Recovery Time

What is the difference in recovery times with PRK and LASIK?

The difference can be tremendous. Because the laser is applied under a flap of corneal tissue with Lasik and IntraLasik, the eye is "fooled" into not knowing it has had surgery. This provides rapid vision recovery and virtually no pain.

PRK and its cousins LASEK and Epi-Lasik apply the laser energy to the surface of the cornea. This tends to get a full wound response that includes some discomfort. Also, in all three surface ablation techniques the outermost layer of cells (epithelium) is disrupted. These cells must regenerate, thicken, and smooth.

Vision recovery after Lasik or IntraLasik can be almost instant. Vision recovery after PRK, LASEK, and Epi-Lasik can be from a few days to a few weeks. For details, stop by our website.

I just had Lasek 8 days ago and I have experienced serious pain for about 3 days that was greatly helped by vicodin. I am now trying to be patient with my recovery but my vision is very blurry and I am having trouble reading and being on the computer ( it is taking all I have to type this) I am kinda worried because I keep reading it may take months for my vision to be restored and all I want is to see clearly. Inside seems to be easier for me to see and right after I put in my drops it is clear and then goes blurry again. I would love some feedback from anyone who has experienced any of this.

I had epi lasik 15 days ago. I am also having the hardest time reading this screen and before surgery didnt have a problem reading close or anything. I put drops in and also burry vision comes right back. What drops are you using? What has your doctor said? I can hardly even drive---my doctor said I am legal but i can not see things without it being blurry. As the day goes on my eyes get worse and worse--We seem to be having the same issues.

Hello Jamie and Michelle...it sounds like we have similar problems. I had lasek done 9 days ago. In all of that time, I have seen my vision improve about three times. It got better the next day...then three days later...and about three days ago when they took the contact lens out. My doctor told me that I would see a "Rapid Improvement" this week...but that hasn't happened yet. For the moment, I am being patient. When my doctor took off my contact lens, he stated that they looked rough still. I'm not sure if this is why I still cannot see or why this is moving along so slowly. I am currently in the range of 20/30, 20/25. Previously, I had about a -5.75...with large pupils. Currently, I have glare and starbursts (a possible complication of having large pupils, which is currently apparent).

The only drops I am using are FML and artificial tears. Driving seems possible, but I haven't done it yet, which really stinks right now.

I would like to hear how you are both currently doing or if anyone else would like to chime in for that matter.

Jamie, Michelle and Eric,
I'm curious as to how each of you are doing now. I had my Lasik exactly 48 hours ago and I'm already freaking out because I can't see well enough to drive. I'm so afraid I'll have to have enhancements. The doctor said someone with as strong a prescription as mine (-7.5) could take a week or two to reach 20/20, but I don't see any improvement now from 24 hours ago. Please update me on how you are doing now

Hello Karen. Twenty days into my surgery, my vision has improved. I would have to say it is about 75% of what I could see with glasses or contacts. I had my surgery on April 10th, and my vision improved on days 13 and 14 since my surgery. It has not improved since then. My left eye is stronger than my right eye. I can see better close up, but my vision is grainy (not blurry) when I look out at long distances. For instance, I cannot make out faces too well from about 10+ feet away. I am currently seeing glare, halos, ghosting, and starbursts at night and they have not reduced (actually, ghosting is both day and night). I have read elsewhere that this is supposed to subside after 6 months or so (sometimes never in "rare cases"). I hope I don't fall into this rare group because I did have large pupils going into the surgery.

I started to drive about a week ago when my vision improved to where it is now. Although I did fine for the most part, two things slipped my vision. One was a gray car that was driving at me in the opposing lane (didn't see it until the last second which scared the crap out of me). The other was a jaywalker...I saw her when I was about 75 feet from her...by that time, she was running across the four lane road in full sprint probably thinking I was crazy!!! I am not really confident in my driving right now.

I go for my next check-up on May 1st. I am still being patient, but I feel like I was dupped on when I would be able to see clearly. Generally, from what I have been gathering, my surgery (LASEK) may take from about a month to as much as a year before it gets better (this includes vision, glare, halos, starburts, etc.). I think the average for clear vision is about 2-3 months from the personal accounts that I have read in various forums. Glare, ghosting, halos, starbursts, dry eyes, etc., take longer (and again, sometimes don't go away in "rare cases"). Glare, halos, starbursts, ghosting, dry eyes, go away later on.

As for your LASIK surgery, you should be able to see a lot quicker than me (at least that is what is advertised). I guess LASEK takes a while. But then again, everyone heals differently so maybe it might take you a while. I sincerely wish you a quick recovery as I know how irritating this can be. As for me, I'm just waiting it out. I'll blow my kettle when, or if, that time comes.

Check out this link:

http://www.mylasiksurgery.com/eye/html/lasik_...

I cannot say that her case is typical, so don't let it worry you. You should check out the links in her link section, especially the D'Eyealogues link. I found that a lot of people posting there are having similar problems to the people who have posted here (including you and I). You may, or may not find comfort in more information. I did, and it has reinforced my patience. I hope it will for you as well.

Overall, good luck on your road to recovery. I wish you the best. Let me know how you do down the road. Later.

Jamie wrote:

I just had Lasek 8 days ago and I have experienced serious pain for about 3 days that was greatly helped by vicodin. I am now trying to be patient with my recovery but my vision is very blurry and I am having trouble reading and being on the computer ( it is taking all I have to type this) I am kinda worried because I keep reading it may take months for my vision to be restored and all I want is to see clearly. Inside seems to be easier for me to see and right after I put in my drops it is clear and then goes blurry again. I would love some feedback from anyone who has experienced any of this.

Hi Jamie
I had Lasek a week ago I can't see a damn thing like you this is v difficult to type my vision is worse than before surgery I have also lost my near vision which was perfect. I'm frightened I might lose my job as I just cant see to draw?? How are you now please tell me it gets better!

Jackie

Hi Guys,
I had PRK surgery nearly a month ago now. I went with a friend who had LASIK, the next day she could see, and all I could see was a blur of shapes and sizes. I put this down to the contact lenses and the fact that they've never agreed with me...however, a week later after having them taken out (and being told that I would be able to see upon their extraction) I was not able to and had to take the rest of the week off from work. Apart from waking up at 4am EVERY night since the surgery because of dry eye, my vision is far from perfect, but it is improving verrrrrry slowly day by day. I have good and bad days when one day my distance vision will be great and I am able to pin point a leaf on a tree, but can't see a thing close up, or days (like today) where my close up vision is ok - but can't recognise people's faces 10 feet away.

I am going to see my eye doctor on 19th May for another update. will let you know how it goes.

I have alomst stopped watching tv (have to watch American Idol though!!)and I wear my shades all the time. Rest your eyes as much as you can!
good luck!

p.s. Why is it that you always find these websites AFTER the fact?!

Nay Nay wrote:

Hi Guys,
I had PRK surgery nearly a month ago now. I went with a friend who had LASIK, the next day she could see, and all I could see was a blur of shapes and sizes. I put this down to the contact lenses and the fact that they've never agreed with me...however, a week later after having them taken out (and being told that I would be able to see upon their extraction) I was not able to and had to take the rest of the week off from work. Apart from waking up at 4am EVERY night since the surgery because of dry eye, my vision is far from perfect, but it is improving verrrrrry slowly day by day. I have good and bad days when one day my distance vision will be great and I am able to pin point a leaf on a tree, but can't see a thing close up, or days (like today) where my close up vision is ok - but can't recognise people's faces 10 feet away.
I am going to see my eye doctor on 19th May for another update. will let you know how it goes.
I have alomst stopped watching tv (have to watch American Idol though!!)and I wear my shades all the time. Rest your eyes as much as you can!
good luck!
p.s. Why is it that you always find these websites AFTER the fact?!

I had PRK done last friday (5/3/07). I was in serious pain for the first 2=3 days. My eyes feel ok now but my vision still suck! Everything is blurry, I cant drive, and I also wake every night due to dryness. Compaired to the first day, my vision is better, but not nearly where I had hoped. I go back to the doctor this thursday. I will let you know what she says. Good luck, and keep those ice packs handy!

Jim wrote:

<quoted text> I had PRK done last friday (5/3/07). I was in serious pain for the first 2=3 days. My eyes feel ok now but my vision still suck! Everything is blurry, I cant drive, and I also wake every night due to dryness. Compaired to the first day, my vision is better, but not nearly where I had hoped. I go back to the doctor this thursday. I will let you know what she says. Good luck, and keep those ice packs handy!

Hey Jim, the pain subsides (i promise!) the vision does get better verrrrry slowly. Once I got my contact lenses out, my eye doctor said that I should use a night time eye lubricant. Currently i'm using tears naturale p.m. by Alcon. They help, but i still wake up occasionally (actually 6 nights out of seven) with the feeling of the Sahara in my eyeballs.

It is getting better, but the recovery rate is just SO SLOW compared to PRK. But I feel slightly assured in the knowledge that PRK is actually better for the eyes as it can take a fair while for the flap to heal back in LASIK. So for now, I stay half blind (depending on the day, sometimes i have good days), wear my shades and say hi to everyone who says my name, cause I have no idea who they are - but I will soon!
Keep positive and keep me posted!!

JackieJ wrote:

<quoted text>
Hi Jamie
I had Lasek a week ago I can't see a damn thing like you this is v difficult to type my vision is worse than before surgery I have also lost my near vision which was perfect. I'm frightened I might lose my job as I just cant see to draw?? How are you now please tell me it gets better!
Jackie

Jamie, how are you? Mine got better over 3 weeks, still not perfect though. Use lots of drops during day and eye gel at nite.

Eric,
Just thought I'd check on you. Is your vision still less than perfect? I am seeing 20/40 now, which is a -1.5 prescription. I guess that's a lot better than my pre-surgery -7.5, but who wants lasik just to see a little better and still have to wear contacts.
I'm still praying my vision makes it to 20/20 so that I don't have to go through the surgery again. I talked to one girl who took over two months to reach 20 20.

Good luck to everyone who is going through this. I agree with the comment about not finding this site until it's too late.

Hello Karen. I'm glad to hear that you're starting to see considerable results. And yes, I have heard that higher prescripts take longer. As long as your doctor is not talking about performing an enhancement, you should be on the right path. I have often read that LASIK is known for showing quicker results than LASEK. But then I have read elsewhere that this is a myth. It is hard to know what is true because both sides have a stake--that is, trying to draw in business and not lose it. Either way, you sound like you've made a rapid improvement in just over a couple of weeks. You still have a lot of room for additional improvement in the coming weeks as it does get better. Good luck! ;)
As for me, it is now 43 days into the surgery which is about a month and a half. I ended up going to the doctor on May 1st. After looking at my eyes, and seeing how bad my right eye was, he said he wanted to see me in two weeks on May 16th. He even brought up the prospect of having to do an enhancement at a later date on May 1st.
My right eye was seeing 20/70 on May 1st (yes, about the only letter I could see was the big E). The tech told me to blink, and it didn't help. I was starting to feel like my right eye was botched. And the doctor wanting to see me on May 16th and already talking about doing an enhancement further resonated these feelings. The doctor reduced my FML drops from four a day, to two a day on May 1st.
About five days leading up to the appointment, I found myself sleeping a lot. In one of those days, I noticed after waking up that my right eye had stabilized somewhat. I just did not know how well. I just knew that my overall vision had improved.
I went to the doctor, and the tech informed me that I was seeing about 20/40 in my right eye, and about 20/30 in my left. It has been over a week since I have seen the doctor, and although my right eye still lags behind, it has become better since that time--not that far behind the left now. My long range vision has improved a lot. It does not appear as grainy as it did when I last posted here. It still is in some ways, but it is hardly noticable at this point.
I just wonder why my right eye rapidly improved. I don't believe it was it was the rest. Was it a reduction in the FML drops then? I really don't know at this point. This would seem to be a reasonable assumption. The ghosting also dropped off a lot during this time.
I would also have to say that I think dryness plays a large part in how well you can see following surgery. For instance, have you noticed how well you can see when you first get up in the morning? I use my VCR as a reference point (and no, I'm not in the stone age, I do have a DVD player. LOL!). In the morning, the numbers on the VCR are sharp, and this is for both eyes. It is like having glasses on. However, after about a half-hour, things start to fuzz out. I can still read the numbers, just not as well.
Also, I live out in the country, so everything is dark outside. One night, I got up without turning on the lights and looked out the window at a mercury light off in the distance. I was surprised that the starbursts were significantly reduced (though not gone, but I attribute that to my large pupils). There was no glow or glare either. If my tears ever correct, then I am confident that I will be able to see really well.
I go back to the doctor on June 16th. I will update at that time. Until then, happy healing!

Hey guys, i'm six weeks in and my doc tells me that i'm at 20/25. My vision has improved dramatically.

However, I did develop a cyst on my eyeball. the doc put me on Betnesol for a week four times and day and has now placed me on Restasis for my dry eye. He said all he could see was dry eye during my last appointment. I already have punctal plugs 'installed' before i had the surgery due to dry eye and i am still waking up at 4am.

Apparently the restasis takes a month to work and they haven't tested it on people with punctal plugs. I have also been taking a Flaxseed and Codliver oil supplement (in one) i think they've made a difference I can't tell.

On the upside, my vision is getting sooo much better. On the downside, i'm still waking up every night with dry eye....staying positive though!

Just thought I'd join in. I had a bilateral wavefront Lasek enhancement (over lasik done ~6 yrs ago) to correct a small amount of residual longsightedness and to try and sort out the night time starbursts left over from my original surgery. I found my vision was horrendous (horribly ghosted) whilst the contact lenses were still in (6 days). The next day I got a huge improvement. Things have been improving very slowly since then. I think they've got the refraction right as I put drops in and it momentarily clears to perfect. My vision is best when I wake up then deteriorates throughout the day (to me it seems to get more ghosted/blurred). I'm on Dexamethasone 0.1% and chloramphenical 0.5% at the moment, 1 month appointment on thursday.

Eric, just wondering how you're doing now (you're 1 month ahead of me, same type of surgery).

Jim wrote:

<quoted text> I had PRK done last friday (5/3/07). I was in serious pain for the first 2=3 days. My eyes feel ok now but my vision still suck! Everything is blurry, I cant drive, and I also wake every night due to dryness. Compaired to the first day, my vision is better, but not nearly where I had hoped. I go back to the doctor this thursday. I will let you know what she says. Good luck, and keep those ice packs handy!

Hey Jim - wnated to check up on you - what did the doc say? Any improvement?

I tell you know peeps if you've got severe dry eye like myself, Restasis is th way to go, I didn't get a chance to put it in one night and that following morning (don't ask ;)) and the difference was quite phenomenal. I feel like i've been set back by 2 weeks. So I am promptly ensuring that I use them every night!

Hey Tom...I don't how well my eyes have come because I haven't seen the doctor. Unofficially, I have seen a slight improvement in my vision. It is very close to 20/20 in the morning...follows the same pattern of seeing really well in the morning and tapering off as the day goes on. My eyelids felt sore for four days straight before today. My vision wasn't too well either during these four days. It was better today. My night vision is still the same. The starbursts, halos, ghosts, and partial ghosting is still evident. Also, I have noticed that when I squint, the light stretches off light sources. I don't know if this is normal or not. I'll talk to my doc about this when I see him. But overall Tom, I notice "little" changes about every two weeks. The changes are so little that I don't even know if there is a change. I see my doctor on June 19. I'll update at that time.

Tom...a few questions. 1) Was your vision worse after the enhancement or the same (minus ghosting and blurs)? 2) Are your pupils large? 3) Have you had an improvement with the starbursting? 4) Did you have any problems with dryness the last time you had surgery? 5) If not, how long did it take to get better? 6) Why did you opt to wait six years to re-do the surgery? 7) Before you had any surgery, did you wear contacts almost exclusively over glasses? 8) If so, for how many years? Sorry for all of the questions, I'm just trying to figure things out.

Nay-Nay: Where you live...is it humid or dry? I'm just wondering if weather plays a role in dry eye symptoms. Also, did your doctor tell you how long you had to be on Restasis?

1) reserving judgement at the mo. Acuity in the right is definitely better already, as it appears I was somewhat longsighted before the enhancement.
2) 6.5 left, 5.5 right to my knowledge.
3) Even at the this early stage, I would say yes starbursts have decreased significantly BUT have halos/ghosting etc due to the early stage I'm at.
4) No, I don't feel I have dryness issues.
6) Dodgy doctors. The place I originally went said I didn't need one despite me trying my best to persuade them. Plus I think there's a real problem in the doctors are generally not that good at measuring hyperopia in young patients, it is often hidden by accommodation. You need someone you really knows what they're doing to get a good measurement.
7) I had RGPs for maybe 3 years, tried softs for a bit and had orthokeratology for a bit (but my prescription was too high for it to work well enough).
I live in Britain. So at the mo varying between really wet, and reasonable but not that hot!
Just had my 4 week appointment. Right eye got 20/20 by itself, left a few lines higher. When I wake up, both are good though.