My new eyes 1st Birthday…

…Was nearly a month ago now!

Back on the 30th June, I celebrated the first anniversary of my eyes being lasered.
And whilst a year is really not that long at all, it feels like my eyes have always been this good.

I moderate a forum as part of my job and the forum is specifically for laser eye surgery discussion. It’s actually a really nice job to do because I get to help advise and read about various experiences from the members. Some are great and some are less positive.

The thing I have learnt though that patience is the key and ensuring that you do what you’re told by the clinical staff.

I remember very little about how I felt at the time or shortly afterwards and although I remember being incredibly uncomfortable, I am sure that I would go through it again.

Think my enthusiasm at having it done has been a fair testiment for the surgery and the company that performed it because I’ve now managed to persuade my brother and best friend to have theirs done. Not only that but they’ve both had amazing results and couldn’t be happier.

I’m getting married in just over a year and to now realise that I’ll be walking down the aisle and able to see my fiance is pretty exciting.

Post 6 months

Can it really be 6 months since I had my Laser Eye Surgery? Well the answer to that would be “Yes, it really has!”

It seems an eternity since I last wear glasses and can’t really remember what it felt like to wear them. Only over did I realise how inconvienient they wear when having to wear 3D glasses to see Avatar. They were a complete pain.

So after 6 months I got to go to my final aftercare appointment. Eyes were still 2 lines better than 20/20 which is precisely what I had after a week or so. My eyes were fairly dry that day too so it’s possible that I wasn’t seeing at my best.

Dry eye is few and far between now. Only very rarely do I actually need to administer my drops and no need for the lacrilube anymore!

I’ve been so impressed and completely amazed with my vision that I become a bit of a sales person when I am with friends, family and anyone with glasses. So far I’ve managed to capture the interest of my boyfriend’s mate during a few drinks at the pub, as well as the local parish priest at my home town.

But when I think about how much I managed to enjoy my holiday in September, because I was able to see the fish swimming around my feet in the sea and everything seemed so bright and vivid.

Whilst I didn’t enjoy the 30 minutes post surgery, I was still impressed.

Surgery isn’t something to be taken lightly and should be considered throughly but in my case, it was the right thing to do.

I love my new vision. Not a better feeling in the world.

Lu x

5 months on!

Wow has it really been 5 months! It seems like forever since I had my eyes lasered and I honestly can’t remember wearing glasses. It’s like a bad memory being erased! Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people suit glasses and enjoy wearing them but I didn’t in both those cases.

It was my boyfriends Christmas party this weekend just gone and I enjoyed being able to go out and not lose my glasses in the (very small and busy) blues bar we ended up in. It was really nice to see (I saw what I could through my red wine haze) everyone get into the festive spirit.

I’ve also discovered the secret to combating dry eye without having to continually refresh my eyes during the day. Lacrilube just before bed and lots of it! It must lubricate my eyes just enough to last me through the day. Here’s to more festivities and lots of mulled wine!

Nearly 4 months

I find this incredible to believe but it’s been nearly 4 months since I was treated with Ultra Lasek Plus. All in all I’ve had a perfect recovery, but lately the dry eye has started to annoy me. It managed to wake me up at 3:30am the other day where it constantly stung and watered. I had drenched my eye in Ocumed tears which helped for the rest of my sleep but it was at that point I went out and purchased Lacrilube again.

I must say that I feel so so much better since using it. Not only this, but my left eye (which is the worst of the two) has a cyst growing on my caruncula (the nobbley bit in the corner of my eye) This means it’s raised and so drying out and causing mega dry eye.

I’m now using the lube 2 times a day, morning and evening but not finding that I need to use anything else in between.

Not sure if that’s a good thing or not but certainly think it’s less hassle.

Anyway I’ll keep going with the lacrilube for the time being and feedback.

Dry eyes yet again

Ok so this is all my own fault but I have a horribly dry pair of eyes. I didn’t put my drops in regularly yesterday and now they’re stinging and dry and generally hurty!

Message to everyone, make sure you lube up your eye balls as much as possible! I think I may actually be a bit  over dramatic about all this but I am seriously annoyed at myself for being a complete doofus! Ok so time to breathe deep and just make sure it’s all as lubricated as possible.

And so it continues…

I’m still giving my eyes some time to settle but so far so great! Still 2 lines below 20/20 which is so much better than the first week post surgery. I mean don’t get me wrong, my eye sight was pretty amazing straight away but if I blinked it tended to cloud my bandage lense. The improvement in my eyes post lense though was definitely noticable and I could start seeing the clarity of my vision improve. Not only that but the annoying prickling sensation was a distant memory.

I’ve been talking to a friend of my boyfriend about him getting his eyes corrected. He’s long sighted and has heard that it’s harder to correct than short sightedness. To some extent this is true but as with any surgery, nothing is guaranteed. I’m not a sales person but I think my experience of laser surgery demostrated that it can be straight forward if done properly. Liam (our friend) got to talk to one of the surgeons who took the time to explain what the expected result may be and what he could expect.

I think Liam is now very seriously considering going through with it. Funnily enough I keep getting asked how my eyes are and because I have very few problems with them, I forget I ever had to wear glasses.

The only small hitch I have had is the dry eyes but this is so easily resolved it really can’t be counted as a problem. I guess I have been incredibly lucky to get the result I wanted and to even have a better result than expected. It’s an amazing feeling.

Holiday time is fast approaching (only 30 days to go! I’m not counting or anything :P) and this will be the first time I’ll get to try out my new eyes in some very funky shades. It’ll also be a joy to not have sun tan marks round my eyes from wearing glasses as contacts in the sea were a no no.

It’s amazing how much we take our sight for granted.

(Later than) One Month Check Up

As of tomorrow I’ll be having my one month check up! Granted it’s actually my 6 week check up but I’m still excited to see what they say.

Thinking about my journey from start to now, I think it’s safe to say my whole journey has actually been pretty safe and easy. I’m not hoping for any drama, believe me but it’s amazing when I think how straight forward the whole process has been.

No real problems with the surgery, a little eye bogey fun afterwards and very few incidents of dry eye but apart from that I feel like I never wore glasses.

Absolutely crazy considering I had them for 18 years of my life!  The amount I can see now and the things I notice are ridiculous. I notice the slightest dip in someone’s headlights, tiny insects moving, the colour changes in the tv. I may make it sound like I now have superman vision but it honestly feels like it sometimes.

 Best decision I ever made to get it done and I seriously don’t miss wearing my glasses in the slightest. I love my eyes (finally).

No more medicated drops…

As of today I’ll stop taking my medicated drops as prescribed by the Optom. You’re meant to take them for 4 weeks after the contact lense is removed and my 4 weeks is now pretty much done. It’s going to be odd not going through the ritual of putting my drops in daily but one I’m not going to mind not having to do :)

I’ll still be lubricating my eyes with the usual artificial tears as my eyes are still dry but fingers crossed I can eventually phase them out.

Not entirely sure why but my eyes tend to be at their driest during the night. In theory they should as my eyes are closed and protected but oh well!

13th August is check up time! Roll on the summer, snorkling and enjoying the sunshine!

Update 2 for the day!

Following on from my last post I’ve run upstairs to the clinic to get a bit of advice about my sticking plaster eye. Turns out that this is common a month after surgery and I’ve done well not to have it before now.

Because my eyes have only recently treated it’s likely to happen for a while which is why my provider continues to see you for 6 months. This was pretty reassuring to me and besides that they checked my eyes.

No real indications of very dry eyes from what the optom could see so they should continue to heal properly.

On this very positive note, I’m going to write a small list of the things I’m finding now I’ve ditched my glasses and contacts.

1. I can see when applying my make up:- now I’ll look less like Boy George.
2. It doesn’t matter how drunk I get, I will never again have to put my finger in my eye to remove a contact lense:- Many a time I nearly lost my eye through vigirous poking
3. No more will I lose my glasses:- lost them more than 3 times
4. No more will I sit on and break my glasses:- done twice
5. I can now wear my cool non prescription sunnies and actually see:- whole holiday in Malta was a sunny fuzz. Can’t actually tell you what I saw.
6. No more fuzzing when my contact lenses move in my eyes:- This was the biggest annoyance, I’d look like I had a twitch in my face but actually I was blinking to try and regain the clarity of my lenses.
7. No more red marks on my nose and sweaty cheeks where my glasses have sat:- fewer spots and less greasy face.
8. Saving money in the long run: - £64 every 3 months for disposable contact lenses and £300 a year on glasses that I would constantly lose and break. Cost saving to the max.
9. New eyes new me! Going to start a health kick now my eyes are better.
10. Less tired eyes at the end of the day:- contact lenses were a pain to say the least. They’d dry and move meaning I was squinting at my screen.

So there’s a top ten! Will update again soon!

Dry Eyes

Today it’s been a month since I had my eyes lasered!

I’ve been struggling with the dreaded dry eye the last few days. This is something I was warned could happen and I had managed to avoid it up until this point but yesterday it caught up with me.

Tuesday night I went to bed and managed to wake myself up by rubbing my right eye. What’s so unusual about that I hear you cry? Well nothing apart from the fact that I felt like I was ripping a plaster from my eyeball! I put some extra strong lubricating gel in my peepers and went back to sleep.

No more problems although I could feel my eyes getting dry and so became regimented in my regime of eye drop administering. Last night on the sofa my eyelid again became stuck to eyeball. After blinking it rectified itself but in order to prevent it happening again I’m going to pop up to the clinic and get my eyes looked over. Maybe they can give me some stronger drops?

Anyway, I can’t complain can I? I’ve had a great results, can see better than 20/20 and also had a very fast recovery time. Will post more tonight!