Background

I'm a female in my twenties living in the Bay area who had mild-to-moderate myopia and astigmatism in both eyes (about -4 in my left eye and -3.5 in my right eye). Both my parents have pretty bad vision, so it was basically a given that my own eyes would become a problem.

I had reading glasses in elementary school when my vision was first starting to go bad, but they gave me headaches so I never wore them. I wore contacts through middle school, but being a night owl in addition to being a pretty serious student (studying!) meant that contacts were irritating at best and painful at worst. Lack of sleep caused serious dry eye problems for me; my optometrist told me that my tear break up time (TBUT) was 5-8 seconds (average is considered to be over 10 seconds) which meant that my tear film was evaporating more quickly than most, or maybe just not adhering to my eye as well as it would in the average person. By high school I gave up the pain of contacts for the inconvenience of glasses, and I've worn glasses through college and most of my first year of graduate school.

Now, I'm not positive that I would have gotten this procedure if glasses and contacts weren't physically a problem for me. I've described my issue with contacts above, but glasses came with their own issues. Being Asian, the bridge of my nose is relatively flat. I've worked with optometrists to try different nose bands to fit my glasses to my face and none of them could keep them from slipping. As a result, when I occasionally wore contacts (at the gym, going out with friends, formal events, etc.) and now, as I'm recovering from my PRK, I have a habit of trying to push up my non-existent glasses every 10-15 seconds. Further, my eyelashes are long, but they're pretty straight. Since they don't curl up and my nose bridge doesn't hold the glasses very far from my face, my eye lashes constantly brushed against my lenses, not only causing an almost constant annoyance, but also making sure that there was a steady deposit of oils from my lashes streaking across the lenses of my glasses. In addition to the pushing-up-my-glasses habit, I had a huge stash of microfiber cloths that I used to clean my glasses several times a day.

Without these constant problems, I'm not sure that I would have taken on the cost (more about this later) and risk of laser eye surgery. It's very important to note these potential downsides, which include (this is not an exhaustive list):

• Permanent dry eye
• Corneal haze
  
• Halos/Glare around lights
  
• Undercorrection, which may necessitate continued use of glasses or contacts
  
• Overcorrection
• Sensitivity to light

One of the benefits, however, of getting PRK over LASIK, is that there's less concern about compromising the integrity of my corneas as, in PRK, there's no flap created and once healing is done, the cornea is essentially as complete as it was before the procedure.

In any case, I decided that a free consultation wouldn't hurt and so I arranged one with my roommate, who was also considering laser eye correction. Next, I'll go into my process of finding the right surgeon.