My Lasik Surgery

I would like to share my experiences on my Lasik surgery. It seems like most of friends keep asking about how’d it go, was it painful, how much was it, and etc.

I will answer them one by one and hopefully you won’t get bored. So sit back, relax and keep reading.

I inquired for all the hospitals here in Cebu that offers Lasik treatment. And it seems like there are only 2 hospitals that I know of that offers the treatment. Cebu Doctors and Chung Hua Hospital. I gave them a call and inquired about the service. Both have the same price tag at around php50k for both eyes. I choose Cebu doctors for reasons that I have read the site and it seems like the one who took the operation, had several experiences on the field of ophthalmology.

Pain threshold rating? at 10 being the highest, I guess that was around 3-4. Add up anxiety, fear, excitement, and nervousness. Not really that painful at all. which made me realize of a Filipino expression, parang kagat lang ng langgam.

I was at Center for Sight in CebuDoctor’s Hospital. They offer 2 kinds of Lasik treatment: The traditional and the Bladeless Lasik treatment which cost at around 50k and 90k respectively. The doctor showed me videos on both of the procedures, together with the explanation on the both of the process. The tradition Lasik uses blade to create a corneal flap. For the bladeless Lasik, there would only be lasers that creates the corneal flap, which will be then controlled by computers. This process removes human errors on the equation thus making this treatment safer compared to the traditional treatment. But safety comes with a pretty big price tag. 

Center for sight at CDU on the big day

I will divide this post into 3 parts, The Screening, The Surgery and Farewell with Benefits. :)

The Screening

The screening is a comprehensive eye examination that will check for your eyes condition and health if the treatment will be suitable for you. The first tests that I had were using a refraction machine and a “thing” that measures your eye glasses grade (I don’t know what it was called).  The refraction machine is a kind that blurs the image and then focuses it back and then makes beep sound. The “Thing” that I was referring to is the one where they will let you read the tiny letters from afar. Next test was a puff tonometer. It's the machine that blows compressed air to your eyes and measures the pressure on your eyes. The next test I had was the one that checks for the curvature of the eyes cornea. This test is a bit annoying though, since you will need to stare to a dot for 2 seconds or more and what’s annoying is that you will do your “big eye” pose and at the same time stare at the dot. But nevertheless, it was cool. It was like in a James Bond movie optical scanner. :) After the test, my eyes have a hard time focusing to something, so the doctor let my eyes rest for a while. After that, it was another test, a slit lamp exam. There was a small vertical light that was passing left and right to my eyes. After that exam, the Doctor explained in detail how the Lasik process works and showed it to me thru a computer screen. After our short talk, I had a chance to talk to Dr. Yong Larrazabal. This was very cool. I had a chance to talk to one of the “Big guys” here in Cebu.

The whole screening process took about an hour or so. You are not allowed to drive after screening for reasons that you will be VERY sensitive to bright light. But the sensitivity will be just for a couple of hours though, so no biggie. You also need to plan on when you want have your eyes treated since the screening will only be valid for one month. Beyond that, you will then have to be re-screened before the treatment. Also, if your a contact lens user, you are required not to use it several days. 

After all the processes, you will be then given a letter from the doctor. The letter contains the scheduled time and date (usually Wednesday’s), what not and what to do, what to bring, and what to wear.

The Surgery

The day that I was finally waiting for has come. Was I nervous? A bit yes. Excited? Hell Yeah! Anyways let go into the details of the big day before I get carried away :). Upon arrival, you will then be given a waiver to be read and signed on and some mild sedative. (It was valium on my case) you will then be instructed on when to drink it.

PDF file of the waiver

After reading and signing the documents, I will just have to wait for my turn, since there were other patients scheduled on that day too. Payments will also be made on the clinic.

Before entering the surgery room, you will then be required to wear scrubs suits and leave your shoes on their shoe rack. You will only wear the clinic croc slippers :). Your eyes will then be dropped with numbing drops.  I was watching a few NatGeo shows before my turn. During that time, my eyes were cleaned and sanitized. (Not exactly the eye itself but the surrounding places of it, say cheeks, eye brows, eye lids and etc.)

Now it was my turn. I braced myself for a couple minutes of pain. The anxiety was now replaced by fear. Well, only a bit of fear. As I lay down on the operating bed, my heart rate spike at that time (at least that was on my mind since I drank a sedative). Doctors attached tong-like hands to keep my eye lids from closing. At that time, there was only three words that was running in my mind. Follow doctor’s instructions. That’s it. Doctor then said focus on the green dot. After that, it was all darkness. The Doctor placed something on my eye. I guess that was the blade, then I can hear a humming sound. Rotating blade? No idea really.  Then, I can feel something touching my eye, my breathing stopped. I can feel it running thru my eyes. And when the humming sound stopped, there was one big exhale from me. Crap. That was something. I didn’t feel any pain though. Probably it was because of the numbing drops, no idea really. After a few seconds, the thing with the blade on was removed. I can feel something touching my eyes again. And then it hit me, it was the tweezers that helped opened the corneal flap. And then, I can hear the doctor’s words again saying look at the green dot. Then I can hear them murmuring some numbers that I have no idea what was it about. Then the next thing happened was I can smell something burning. It was the excimer laser doing it's job. It smelled like a burned hair or something. And the next thing I see was all white! They placed something on my eye. It looked like it was white a ink or something. Felt like white ink too! With the small brush thingy on it. The tweezers then placed the flap back to its place and that was the end of the right eye. For the other eye, you can read this paragraph all over again. :) It was still the same feeling. This process took only about 2 minutes per eye.  It was the longest 2 minutes of my life! After both eyes have been treated, I was then placed in the waiting area. After the surgery, both eyes were closed almost all the time. I only squint with one eye when needed to. Don’t want something to go into my eyes when they are so very fragile. They also let me wore my eye goggles. I know what you're thinking, it's not the one used by swimmers silly! It was more like shades but without the tint. It was white. It was there to protect my eyes from foreign objects. Then, they gave us a free bag with the eye drops in it good for several weeks.

After the surgery, I went home, straight to the bedroom and slept. Doctor also gave an important note while sleeping. You will only be sleeping straight on your back. No buts, no if’s. You will always be facing the ceiling as much as possible. With this instructions, I had a hard time sleeping, since I was used to sleeping sideways or lying face down.

The next day, we headed back to the clinic to check if the healing process was as expected. The doctor also gave a few instructions about the eye drops that were given to us. The first 3 days and nights after the surgery are the most crucial part of your recovery. You are not allowed to take a bath for at least 3 days. Yeah I know I know. Sucks right? You are allowed to take a bath, but only from the shoulder-down but not your head. You are not allowed to shampoo and do something on your face. On my case, I just used a towel drenched in soap and wipe it to my face.

me with the goggles on after the surgery

Farewell with Benefits

Farewell to my glasses! And say hello to eye glass free life! :) Now I enjoy waking up in the morning not needing to look for my glasses.  Now I can watch TV sitting way back in the back. Now I can ride my bike without the hassle of my glasses interfering with my helmet. No more reasons like, "oh I forgot my glasses" excuse. I can see everything in HD quality and will never be turned off. :)

Side effects encountered

They say there are lots of side effects for this treatment. Like itchy eyes, halos, starlight’s, night blindness, sensitivity to bright light and etc. All I had experience was sensitivity to bright, which is very easy to fix. Wear shades. Done. That’s it. Halo’s isn't really much of an issue for me though. It was existing even on wearing eye glasses so not much of a big deal.

Although as of the moment, I am still a bit sensitive to bright light but it’s not as much as before. I still do encounter this side effect of the surgery but its not much of a big deal. There are some occasions at work when, while doing something on the computer, your eyes suddenly blurs out. All I have to do is close my eyes for at least 2 seconds and the its okay again. It usually happens at least 3 times a day at work. Staring the computer all the time might seem to be cause of this. Doctor says it a normal thing since full heal will be for about 3 months. Within that time, I will still be feeling those side effects.

see photos of the big day in another posts
click here