I'm seeing better, I'm aching/hurting more - hard to understand, but maybe you could answer what I'm experiencing. I've heard that they start growing back at 6-12 months and that it can take up to year/year-and-half for LASIK people to experience wetter eyes.

Thanks,
Chandra

[Rebecca Petris]

Chandra... I wish I had an answer. But honestly, I just don't know. There's so many possibilities. And that whole world of pain vs nerve loss vs corneal sensitivity / loss of gets pretty mysterious... with bottom line questions like, Do we hurt more because we're just able to feel more of what's already wrong, or because we're actually getting worse? I don't even know if it's worth trying to get to the bottom of that. And it depends what kind of pain/aching is going on. At six months it can be anything from strictly dry eye (in any of its many post lasik forms) pain spiraling, to muscular issues (some mild accommodation difficulties as your eyes adjust) to simple eyestrain from poor vision quality even if your acuity is actually relatively good. - My personal experience was different because my vision was quite bad but one of the things that stuck in my mind afterwards was how impossible it was, in my first year, to draw any clear line between aching from surface problems (i.e. tear film) versus aching from vision, or a combination of the two. I have to also say though, without wanting to be discouraging, that an awful lot of people with LASIK dry eye at 6 months get worse before they get better.

Obviously you're doing all the right things, but as we head into fall/winter I would be pulling out the stops to keep wet & comfortable, especially moisture chamber glasses in the car, on the computer, etc. if at all possible while you're letting tincture of time do its thing.

[Ccoughlin]

Chandra... I wish I had an answer. But honestly, I just don't know. There's so many possibilities. And that whole world of pain vs nerve loss vs corneal sensitivity / loss of gets pretty mysterious... with bottom line questions like, Do we hurt more because we're just able to feel more of what's already wrong, or because we're actually getting worse? I don't even know if it's worth trying to get to the bottom of that. And it depends what kind of pain/aching is going on. At six months it can be anything from strictly dry eye (in any of its many post lasik forms) pain spiraling, to muscular issues (some mild accommodation difficulties as your eyes adjust) to simple eyestrain from poor vision quality even if your acuity is actually relatively good. - My personal experience was different because my vision was quite bad but one of the things that stuck in my mind afterwards was how impossible it was, in my first year, to draw any clear line between aching from surface problems (i.e. tear film) versus aching from vision, or a combination of the two. I have to also say though, without wanting to be discouraging, that an awful lot of people with LASIK dry eye at 6 months get worse before they get better.

Obviously you're doing all the right things, but as we head into fall/winter I would be pulling out the stops to keep wet & comfortable, especially moisture chamber glasses in the car, on the computer, etc. if at all possible while you're letting tincture of time do its thing.

_____

Rebecca,

Thanks for following up with me. Did your LASIK dry eye situation eventually go away fully? I'm finding it hard to find many uplifting success stories about how this will (hopefully) get better. I've had some amount of blurriness ever since getting Lasik, so I'm not a happy customer, but I'm trying to manage my fears/stress. I recently got -.50 glasses and they really help see things better at night (which is still quite lousy). But I'm kind of annoyed, because why did I pay thousands of dollars to get back to glasses??? So, I just really hope it improves. I also hope things greatly improved for you. I don't know your personal history, but this is difficult for so many of us. take care, chandra