Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Allheart.com Coupon!

To my fellow Barry c/o 2012 PA classmates, enjoy this coupon when you order your supplies for our upcoming program! =D

Monday, July 5, 2010

Bye-Bye Eye Glasses

Whew!  LASIK procedure was completed a week ago, and it's pretty nice to not have to worry about glasses or contacts anymore.  For those who are interested in having it done too, here's a little bit of information about it.

My first consultation with ophthalmologist Dr. Gonzalez at Eye Associates was June 24th, and it wasn't hard to schedule my procedure in on such short notice.  They ran a bunch of tests on my eyes and confirmed that I was a good candidate for the procedure based on two main things:
  1. I had no evidence of a cataract, glaucoma or any other eye diseases
  2. My vision has been stable for the past 5 years.  
My prescription strength stayed in the -3.75 to -4.00 range for the past five years.  After the consultation, he told me he would add like a +3.50 prescription strength to both eyes.  My procedure was done four days after the consultation.  

I'd say the hardest part about the entire procedure was having to wear my eye glasses for ten days before the consultation.  I've always worn contacts just because they attach to my eyes easily, and I can just forget about them for the rest of the day.  For glasses, I always had to re-position them or polish them to get marks off of them.  But wearing them for ten days sure paid off.

The actual procedure only took two minutes on each eye.  I was given a Valium 45 mins before the procedure and I think I have a low tolerance to this drug because I was HIGH on LIFE!  Things in my head were so easy to say out loud and I didn't care what I said or what people's reactions were.  Luckily I didn't say anything I shouldn't have...or at least I hope not.  Anyway, after the procedure was done, I was taken back to another room where they gave me these awesome goggles and checked my eyes.  Afterwards, I came back to my home and took a nap.  When I woke, I could feel the cuts on my eye balls where they had to peel back my cornea, but it wasn't discomforting at all.  I just put the medical drops in my eyes as directed and it soothed them.  I immediately noticed that my eye sight was better, but it was still blurry.  Dr. Gonzalez said that it would be normal to have blurry vision like you're under water for the first day.  The next day, vision improved again but still had a little bit of blurry.  

At day 7 after the procedure, my vision improved a lot and is closer to 20/20.  It may take a month, maybe even 6 months, but I have faith it'll get there soon.  

The best part of this procedure was gathering all of my old glasses and eye contact supplies and donating them.  Fortunately, my younger brother Michael's eye sight is also -3.75 so I just gave him all of my old glasses and contact lenses.  If you don't have someone to donate your old supplies to, I noticed that Walmart's Vision center has a bin where you can donate your old glasses where they'll be sent to organizations such as Unite for Sight and they'll help find someone who would really appreciate them.  Here is the awesome early birthday gift I gave to Michael.


If you're also thinking about getting it done and have some questions about it, please feel free to ask and I'll try my best to give you some good answers.  My experience was really great, and a lot of my friends who have also had the procedure done say it is great too.  Good luck!