Ask HN: Those of you who who have had PRK, how was the recovery?

5 points by ixacto 13y ago ↗ HN

Hi Everyone,

I'm curious how long it took those who had PRK or LASEK to recover and be back to work e.g. coding and looking at a monitor for many hours a day. My insurance company is offering to reimburse 40-50% of PRK costs, so I'm thinking of getting it done sooner than later. Anyway how did it go for you guys/girls?

2 comments

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proexploit 13y ago ↗

I just had LASIK a few weeks ago and the experience was great. I was told I could go back to work the next day. After surgery (4pm), I was asked to keep my eyes closed as much as possible for the rest of the night. At my 9am appointment the next morning, they already tested me as having 20/15 vision. I didn't experience any discomfort looking at my screen (for probably about 7-8 total hours over the day).

As far as I understand, PRK has little bit longer recovery, maybe 3-5 days, as it's a slightly different procedure (carving your cornea directly instead of cutting a flap, doing the work and putting it back). I'm not a doctor so I can't speak to exactly what's recommended with both or what to expect but my LASIK experience was great and I was told I could go back to work the next day.

geoffsanders 13y ago ↗

I had PRK when I was 19 (almost 10 years ago) so I can say with confidence you'll want to go the LASIK route if you can. With PRK, they scrape away the outer layer of your cornea so a laser can reshape its surface. With LASIK, they cut open your cornea and operate on the lens itself.

While cutting may sound traumatic, it doesn't affect your vision (they put a protective contact lens over it afterwards, it heals very quickly) and you come out of the operation seeing 20/20. With PRK, your cornea has to re-grow the cells that were scraped away during the operation which causes your vision to be cloudy for around a week. During this time your eyes will be painfully sensitive to light and you likely wouldn't be able to use a computer for 4-7 days. Another downside to PRK - you don't know how well the operation went until your eyes have fully recovered 2-3 weeks after surgery.