Custom lasik with intralase 1/7/08

[yank]

I had been wearing glasses for about 13 years and almost exclusively contacts for the past 7. My contacts were -3.25 in both eyes. The wavefront scan showed that I had HOAs which caused me to see slight starbursts at night. Because of this and my large pupils, they suggested the custom lasik and I also opted for the Intralase.
The only side effects that lasted more than a day are a bruise from the intralase and halos and starbursts. The bruise is improving but the starbursts and halos are still very bad. Streetlights, traffic lights, tail and headlights make night driving a chore.
The doctor says my eyes are healing well and he doesn't expect any lasting effects. I'm 2 weeks post op, and the starbursts aren't much better than the second day. I'm using the tears even though my eyes don't feel dry. I've heard and read lots of different things about how long symptoms last. I know I'm only 2 weeks out but the symptoms are still severe... should I be concerned yet? When should I start to worry?

[Walt]

I am 4.5 weeks post surgery. The glare/halos/starbursts were there but not my main irritant. My trouble was at night I saw 3 of everything that created or reflected light. Three taillights, street lights, red lights ec... that looked like a pennant. The first day the lights were widely separated many feet apart. This even happened reading the lighted eye chart. three of each letter is what I saw.

By 3 weeks they started coming together. Now the eye chart letters overlapped for the first time. This didn't help me read it but at least they were moving in the right direction.

Tonight driving to work was the first time that I saw only one moon, one streeligt, one set of headlights coming at me. The yellow reflectors on the center line of the street are mostly one now. red taillights are still separate and now I see 4 or 5 red lights until I'm about 40 feet out then they merge into one.

Also my glare/halos/starbursts are now (I think) back to about where they were before the surgery. Hard to tell since glare bothered me before but I didn't obsess over my vision then.

Good luck, express your concerns to your doc and have patience, after all you did just have someone laser off the front of your eyeball.

Keep us updated.

[yank]

Thanks for sharing, Walt. I'm happy to hear that your vision is improving. What makes being out at night so difficult is that everything not illuminated looks clearer and sharper than ever - except the lights, which all look like they did if I went out without my contacts on. It's quite the contrast.

I'll just have to be patient, and I'll post an update when I see some improvement.

[stockton13]

Hey yank,
Yeah I was almost in the same situation as you... -3.25 contacts in both eyes, had intralase lasik done. The halos and starbursts do go down especially after the first month or two. They were incredibly bad right after my surgery but have decreased ALOT. My left has no starbursts or halos anymore but my right eye still has some (may be due to remain refractive error tho). Still trying to get that sorted out. Good luck though. It does get better.

[yank]

Stockton,
It's always good to hear positive results. How long ago did you have Lasik?

[stockton13]

Just coming up on my four month mark. I had some really bad starbursts and halos following the surgery. I also had a wierd ghosting effect for white font on a black background (like TV commercials). The ghosting is almost completely gone and the starbursts/halos have shrunk considerably. It really is 6 month healing process like people say, not a 20 minute miracle.