Poll: what was your glass prescription before LASIK?

[Majorglory]

Hi everyone, as new researches are linking the occurence of dry eyes after lasik with pre-operative glass prescription (and hence with the amount of corneal tissue removed by the laser) i would like to know from people who got their dry eyes from lasik how was their prescription before surgery.
If you had a different refractive surgery and want to contribute please specify what kind of procedure (prk, epilasik ecc) you had.
Mine was -4.50 and -5, thanks everyone for sharing

[Lucy]

Mine was lasik and my pre-op RX was -8.75 and -9.50. Lucy

[Majorglory]

Thanks for answering Lucy, i hope more people join the topic to report their prescriptions
btw if someone enabled to was so kind to change the title to something more appealing like "Poll: what was your glass prescription before LASIK?" I would be very thankful!

[MyDryEyes]

I had PRK and my prescription was way high -11.75 (Left eye) and -12 in the right eye. I am 9 months out from surgery. The surgeon claims that a high prescription has nothing to do with dryness and that it is unusual to have dry eyes with PRK. Whatever!!

[Majorglory]

Hi Mydryeyes, the fact is a high prescription requires more corneal tissue to be removed to obtain the vision correction and this implies cutting the corneal nerves at a greater depth. Researches results lead to think that a corneal nerve which is cut in its final part has a greater chance to grow back fully functional than one cut more centrally (and of course, the first should also take less time to do it).
This is the same reason to why prk is theorically less prone to cause dryeyes compared to lasik as the lasik flap cuts the cornea at a greater depth. It would also be reasonable to think the thickest the cornea is the more superficially the corneal nerves are cut during laser ablation.
But then people all have different corneal compositions and nerve regenerations and so you have people undergoing -2.00 prk ending with dry eyes while larger lasik prescriptions are just fine.
Thanks for answering to you too!

[shells]

I'm a 28 year old female and I'm coming up on 3 years post-op lasik, still suffering with severe dry eye. My prescription was -6.00 and -6.25. Not sure which eye was which, but they are pretty close anyway.

-Shells

[dianat]

Mine was similar to Shells at a -6.5 and -6.75. I know someone who is in the -1 to -2 range who has suffered terribly post-LASIK.

[lboogie]

I was -5 and -4.75. Interlase Lasik. 4 months ago.......hoping it's not permanent!

[Majorglory]

lboogie, at 4 months you really have good chances of your corneal re-innervation to go on and hence your eye condition to get better. let me suggest you to try autologous serum eyedrops as they contain nerve growth factor which is well known to assist and speed nerve recovery.. really if i were you i would definitely get someone to make them for me to boost my nerves healing.

[dnew85]

I don't recall what my glasses rx was but my conctact lense prescription was a -5.25 lt, and a -5.50 rt. Boy do I miss waking up in the morning, turning over and fumbling for my glasses, headding to the bathroom to put my softlens toric 66 contacts in like i did for 15 years with no problem, and wearing them all day long with no dryness problems or bloodshot eyes.

[Guest]

My RX was -2.00 R and - 2.75 pre lasek and the results whilst very good during the day are just not worth it when you throw in the RCE's and night vision issues.

Ian

[Raginator]

Mine was -2.25 in the right eye and -1.75 in the left eye.

[ALK-O'd]

This is an interesting poll. I think I'm going to be the record holder on this one for a while. I was -14 in both eyes. I had ALK refractive surgery which is basically the same as LASIK except that instead of a making a "flap" they cut a full "button" which was temporarily removed during the ablation part of the procedure. Also, the ablation itself was performed by a computer guided microkeratome instead of a laser blaster. My topography looks identical to that of someone who had LASIK.

I had my surgery in April of 1993. My eyes were only slightly dry during the first year of healing. After that my eyes didn't feel dry at all until about 4 years ago (fall of 2005). Since then, it's been a steady decline for me in terms of myopia and dry eye. To be honest, I'm not certain that my ALK surgery is the direct cause of my MGD but I am certain that it sure as heck doesn't help the situation one bit.

[JamesS]

2 months in, Intralase (aka 'bladeless') LASIK. -9.75 both eyes, if I remember correctly; last followup test showed -0.25 L, -1.00 with 1.00 astigmatism R.

I think the dry eye's been improving slowly, once I switched to the preservative-free 'Blink' ("ah ... no, the drops are not supposed to hurt when they go in ... let's try the PF"). Small corneal abrasion on the right, apparently from the sharp little 'swarf' bits of plastic on the disposable vial, but I'm assured it's healing up cleanly.

The refractive optometrist's suggesting re-lasering the right to fix the 2D remaining error. I'm pretty reluctant - the last two months haven't exactly been fun - but with no intralase suction and much shorter ablation it shouldn't be as bad this time, I hope: no further mangling of the goblet cells...

[sunshinelover]

I was -12 in both eyes when I had MKM done in -87 (sounds like ALK above, what¨s the difference there?) : Then a LASIK at -96 when I was again - 5. No problems until this year, and the eye that had the most surgery is definitely the worst...