High Myopia and Undercorrection with PRK

[BlindKC]

I have always been highly myopic and for the past 11 years I wore RGPs as my eyes seemed to need more oxygen than soft contacts were able to supply (at the time) and they gave me a nice crisp clear vision.

I decided it was time to look into LASIK after both RGP lenses moved off center while I was driving on the freeway leaving me essentially blind, alone in my car going 65mph. Extremely frightening and something I never want to do again.

After my last eye exam I was told I should get out of my RGPs for a month or more before any laser surgery so I swapped them out for some disposable softs at a prescription matching my RGPs of -8.5 in both eyes. At that time my doctor told me he could do LASIK but could not promise a correction better than -.5. I was actually okay with that but decided to get a second opinion just to make sure i wasn't overpaying or being told something way off base. 3 weeks later I went in for a free pre-op exam and screening and was told my prescription had changed here's what they got:

Habitual glasses rx (4-5 yrs old but essentially identical to rx given 1m ago)
-9.50 + 0.25 x 006 20/50-
-9.50 + 1.00 x 64 20/40-
Preop MR -13.00 + 1.00 x 83 20/20+
-12.50 + 1.50 x 90 20/20

Topography 44.62/45.75 @ 110 central K power 45.7
45.37/47.12 @078 central K power 46.7

pachymmetry 534 OD
522 OS

My first question is how is it possible that the disposable softs they gave me and my glasses are -3 to -3.5 off and I have been functioning quite well for a month now? I have been working, driving (day and night) doing homework, and reading forums like this. Am I cazy or is my prescription really not that far off? I swear I can read street signs from across a 3-4 lane intersection freeway signs for .10 mile away. I admit some things arne't all that clear and I would be going in to get a better prescription if this wasn't supposed to be temporary but I was told it was normal for some change to occur.

The change doesn't seem to worry anyone as my prescription before RGP was similar and got better the first couple years I wore them so the better readings were just from my corneas being reshaped by the hard lenses and now that I'm not wearing them my corneas have gone back to normal (for them lol).

Well the surgeon for my second opinion is very good. Of course he suggests IOL but that is 3 times more expensive and the idea of having lenses inside my eye freaks me out. So since I've been functioning with a -3 to -3.5 refractive error for 3 weeks I asked him how good I could get with PRK and he said he could get me under -2. Now I know that's not great for most people but for me it seems like it would be amazing. At least if my contacts fell out while I was driving I wouldn't in danger of killing myself and everyone else onthe road! Has anyone done this?

Looking at my numbers above are there any risks I should be aware of or questionsI should ask?

[BlindKC]

I guess no one has been in my situation.... =(

I decided to ask the doctor for soft contacts that would give me the vision I could expect after PRK. My surgeon said he thought he could get me under a -2. So I asked to have contacts that correct my vision leaving me at -2. (Yes, I know I will still need glasses or contacts if I'm left with a -2 residual prescritption but it's WAY better than where I'm at now!)

Because of my astigmatism they gave me toric lenses. I'm so confused b/c this is what the packages say:

Both are DC 8.7 DIA 14.5
R -8.00 -0.75x180
L -7.00 -1.25x180

I was expecting to see numbers higer than the regular softs they gave me just to readjust after my RGP and those were both -8.5.

Actually these toric lenses are maybe just a tiny bit better than the regular ones. Like maybe I can see close up things better I think in general I backed up a few inches from my monitor at work. Is that b/c these are correcting my atigmatism and the others were not?

Why is there such a big difference in all these prescriptions? Is that normal?

[BlindKC]

So maybe I am crazy but I did it. I had PRK on Friday!

First I felt better about it once I got to the surgery center and none of the technicians or doctors seemed at all put off by how high my prescription was. I asked and they all said they had seen higher and they didn't seem like it was all that uncommon either. They also said that the surgeon was going to love me b/c he likes working on high myopes. They weren't sure if it was b/c he likes the challenge or if it was b/c he knew that it truly changed the patients life when they went from prescription like mine to 20/20 or at least 20/40. They also said they had a patient come in last year with a -26 prescription and after 3 procedures he is now seeing 20/25 so that gave me a lot of hope.

I'm going over to the "just had it" board to post my story there.

[tack77]

Blindkc,

I hope you are still around as I haven't had any luck getting any responses on this forum yet.

I went for my lasik exam and they gave me the following script

R -5.0 + 1.75 X 085
L -8.25 + 1.25X 085

My last eye exam gave the following for my glasses


r -7.50 -1.50 X 180
l -7.50 -1.00 X 005

I can see great in these glasses and it kind of scares me that the lasik results were so different as opposed to my last eyeglass exam.