I had LASIK 7/13/07 and the procedure went well. I am 44 so we went with mini-monovision. From the start my right eye, which required greater correction did well. Made to be slightly nearsighted is allows me to read and is 20/30 at a distance.
The problem is my left eye, which started off reasonably well (I know enough from these postings to understand the gradual healing process after surgery) but after about two weeks it took a turn for the worse. My vision in that eye got extremely blurry.
I had been using 1% Econopred Plus drops four times daily and read that it might increase IOP so I asked if there were other options. We switched to Lotemax which is supposed to be "non-glaucomatic" and a week later things were slightly better, but the doc felt things should be improving more rapidly and put me back on the Econopred.
After a week of that - now one month out - things were very blurry again, so I met with the surgeon who felt I might be in the small percentage of "steroid responders" and suggested a return to Lotemax, Cosopt to reduce any IOP, and Muro 128 5% to draw water out of the cornea.
I did see considerable improvement, back to about 20/40 in that eye at the best of times with increased blurriness in the evenings. The drops were pretty harsh on my eye after a couple weeks so I was relieved when I was told to go back to just the Lotemax three times a day. Two weeks of that kept things pretty stable.
At my last morning visit -9 weeks post op - my vision was about 20/40 and the doc felt the swelling had gone down considerably though there was still quite a bit of "intercellular" swelling, I believe he said, so he put me down to two Lotemax drops a day and said to come back in a month. That was good news.
Unfortunately, after one week of just the two drops a day my vision is as bad as it has ever been in that eye. I have read here that the "wound response" causes the swelling and does go away, but I wish I knew more about it.
Does it always go away?
Will this be a problem for six months? A year? Longer?
Is there any approach other than steroid drops that can help the healing process or is it simply wait and see?
What percentage of patients have this prolonged swelling?
This site is a great resource and has been reassuring when I was really worried about this early on. I try to be patient, but things get better and then get so much worse. I would be in real trouble if my right eye was having the same problem.
If anyone else is going through this perhaps they can shed some light or at least take comfort in that they are not alone.
Thanks!