I'm another early RK patient. I had surgery in Houston, TX in November 1984. My brother-in-law had had the procedure the week before and had beautiful results. At that time this particular doctor was doing both eyes at the same time so after the initial tests, I was scheduled for the surgery.

I was interested in RK as I spent most of my time looking through a microscope. While the microscope compensated for my near-sightedness, I couldn't see to record my results without putting my glasses back on. I tried using the scope wearing my glasses, but ended up having to replace scratched lenses rather frequently. RK sounded like the perfect solution.

I had an unusually long recovery period and was unable to see well enough to drive for about 6 months. Even with prescription glasses, I could just about see well enough to manage day-to-day operations. Finally things cleared up and I could see 20/20 except at night when I had a lot of star-bursts, etc. I also had some surgically-induced astigmatism. I didn't wear glasses for the next 7 years. At that point, the astigmatism started to increase and I started becoming progressively more far-sighted.

I began to have difficulty reading small print. Since then, I have become progressively more far-sighted with surgically induced astigmatism. I am still able to read, etc with corrective lenses, but the close vision is not sharp. So far I have not been able to get a doctor to tell me how long the progression will continue. I definitely would not repeat this experience.

It hadn't occured to me until I read the information from this web sight that this was anything more than bad luck. I still don't know if I was really a good candidate (because of pupil size) so hope to have this evaluated at some point. I have seen several other eye doctors since that time as I have moved several times. None of them even suggested that there was anything unusual about this condition.