20/20

After 20 years of researching and waiting patiently, I finally went through with it. Yup, yesterday I had the surgery. They cut the top layer of my eyeball off, flipped it back then burned off some of the epithelial tissue with a laser beam.
Way Cool!

For those who don’t know how this works let me enlighten.

The cornea is a part of the eye that helps focus light to create an image on the retina in the back of the eye where all the receptive cones and rods are located. The cornea works in much the same way that the lens of a camera focuses light to create an image on film.

The bending and focusing of light is also known as refraction. Usually the shape of the cornea and the eye are not perfect and the image on the retina is out-of-focus or blurred. In the case of Astigmatism the picture is distorted or bent.

These imperfections in the focusing power of the eye are called refractive errors. There are three primary types of refractive errors: myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism.

Persons with myopia, or nearsightedness, have more difficulty seeing distant objects as clearly as near objects.

Persons with hyperopia, or farsightedness, have more difficulty seeing near objects as clearly as distant objects.

Astigmatism is a distortion of the image on the retina caused by irregularities in the cornea or lens of the eye. Combinations of myopia and astigmatism or hyperopia and astigmatism are common.

My problem was the combination of Astigmatism and hyperopia.

As we all know, glasses or contact lenses are designed to compensate for the eye's imperfections. Sadly with astigmatism this is not easily corrected. The lens companies tell you that your vision can be perfect with those super expensive contact lenses for astigmatism. Believe me, they don’t work as well as the commercials say they will. Lenses like these are weighted at the bottom so they will stay in proper alignment to correct the flat spots on the cornea. If the contact moves slightly the vision is distorted; even worse then without the contact in.

The only way for the lenses to give you that crisp vision is to keep the lens from moving or floating around on the cornea. The hitch is to accomplish this you have to allow the eye to dry so the lens will adhere to the eye. This is painful to do, but hey you can see.

Glasses on the other hand fix these problems very nicely but there is the problematic weight of wearing them. Their up keep can be costly, and in my profession the countless broken pairs due to one physical altercation or another. Hey, not to mention the glare problems with night driving or trying to see in the rain at night. Also there is the problem of them fogging when you go from the car to the outside environment. I think the Greek term for this is (Optic tukus pain eritis).

Surgical procedures aimed at improving the focusing power of the eye are called refractive surgery. In LASIK surgery, precise and controlled removal of corneal tissue by a special laser reshapes the cornea changing its focusing power. There are different types of LASIK like PRK which scrapes the epithelia’s from the cornea. I’ll pass on that one thank you.

Now if you think you may want this done you want to make sure your Doctor uses the Interlace laser instead of the old method of using the Microkeratome to cut the initial corneal flap. The Interlace laser is 100 times more precise then Microkeratone. Those aren’t my words that I got from the research done on these procedures over the last 30 years. The old hand cut should be a thing of the past but there are still some who haven’t switched over yet. Most likely due to the cost of these advanced machines.

When it comes to the reshaping of the cornea be sure that your Doctor uses the custom Wavefront laser. The Wavefront can get rid of the higher order aberrations. This means that you will get sharper vision after the surgery and lowers your chances of having halos, starburst or other complications that you would sometimes get from LASIK
You should consider a Doctor who invests in these technologies because the chances are he or she has your best interest in heart. In fact there are many studies that I have read that show most problems associated with LASIK have been eliminated since the use of these new interlace and Wavefront lasers.

24 hours after surgery I am seeing like never before. I have been reading and know writing without any glasses. I can’t wait to work a rainy night to see what it will be like. Lord willing it only gets better from here.