I had PRK in December 1996 and LASIK in March 1997. The procedures have reduced my night vision and made my eyes sensitive to bright lights at all times. I've gone from having excellent corrected vision to a daily struggle to copy with a visual handicap.
Following the PRK I had a central island and haze and it took three months to get to 6/9 vision. The central island has not reduced in over two years and has resulted in irregular astigmatism that is not correctable with glasses or contact lens. The procedure initially removed the regular astigmatism, but it has been progressively returning since the operation.

Because of the PRK problems a LASIK was done in the other eye. Initial results were good but I soon found that my night vision was very poor. Now in anything less that a sunny day outside m vision is blurry. At night there are debilitating halos and starbursts around lights and even watching TV inside is unpleasant. Light coloured faces have halos around them and is difficult to read a computer screen because of the irregular astigmatism. Driving at night is frightening and dangerous. My day vision is also very variable and sometimes extremely blurry in both eyes even in good light.

Since glasses and contact lens are ineffective, my only hope of obtaining normal vision is increasing the ablation zone size. However, this is not expected to be reliable for at least 2 years, or perhaps more. In any case, further treatment will bring its own risks.

Refractive surgery has lowered my quality of life and I believe the risks far outweigh the benefits. I'd recommend to anyone considering it to seriously think about how they would cope in daily living with vision loss.

Steven White
swhi1106@hotmail.com