SMILE can not LASIK. About laser vision correction

The story of how I saw the light

For 10 years I wore lenses with myopia -4 diopters and thought about the correction, but at one moment clicked, made, pleased as an elephant. With my myopia it costs up to 100 mp.

Turnkey SuperFemtoLASIK (May 2019g). But happiness full pants.

Immediately I will make a disclaimer: I do not have medical education, a wealth of experience in operations and commercial motivation to write this article. I describe this experience for people who still doubt and are looking for answers to their problems on the Internet.
I will also use common abbreviations. Information about the essence of the methods is complete on other resources. He also did not call the medication, so that no one would guess to prescribe it for himself.
')

Prerequisites

Glasses put on me in elementary school (-2 diopters), by the ninth grade I have already switched to two-week lenses (-3.5 diopters). At the end of the institute, relatives / acquaintances began to incite correction, but then it seemed to me to spend the cost of 3-4 smartphones, or a good trip to Europe is too much. So I went to lick, until the changes began: a close relative seriously ill and the treatment of oncology cost a lot of money. Two years later, everything ended well, but another fell ill and everything started anew. At this point in the brain clicked that health is not something to save on. My 30 years are already behind and it's time to do my own health. At the same time began to strain the wearing of contact lenses. A state of emergency happened once a quarter: when I accidentally scratched my eyelid, the lens ran through the eyeball and it was hard to get it, not to mention the sensations at that moment. One time it was driving, another time away from home and it was difficult to return. The sensation of weakness was frustrating.

And I will never have again:

• I can not go to the airport at carsharing at 5 am, because unable to stick lenses in eyes.
• I can not stay overnight, because did not take the solution or spare kit
• I can not nap during the day / on the road, because the lenses stick and must be soaked after waking up
• I can not drive, because sick and can't wear lenses
• see clearly more than 12 hours a day without eye injury
• emerge without sight and think which side is the coast.

Of course, I can no longer stand in the smoke of the fire. But I think I will survive.

Training

I came across a series of articles about SMILE - a new generation technique, and most importantly requiring mandatory certification of doctors, caught fire on her. Found a list of accredited clinics, considering it a panacea, and began to wool prices. It turned out to do in Moscow time more expensive by 20-30% (there are exceptions). For comparison, in Moscow time SMILE costs 70-80 mp / eye, while in Krasnodar, Novosibirsk it is 50 tr., And in Nizhny Novgorod 45 tr. LASIKs are proportionally cheaper too. But there is still a basic examination, mandatory consultations of doctors and so on. Having seen the price of a train swallow, I understood what I would do in Nizhny Novgorod (NN). I booked a reception time, wrote a vacation, stopped wearing lenses (I still didn’t understand if there was a need for this - 14 days without lenses). While wearing glasses began to do exercises for the eyes. The most common, but regularly. And it helped a lot on inspections! Sometimes you need to hold the extreme position of the eye in one of the 8 directions (up-down, etc.) for 20 seconds, and a flashlight similar to the Chinese super-bright is thumped into the eye.

He came to NN on the morning swallow and immediately to the clinic, there are 4-5 hours of examination: checking the alphabet, electronic checking (picture with a balloon), a few more devices, one of which abruptly puffed air into the eye. As it turned out just this device checked the sphericity of the cornea. There was still an ultrasound. Anesthesia is dropped and a tiny sensor is led over the eye. You don’t feel it at all, but you get scared when it touches a touch as if circles on the water, but this is the surface of the eye. And it was a great training session for the operation. Then the pupil dilator drips, which also relaxes the muscles of the eyes and affects the focus. Hour you sit with eyes closed, although you see normally, but bright. And the process begins again. According to the results of the study, I was told about dystrophy of the retina of the left eye, the reason for this was the “long eye” (strangely, it is called long when it is wide) - 25 mm, at a rate of 23 mm. By the way, every extra 1mm width of the eye corrects the picture by 3 diopters in the direction of myopia! Those. my lens and so 2 dioptries pulls extra. Still injured eyes, or rather the head. I had about three serious tremors that left micro tears on the retina. According to the doctors, “no one will make you a correction if there is a risk of retinal dissection”. 10 minutes on the omnipotent internet told me what was discovered

"PWID of the lattice type" is never fun and, in general, it is good that it was found and ready to be patched. The operation to “strengthen the retina” cost a lot of money and should have ended in 10 minutes. In practice, it turned out to be a little different. The very process of the operation, to put it mildly, brings discomfort. I will specifically try not to scare readers, but the process involves cauterizing the back of the eye. Through the pupil. I shed tears and screamed like a pig, my chin was fixed and saying something - it means to twitch my eye. I consider something else to write about strengthening. Subsequently, other people already at the correction said that they had almost the same. After several long minutes, the doctor said that everything went well and unfastened the head. Recovering in the corridor, I called a loved one and asked for help to buy me a ticket home, because the next 10 days I have nothing to do at NN. Suffering from daylight sunshine, seeing with one eye I got to the station and spent a few hours in fast food before boarding the train.

Even before the retina was strengthened, I was invited to a doctor, where they suggested possible methods of correction. SMILE was forbidden to me with reference to the fact that the cornea layer of 530 microns is not enough. Next time I asked this question again and clarified: 550 microns is normal, which is not so different from mine. Just SMILE removes a layer of 20 microns, which is a lot for my cornea. Although the critical residue values ​​are 400-300 μm, when an operation is generally prohibited. This moment was not clear to me. There was a second reason - Offset (offset) of the optical axes. Which goes beyond the tolerances for SMILE and completely prohibits this technique. Given these features, I was offered a Super Femto SMILE entirely on femtolazar. Bonus promised a faster recovery - one day, ostensibly for SMILE longer.

On the 11th day I returned to the clinic to the laser surgeon. The reinforcement was successful and I was allowed a correction. Because for examination it was again necessary to open the pupil, but this was not necessary for the operation, it was necessary to carry the days of the inspection and the operation itself. The next day I arrived at the clinic at 13.30, filled out the documents, paid for the surgery, about 14 I was sent to the room for patients. There they put me in boot covers knee-deep, put on a funny hat with gauze on the ears. It was very funny to sit in the company of the same people, and with black glasses. Periodically, the nurse came in and dripped into her eyes. Gentle-gentle attitude towards patients helped a lot to relax the heavy, oppressive silence that prevailed in the room. Everyone was silent, I was a little nervous. There is always a non-zero likelihood of complications, illnesses, failures and they do not give rest. It is terrible even to imagine life without sight. I was even given a sedative drink twice. They took the girl out of the next room, said very carefully to put on black glasses, sit and rest. It turned out, bespectacled - this is about the operated. 10 minutes and comes next.

Operation

They called me to the operating room, asked how I felt, measured the pressure. Invited to lie down on a couch and covered with a sheet, with a hole under the face, and a napkin, with a hole under one eye. More anesthesia was instilled and asked to open both eyes. Here the problems started with me. The right eye still more or less coped with the tasks, and the left one did not want to be open without the right one. The fact is that if you close one eye, then the second one, in which the operation also tries to close despite the eyelid expander. For 10 minutes the doctors spent on persuading me to open the second eye (right, already done) so that you can work with the left. We made several attempts to approach the laser in the eye, but it was interrupted (he said something, I do not remember anymore). In the end, I saw a muddy picture, which I read in many sources. The doctor began to do something with the tools in the eye, it seems that it should be a flap raising, but something went wrong. The process of picking in the eye continued, but there was no result. It felt like the laser had not cut the line and the tool had to quietly grab the flap. Maybe even with a scalpel. Maybe I'm wrong. could not see anything, and doctors are probably forbidden to tell such things. At that moment it became even worse. As far as I understand, at this moment it is impossible to stop the operation, you need to continue ... I was asked to stand up and move to another table, a meter from the previous one, under the second apparatus. One of them had a green point, which you need to look at, and all the time she ran away to the side. But you can't move your eye and hang in uncertainty. The other seems bright white light. I do not remember exactly. But I heard the sound of a working electromotor as from a children's toy and it smelled of smell from the dental office when the enamel was drilled with old instruments. After 15-20 seconds it was all over and they moved me with a long-suffering left eye. Again, persuasions began to open the eye, I tried my best to help doctors, but I could not cope with reflexes. When the motor was buzzing, I began to exhale slowly and avoided an unpleasant smell. And again something went wrong: the right eye was made as if 3 quick passes and it was free, and the left eye was made as if in manual mode - slowly, carefully, with pauses between the passes. They removed the device from me and reported that the operation was successful. I didn’t even believe it and repeatedly asked if there would be complications? But I was asked to get up and escorted to the patient room. Time is 15.30.

First day

Take the black glasses for the arms and very carefully lower them to the head. Now this is our protective screen. Primarily from their own hands, who constantly climb to scratch their eyes, wipe away tears. You can only touch on the chin. We have to wait until the nozzle drains to where it can be wiped. A nurse comes in and something drips again. After a couple of hours, you realize that the drops are different - from one pinches, from others it becomes good, you can open your eyelids and look at the time. The same is quietly spoken by other patients. There were four of us left in the room who were operated on after dinner. I think I had a little worse than usual: the pain in my eyes was replaced by the sensation of sand and soft contact lenses that were inserted inside out and they interfere with the eyelid. The guys said that in general they can see, some have already declared that they see better. Rarely did anyone complain of pain, but I was bleeding from tears and snot, my head was spinning.

Mostly they did FemtoLASIK, and one guy - Trans-PRK. And the latter chose the PRK from the savings. Call me a snooty Muscovite, but for my own money, suffer during the rehabilitation period, which will last for 5 days or more - thank you. And he did it out of savings, because there was money in his pocket, but he decided to use it for a driving school. (At this moment I want to apologize if I offended someone from the participants in my story). Interestingly, he felt better than anyone else - he tried to get a mobile phone, he began to be bored, but he began to entertain girls who were still recovering. All were natives of NN and did not even think about SMILE. But everyone did strengthen the retina, some even had both eyes! Many said that their friends had operations in this clinic and that everyone had “normal flight”.

About 19, after the second examination of the doctor, the pain did not stop. I was offered a hospital where painkillers can continue to drip, although they slow down healing and it's time to give it up. I refused, took the given droplets and went home to observe self-burying mode. More precisely, at my request, they called me a taxi to my hostel, where I had already settled in the morning. While the anesthetic was acting, I was able to open my eyes and get to the bed. I even arranged with the administrator to order rolls. It took me exactly 40 minutes. Then the eyes closed.

A doctor's prescription was to drop one of the drugs once an hour. I had enough minutes for 20. Further, the pain was replaced by a painful shock. Fists clenched under the knees, so as not to climb into the eyes. Neither sit nor lie did not help. I want to make a small digression in my defense. I regularly get randomly sticking my fingers in boiling pasta, hooking myself with hot pizza baking, scrubbing my head against the open door of the upper shelf, I can cut the cat's claws while he tries to bite my hand off. I will not say that I am a “fighter” or “I own an iron shirt”, but I am also calm about pain.

I dripped around and washed my tears. At that moment, a support group arrived, which was supposed to arrive in the afternoon. I must say that the simple feeling of a loved one is near, in a difficult moment it is already +100 to health. My own story about the operation I was a little distracted. Operations of this type are carried out in one day and the accompanying ones are overkill, but when things start to go wrong, they become your hope. Around midnight I passed out to sleep.

It was necessary to sleep strictly on the back, without removing the black glasses. Hands all time to scratch my eyes and salty face. I had to put my hands under my back or tie him in a knot on my chest. At 5 in the morning I started kolobrodit, there was no sleep. Last time I dripped drugs, although I no longer needed it. At about 9 in the morning I opened my eyes and realized that I saw holes in the socket on the opposite wall. First thought: I did not remove the lens? It was normal for me to just see the spot of the socket block and tell if it was there. In terms of if the wall is the same color, then I will not answer for sure. Could watch for a few minutes. At first there was a feeling that the eyes were squinting: focus in front of you and make an effort so that the eyes parted in different directions and focused on the object in the distance. Every hour my eyesight got better, I wanted to look at the leaves on the trees, blades of grass and stones. I loved brick buildings, I want to see every joint between the bricks. By 12 o'clock I came to the inspection, I was told that everything is fine. The right eye sees line 1.2 - the equivalent of 120% of normal vision, the left eye is watering, but it sees line 0.9. They promised that they would live and catch up with the right one. And I will try charging to help him with this. I was given a new set of drops and we agreed that you need to appear again. In my case, it is next Saturday to not take a vacation again.

Rehabilitation period

Day after surgery - to survive, endure, sleep. Usually, everything is much simpler and even try to blunt the cell phone.

Three days - sleep on your back, avoid screens, do not wash your hair (I washed gently), drip, sleep.

Two weeks - do not lift weights (5-10 kg), no sports, gymnastics, avoid high pressure, dust, aerosols, steam.

Month - a strict ban on baths, saunas, gravity, swimming. Hypothermia, colds, any viral infections. Injuries, contact sports.

Then you can all!

Budget

Swallow ticket 2 x 800r
Initial examination (4-5 hours) 1500R
Inspection on Pentakam 2500r
Strengthening the retina of one eye 8000r
Lunch 3 x 300r (I love food, and food loves me)

Swallow ticket 2 x 900r
Overnight hostel 2 x 450r
Inspection after retinal strengthening 0p
Consultation of an anesthesiologist (just told her that I am healthy and I respond to all standards of medicine) 1000r
SuperFemtoLASIK 2 x 35.250r vision correction surgery
Drops on the first day and the next week 0r
Inspection after surgery 0p
Dinners for three nights stay ...

Train ticket on the night from Fri to Sat 2000r
Swallow ticket 900r
Inspection a week after surgery (not yet traveled, I hope for free)

Total 83.500r treatment, without travel.

Afterword

The gentle voice and the pretty faces of the staff of the clinic very nicely calmed during nervous moments, thanks to the administration of the clinic for this approach to patients.

Thank you for the integrated approach to the formation of the price list: make me an eye - no question, 8 tr. Make me a survey-preparation for the correction - ok, (1.5 + 2.5) tr. A follow-up inspection after - I consider it a sign of quality control of the service, monitor the level, respect.

To be treated in another city makes sense if you have a big operation. If the process starts to drag out or complications appear, you need to look for doctors in your area. Where he could have saved, then he would have to be treated for the full cost.

There remains a slight concern about the operation. On the subcortex, I know that manual operation is impossible - most likely there is simply no such possibility on a laser. I hope that I was wrong. In any case, now I see well, thank doctors!

Having some experience I can say that now I would study the market in my city more thoroughly. It was necessary to ring up the clinic, maybe even go talk. It turned out that a friend of a friend had performed a similar operation (femto LASIK) in Moscow time for the same money. To go to Nizhny Novgorod was not necessary.

In conclusion, it would be interesting to hear the views of the masters. Scientific statements, please send along with links to primary sources.