When my glasses broke and I ran out of contacts in the same week, and I was faced with a decision–pay for MORE temporary fixes, or finally make moves to get the LASIK I’ve desperately wanted since my roommate got it about a year ago. Unwilling to throw any more money at a problem I didn’t need to have, I made my consult for a Monday, and scheduled the procedure for that Thursday contingent on everything checking out during the initial appointment. I was pretty nervous, even though rationally I knew I shouldn’t be.
The consult was super thorough. They did a few tests, and gave me three different eye exams. I was a little apprehensive because I felt like they never got my left eye completely right–whatever prescription they found for my right eye was perfect and crisp, and my left eye never fully got there. I told them, and was reassured that this is normal. Then they explained the two options, an all laser option, or traditional LASIK, that uses a blade to cut the eye flap. I was told the results are the same but the all laser, or bladeless, is a bit more comfortable–with the second option I might feel about 15 seconds of suction while my eye was cut. Obviously the first option sounded nicer, but it was also $700 more, so I went with traditional LASIK. If I were rich I might have decided differently, but right now $700 is a plane ticket to see my boyfriend, or visit Africa, or something much more important than avoiding the 30 combined seconds of mild discomfort.
The night before I treated myself to ice cream, a puzzle, and a Shameless marathon, because what if something went wrong and I COULD NEVER SEE AGAIN?!
The morning of my procedure I went to pilates in an attempt to burn through nervous energy, filled the eye drop prescription (two different eye drops three times a day for three days), and then Katie drove me to the office. I’m not going to lie, once we were actually there I totally panicked. They gave me Valium (standard), and put me in a room meant to help you relax that’s filled with with ocean noises and some sort of water fountain. They also took my glasses and gave me drops that basically completely took away my ability to focus my eyes, therefore to see. This made me feel 100 times more freaked out.
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| Me “relaxing” before my LASIK |
After about half an hour, the Valium had brought me down from full on panic to just general nervousness. I thought I would be much calmer, but apparently my anxiety is stronger than any drug. They called me in, and as soon as the process actually began I calmed down and toughened up. Apprehension is always the worst part for me.
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| This is what the table looked like. |
I have a video, but I’ll spare you all because it is pretty gross. I will say, I didn’t feel anything, and watching the video after was hilarious because to me it felt like nothing was really happening when they were actually peeling part of my eye back and such. The part I disliked the most was the actual laser, solely because it smelled terrible and I got too imaginative about what that meant it was doing to my eye. Apparently I was actually in there for about 15 minutes, but it truly felt like each eye took about 90 seconds. While it wasn’t the most comfortable thing I’ve ever done, I’d do it 100 times if it meant being able to see without corrective lenses!
I got to wear these awesome glasses for the rest of the day/night!
It’s been a little over three weeks–my eyes still get dry and I use artificial tears, which is normal for the first three months. I’ve had two check ups and they say everything looks perfect. My left eye is 20/20 and my right is even better at 20/15. They said that after I’m back from London and everything is fully healed, if the left eye is still 20/20 and the discrepancy is bothering me, they can do a touch up. We shall see, but at this point all I can say is how very happy I am with the outcome.Also if anyone is in the LA area and looking for a good place, I HIGHLY recommend
LA Sight. They got me in right away (didn’t even need to order more contacts or new glasses!), were SO nice, answered all my questions, and the entire staff was incredibly friendly. I mentioned to one person that I was moving to London for the summer and every time I’ve been back, every person I’ve spoken to has asked about my travel plans. Also they have chocolate all over their office, which is always a plus!First thing I can check off
my list, and I’d put it down as MORE than worth it!As I’ve had to rebuild this blog, I’m going to put a post-script from 2020. It’s been over five years and I still think this was one of the best decisions I’ve made! My eyes have gotten slightly worse recently, and I might eventually need a touch up, but other than about 6 months of
extremely dry eyes (to the point where I never thought it would go back to normal, but it did), zero issues and only pure joy at the gift of sight!
