Laser Eye Surgery And My New Glasses

I got laser eye surgery last year at the Montreal Eye Institute and I just got a new pair of glasses about 10 months later. This is my detailed account of the before, during and after that led to these new cat eye cuties.

Why Laser Eye Surgery?

I’ve had myopia since I was around the age of eight. I wore glasses until I was 17 and then started wearing contacts. I had been wrestling with the thought of getting laser eye surgery ever since Kyler got his surgery about five years ago at the Montreal Eye Institute. It seemed so much more convenient in the long-run. Never needing to wear glasses or contacts ever again? Sign me up!

Except of course for the two biggest factors in my hesitation. The cost and the fact that I hate any and all medical procedures. Needles make me sweaty with tension, I’ve had panic attacks at the dentist…I’m basically just a big baby when it comes to physical discomfort and pain.

The Anxiety

In terms of my fear factor, I finally decided to just make the appointment and not think about it, pretty much my strategy for forcing myself to do all sorts of things I’m scared or don’t want to do. And by the way, the whole time when I was trying to explain to family, friends and the medical staff about my fear, they seemed to think that my phobia had to do with a fear that something would go wrong or that it would hurt a lot and tried to reassure me by saying the doctor at the Montreal Eye Institute was the best and you didn’t feel a thing because they put numbing drops on your eyes.

First of all, I felt things. Lots of things. Second of all, my fear came from having to go through the procedure with full consciousness, period. Unless I could be unconscious and not remember any of it, I was going to be tense, scared, and uncomfortable, even if it wasn’t any more painful than getting a shot or stubbing a toe. I had asked for some anxiety medication during my consultation and somehow the entire staff forgot about it until I was lying down in the laser room and brought it up. In the end, I don’t think it did anything to help, probably because it was the lowest dosage possible and they gave it to me so late. The whole time I was at the clinic, I was shaking. Probably because it was cold, but also because I was so scared.

For those who hate medical things and eyeball talk, or if you want to get Lasik and are scared too, skip down to the end of the post where you can just see my cute new glasses! For the rest of you, I am about to describe all the things that I had no idea would happen that really put the cherry and sprinkles on top of my misery sundae.

The Gruesome Details

So when they go to cut the flap with the laser, your eyeball kind of gets suctioned by a machine and you feel a bunch of pressure on your eye and then a sudden pop. At this point, they have put numbing drops in your eyes so you “don’t feel anything” but it is not painless, despite what they tell you. Some people might not feel a thing, but I found it to be something like getting poked with a blunt or sharp object, or pinched really hard, just for a second. But on your eyeball. Then comes the scary metal hook no one told me about. The doctor descends upon your eyeball with what looks like the hook-shaped scraper dentists use to clean your teeth. And you’re watching it come down and try to snag the flap to open it. You can’t look away obviously, because they’ve put the clamp things on your eyelids to keep you from blinking. I did not like that part at all.

Then comes the actual lasering part, which doesn’t hurt per se, but the smell was something I was not prepared for. It makes total sense in hindsight. You are burning off part of your body. Of course there will be a smell. It reeked while the laser was going. It smelled like burning hair, and so strongly, because of course it was happening just inches away from your nose. This may not bother some people, but it was shocking because re: I WAS TERRIFIED ALREADY. My body was already in a state of anxiety and fear, so that just added more discomfort and anxiety to the whole lovely experience.

The Recovery (Graphic image warning below!)

After your eyeball gets lasered, it starts to sting and burn a bit. I found it very difficult to open my eyes fully for a few hours afterwards, until the pain started subsiding. Your eyes start watering and tearing up right away too, I’m talking big-ass tears rolling down my cheeks for about two hours.

You have to put in two different types of eye drops (three for me cause of my dry eyes) several times a day for a few weeks. No air travel for about a week, no makeup or sports for two weeks. You are basically never allowed to touch your eyes. You’ll go for a follow-up appointment the day after to make sure everything is healing correctly and your vision is okay, then a week later, then five or six months later. And I am experiencing some common side effects, which should improve over the next year or two, basically poor night vision, halos and dry eyes that seem to get worse in the winter (but I had dry eyes to begin with, so it hasn’t changed that much).

During the flap creation, some blood vessels popped in my eyes (which may have been why it hurt for me) so you might have really scary-looking veiny, red eyes for a week or two, but it doesn’t hurt and will heal itself. I just wore sunglasses everywhere so no one would have to look at my gross eyeballs or keep asking me if I’m okay.

So I went for my last follow-up five months after the surgery and brought up my concerns. The doctor told me to come back in six months for another follow-up just in case the blurriness I was experiencing was due to the drier winter months. I went back to the doctor recently and my vision has actually gotten slightly worse. He agreed and we are going to wait another six months for my vision to stabilize and he will do a touch-up on my eyes, basically re-lasering it to get it closer to 20/20. He wants to wait just in case my vision worsens more because he said my cornea is thick enough to do one touch up but that’s it! No more after that.

New Glasses

So that’s why I hopped online and bought a new pair of cat-eye glasses from Clearly Contacts. I’ve been using them for the past 10 years for all of my glasses and contact needs. Their prices are so good, their shipping is so fast (it takes two days to receive my prescription glasses orders), they offer free returns, and I just love that they are Canadian! This is not sponsored, by the way, I’ve just loved and shopped with them for the past 10 years! If you are looking to buy contacts or glasses from them, they have sales fairly often and there’s always a promo code floating around the Internet, so use them to your full advantage and save even more money!

Would I recommend laser eye surgery?

It depends. For me, it made sense because I hate wearing glasses. I find them so uncomfortable to wear because my face and nose are pretty flat so they always brush up against my cheeks and slide down my nose, which pulls the skin between my eyes and nose in an uncomfortable way. And because they can’t just rest on my nose, I really rely on the arms being tight enough to hold them up on the sides of my head. But that makes the sides of my head and tops of my ears hurt after long hours of glasses wearing. They also fog up a lot in the winter, leave those red marks on your nose, get in the way of cute hats and exercise etc.

I thought I had solved all my nitpicky problems with glasses when I switched to contacts, and they were great for a while, but after I developed dry eyes, my contacts started getting really uncomfortable. They always felt like they were ready to pop out of my eyes. I tried different brands that were supposed to be more moist, but none of them felt like “nothing on my eyes.” And I started wearing more makeup in the past few years and my contacts would get ruined when I applied eye makeup that had some unknown oil or wax in it that would create a foggy film over the contacts. Makeup lovers who wear contacts, you know what I’m talking about. You can’t just rinse that shit out, whatever it is. You’ve ruined your contacts and have to throw them out.

And finally, I had really, really bad eyesight. The worst eyesight of anyone I had ever met except for legally blind people. So bad, contact lens companies didn’t make them in my precise prescription because it was not worth it for them to stock those .25 and .75 versions.

In the end, it’s really a personal decision for each person I think. I do not regret getting my eyes lasered, even though the results aren’t perfect. Even if the doctor can’t correct my vision to be 20/20, I do feel my quality of life is better. And I don’t technically need glasses. I can do everything in my daily life without having to wear them. It’s just if I want to read things far away or see a clearer picture when I’m watching TV, I will put them on. I even drove a camper in New Zealand without glasses, so it’s not like the iLasik did nothing! But if you don’t hate glasses and contacts like I do, and don’t have a strong prescription, would I recommend laser eye surgery? No. Save your money. Don’t go through the hassle.

And if you’re considering it and I’ve scared you, try not to be too scared. I’m being really dramatic about how bad the procedure was, but of course, it’s something everyone can go through without much trauma. In the end, it’s like getting a filling at the dentist (which I hate and am scared of too by the way.) And it turns out really well for the vast majority of people who get laser eye surgery. I mean Kyler got better than 20/20 vision and he went to the same doctor. I think I just had particularly bad luck with how my body reacted to the medical procedure, which is a risk for any surgery I think. And my prescription being so high didn’t help.

This was a really long post, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible for any of you who are struggling with the decision to get laser eye surgery or not. If you have any questions, please let me know and I’ll try my best to answer them, although I’m not a doctor, as if it wasn’t super obvious already! If you’re going under the laser, good luck, and let me know how it turns out!

xoxo