robertliu.com

A short update on my eyes. My vision is still perfect and I’m very happy when I go travelling or am out and about. I can see the seas, the stars, the forests and the clouds! There are still the odd times when I feel I need eye drops but I don’t think I have dry eyes in general. Also, I find if I concentrate too hard on my computer screen in the morning then my eyes will be a bit blurry for a few hours…but I think I had that problem before surgery anyway.

Haven’t blogged for a while but thought it would be good to post about my eyesight. It’s now four months after surgery and everything is really clear, but..

About a month ago, for a period of about 2 weeks, my left eye was giving me seriously bad double vision. I would wake up fine but after starting work (staring at the computer screens) my vision would turn bad and stay like that for the rest of the day. I was close to calling Ultralase and saying, what’s going on?? But since then, everything has become really clear again. My vision only goes slightly off if I really stare at the screen too long or am really tired but can still see everything fine.

So I’m quite happy with the result. Another check up next month – not sure if that’s the last one or if there’s one more. Laser eye surgery should be made available to everyone. I think most people with glasses/contacts just get used to it but you don’t know what you’re missing until you get given your eyesight back!

It’s almost coming up to 8 weeks post LASEK operation and I had my check up this morning. I could read better than 20/20 but I’m ever so slightly long sighted now. Ultralase said that those who were previously short sighted will find that during the healing time the vision will tend back to short sightedness so I might be lucky and it will all zero out in the next month or so! Good news at least and I can definitely see an improvement in my vision. I’d say about 75% of the time it is now better than when I had glasses. My eyes are still healing and still using the eye drops. Right eye feels a bit gritty occassionally. I was given more anti-inflammatory drops because I ran out when I was in Japan so need to make up for 2 weeks of drops.

I’ve booked another check up in 3 months.

It’s been a little while since I last blogged, so hope you all had a nice Christmas and are enjoying this new decade. This might surprise some of you but I celebrated the new year in Japan only to return back to the snowy and cold UK. It’s been a pain trying to clear the snow off my car in the morning and driving has been dangerous so I’m quite glad to see most of the snow melt today.  My parent’s home (yes, still living with parents) is freezing in this weather  so hoping to get some insulation installed soon – should have been done long ago.

I’ve never been in the habit of making new year’s resolutions but I decided at the end of last year to try and pursue an MBA (Master of Business Administration) to improve my managerial skills. It just seems like an appropriate thing to do at this point in my career, even if I may not be in a position to be a manager. I also want to improve my Japanese and possibly take the new JLPT N3 exam next December – still waiting for results from my last exam. What else…try and save money for my own house (been doing this for years and getting no where) and just to enjoy life e.g. travel.

My eye sight is pretty good now about 7 weeks post surgery. I’ve been glasses free, well, ever since surgery. My right eye doesn’t seem to be as sharp as my left but with both eyes combined, I can see pretty well. Been relying less and less on the eye drops which is a good thing and have another checkup this week!

Well it’s coming up to 5 weeks after my LASEK surgery now. I’d have to say my left eye is almost perfect. My right eye still feels a little gritty at times as if I got an eye-lash in my eye. The vision with the right eye alone is a little fuzzy although I can easily read this screen as I type. I did pick up some more eye-drops from Ultralase Cambridge on the weekend. Was a nightmare trying to get to the clinic because of all the snow! Had to reverse back up the slip road on the A14 or face 2 or 3 hours in traffic. Got there in the end and managed to walk in on the staff’s lunch break but I didn’t mind waiting. When I called they did say I could come at any time though.

Every morning I wake up and put the lights on, I’m able to see all the patterns in the wallpaper my parents decided to put up in my room whilst I was working abroad. Thanks Mum and Dad, flowery patterns are something I always wanted in my room. Ah well, that’s life.

Was quite worried this evening when I was driving home. Couldn’t see a thing!! But I quickly realised that I was just driving through immensely dense fog Overall, my eyesight has improved a lot over the past week. Things are generally very clear but it’s still not perfect. I would describe the quality right now as a “bad day when I had glasses”. I guess that’s the hard part over now. The next 1 or 2 months my vision should slowly sharpen up – hopefully!

Had a check up today. My eye sight has improved but it’s still not 20/20. The optometrist said I had no prescription but it was just a matter of waiting for the eye to fully heal. My eyes are a bit dry so I should try to use the drops more often. She also said the reason why sometimes my eyes stung when I used the artificial tears was because my eyes were dry to start with.

I left work early today because I wasn’t feeling well and suddenly started feeling feverish. Had a short nap just before dinner and am now feeling a bit better. Still got a stuffy nose though.

Anyway, it’s 10 or 11 days post-op now (depending on how you count it). I’ve still got the fuzziness in my vision but I can definitely see it clearing up each day. I can read the computer screen quite alright now despite all the letters being a bit blurred. My right eye is still trailing my left eye in terms of vision quality but both do seem to be improving on a daily basis. I noticed that after some blinks my vision becomes incredibly clear and then it “resets” back to blurry when I blink again… Patients are told to wait 2 to 3 months before judging the final outcome of the surgery, so I am being patient and not worrying at all.

I have a check up on Thursday which they said they would try to measure if I still have any prescription. I guess it depends if my vision is still blurry or not but on the whole I’m able to do most things. My eyes also don’t feel “gritty” any more either.

On the aftercare regime itself, I’ve found that occassionally, when I put the eye drops in my eyes sting like mad. But it doesn’t happen all the time and it happens with different drops so not really sure what’s up there as there’s no real pattern. It’s nothing I can’t handle though so I’ll ask the eye expert on my checkup this Thursday.

Since the contact lenses came out, my eyes haven’t really settled down. They’re quite blurry at times and I can feel my right eye being a bit dry. Sometimes it feels like I have sand in my eye but it’s not painful or anything, I just need to blink a couple of times. Seeing small improvements day by day though.

When I put my drops in, my eyesight becomes almost crystal clear so that’s a sign my eyes are a bit too dry. The surface does take time to heal though and that’s probably what is causing me to have what I call fuzzy vision – everything is clear but has a little fuzz around the edges. This is both for near stuff and distant stuff. I guess staring at a computer screen for 12 hours straight doesn’t help…

Driving at night hasn’t been too bad actually despite the fuzzy vision. Oncoming lights are bright but not worse than when I had glasses. If anytihing, I’d have to say my night vision has improved after LASEK as before I use to get huge glare/starbursts.

Anyway, weekend has arrived. I spent the last couple of days in the office as deadlines are approaching but gonna try to rest my eyes this weekend. Sneek in a few hours of study if I can.

Went for my next check up today and they took out the contact lenses. Good news is that it feels much better, not having that constant dry contact lens feeling. I managed to drive there today. Things are still not crystal clear but I can see things in the distance quite well. Later in the day when my eyes become tired and dry then everything just blurs a little

They’ll check me in a weeks time as they said things should start improving a lot now that the contacts are out. Tomorrow is my first day back in the office!