The Consult

My consult went well.  They did several scans on my eyes; I assume mapping them out, checking the cornea and the retina and everything in between.  Dr. Wiley was shocked when I told him about my contact use.  “And you’re a nurse!” he said, as though I should have known better (sadly, in my nursing education and career there was little information regarding eye health—something I hope to change when I become a nurse educator).  When I mentioned my worries of complications such as halos and chronic dry eye, Dr. Wiley actually chuckled and said if I was able to wear contacts consistently for months, he was fairly sure that I would never have a problem with dry eyes.  As for the halos, I would be getting Custom LASIK and PRK, which decreases the risk of halos and glares significantly.  

Ultimately, Dr. Wiley said that due to the thin cornea of my left eye, he would recommend PRK.  I would get LASIK in the right eye.  He said I would have to come back after I was contact-free for two weeks for a pre-op exam to be sure but that I was a great candidate for vision corrective surgery.  I scheduled my surgery for the summer, after I was done with spring classes so that I would have time to heal before starting classes again in the fall.  The pre-op exam would be three days prior to the surgery.  In two months time, I would be free of corrective lenses!

Background

I am 32 years old and have been wearing contacts since the 7^th grade (I had glasses for several years before that) to correct a myopia with a prescription of -6.00 (left) and -5.50 (right).  I was lazy about wearing the contacts and kept them in much longer than I was supposed to.  I never had any problems keeping them in, so I began keeping them in longer and longer.  Eventually, I just never took them out until I had to replace them after about three months.  Yes, I wore them 24 hours a day, seven days a week for months at a time.  For two decades, I never had any issues, but only now realize exactly how lucky I was. 

I only started researching LASIK because I wanted to be able to go swimming without the fear of losing my contacts, and I was tired of having the contacts get “stuck” up in my eyelids when I rubbed my eyes.  These, of course, are minor issues and I quickly dismissed the idea of paying thousands of dollars to fix them, especially after reading about complications of LASIK such as halos and chronic dry eye.  In my research, however, I noted that serious problems with contacts are pretty common.  I started worrying about my habits and went for a LASIK consult.