Cant Keep Quiet!

I had my pre-op visit for my Lasik surgery today. One of the things they did was dialate my eyes. They still haven’t gone back to normal.

My appointment was at 3 this afternoon and it took nearly 2 hours. Dialating my eyes was done for the last few procedures.

It started with one of the nurses taking a picture of my eyes (mapping). The was the same procedure that I had first on my visit last week. I don’t know if they did the procedure today to make sure that there were no changes from the previous visit or because they didn’t like the first set of pictures.

After the mapping I waited a bit and then the eye doctor saw me. Not the doctor that will be doing the surgery. This was the regular (I guess) eye doctor you would see at a place that does glasses. I spent a lot of time with him today. Luckily he was handsome and personable.

We did the whole “check your eyes to update your glasses” routine. He also did a test to determine pupil refraction and pupil size. He put drops in my eyes so he could check for glaucoma and then rinsed them out. The eye doctor then put a drop in my eyes to dialate them, waited a minute and did some test (by this time I was a bit lost) and then put more drops in my eyes. He then took me out to the waiting area so I could wait will my pupils dialted more.

After about 20 minutes another employee came and took me into one more room for another mapping picture of my eyes. I think I’ve had more pictures of my eyes taken in the last few days then ever before.

Remember, I don’t like people messing with my eyes. I had to sit on my hands for the eye doctor to put the drops in my eyes. Anything involving “put your chin on the chin rest” was fine. It was the drops that got to me.
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Turns out I’m an excellent candidate for Lasik surgery. Thank goodness.

The initial visit takes about an hour. First they took my glasses to find out what my prescription was. Then I was taken to a room where two machines sat waiting.

I’m not exactly sure what the machines measured. I did ask. The first one would take a picture of your pupil and basically do a topographical map showing flat areas and steep areas. The other one also took a picture of your pupil to help determine thickness of the cornea.

Whatever they did, the results help determine if you are a good candidate or not for lasik surgery.

I was then taken to another room that had the traditional eye doctor’s chair where vision can be determined for glasses or contacts. There I had a quick check to see how my vision was with the glasses on to determine if there had been any change since my last eye exam.

The last test I was put through was uncomfortable and a bit painful. One of the tests they do is to determine what sort of tear output a person has. They attach a tiny strip of paper with a scale on one end to the lower eye lid. The paper irratates the eye making it tear. Thankfully you can close your eyes after they put the strips on which reduced some of the pain involved but still lets the eyes tear.

I typically don’t have problems with dry eyes except when it’s allergy season and the results from this test indicate that my eyes are perfectly capable of producing tears on their own.
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I am near sighted. Very near sighted. Without my glasses things begin to look blurry at less than 1 foot away.

I used to wear contacts but whenever my allergies were acting up my eyes would dry out and the contacts just aggravated the problem. It just became easier not to wear the contacts.

I also have headaches. Migranes really. I can get them due to barometric changes, my period starting, and stress. I can also get them for no reason that I can figure out.

When I get a migrane any bit of extra pressure on my nose or behind/on my ears adds to the pain. Last time I got glasses I picked very light wire half frames and got the featherweight lenses. Even as light as the glasses are now, when I have a headache it still adds to the pain.

In a couple of minutes I’ll be going to see if I am a canidate for Lasik surgery.

Wish me luck.