In astigmatism, the light rays are not bent uniformly, therefore people see a blur. Many people are surprised to find out that we’ve been able to correct astigmatism with the Lasik procedure for over 10 years. What the laser does is it takes the nonuniform shape of the cornea and makes it much more symmetric or round.
In farsightedness, the light rays are not bent enough. Therefore in the Lasik procedure we steepen the cornea, allowing the light rays to focus onto the retina.
In nearsightedness the light rays are bent too much. The Lasik procedure flattens the cornea, allowing the light rays to focus onto the retina.
Since was about 18 I guess first started wearing contacts, and I actually had a unique situation where I only had one bad eye, so for me I wore one contact lens. And I think for most people it’s usually pretty hard to detect and just kind of flows into their day well, but because I only had it in one eye I could always kind of tell it was in. So I was eager to jump at the chance and have laser surgery. It wasn’t necessarily a huge pain beforehand but it’s just become so much easier afterwards. My job, especially those days I forgot my contact lens, I’d come home with a headache just from reading. Having one eye be really bad and one eye be good really gave me a headache, reading all day long at a computer.
Hey what’s going on guys I’m Sammy K. and, I’m standing at the Eye Doctors of Washington office, and I’m here to get some Lasik, so follow me guys.
Well okay so I’ve pretty much worn glasses like my entire life. I actually don’t remember not wearing glasses although I do remember my mom telling me a story about how when I was younger teachers came up to her in my preschool and were like, “Excuse me, Mrs. K, your son Sammy, he’s just not learn the alphabet, he can’t do his numbers, we think he has a learning disability.” And my mom of course being any parent, she was very hurt by that. Well lo and behold a year and a half later when they make you do your mandatory eye check before kindergarten doctors come up and go, “Well we’re sorry your son actually doesn’t have a learning disability, he just can’t see, that’s why he can’t read. Hahaha, sorry Ma’am.”
So that’s pretty much how the story went, and I don’t know. I guess ever since then I’ve always wanted to get Lasik done.
Okay you can take your glasses off and you want to just rest your chin there and press your forehead to the bar.
While Lasik is a brief, relatively painless procedure, there’s comprehensive preoperative testing done prior to the day of surgery. During that testing we measure and map all of the imperfections within the eye. Look for changes in the cornea, we look for any signs of cataracts or any breaks or tears in the retina. That examination process takes about two hours.
Hey man, you immediately walk in, it’s a young, fun atmosphere. I didn’t even, I forgot I was at the doctor’s office. Like I could still smell that doctor’s smell but I was having fun. We got a 479er. And I was confused because it’s not how you normally feel, and that’s it man. I mean honestly they made me feel very comfortable.
Okay here’s your glasses Sammy and now we need to go talk to the doctor and he’ll take a look at your pictures.
Oh hey doctor how are you? Nice to meet you. You got good news for me? I got great news. Congratulations, you’re a wonderful candidate. Now I don’t go today right, when do I get it done?
We’re gonna do it another day. We’re gonna bring you in and give you some medicine to make you calm and relaxed before the surgery. Procedure won’t be very long, it’ll take between 5 and 10 minutes for you to do, and afterwards we’re gonna have you go home and kind of chill out, take it easy, take a nap, and wake up, and when you wake up you should be seeing pretty clearly. So I can go to work the next day? Next day.
Am I nervous? I’m pretty sure I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. to be honest with you I mean hey they’re gonna shoot a laser into your eyes. I mean I’ve seen Star Trek before, I know what they do with the laser. They’ve assured me that these aren’t the same kind of lasers but I’m still worried, I’m not gonna lie. And like the doctors tell you, “There is no guarantee.” And yeah but I’m not really worried. When it comes down to it I’m not even fretting about this. This is the last thing on my list of things that I’m worried about today and I’m really excited about it.
Sammy I’d like to thank you for coming here today and allowing us to film you going through this whole process. it gives our patients kind of a firsthand experience with Lasik, because as you and I’ve discussed there’s always a lot of concern about the procedure and this’ll give them some familiarity.
Now what’s gonna happen next is I’m gonna introduce you to Dr. Kang. He’s gonna be performing your procedure and during that phase of this video I’m gonna be explaining to the audience what’s happening during the process. Okay awesome I’m excited let’s do this.
This is Dr. Kang. Alright well I wanted to just take an opportunity to kind of get to know you, I know you’ve already met with Dr. Clinch and he’s told you you’re a great candidate for Lasik and I think that’s great. What is it, what’s the motivation here, why do you want to have Lasik? Oh man I’ve had my glasses since forever and it’s just been my demise. I want to just wake up one morning and see what the alarm clock says without having to put it two inches from my phase.
No for sure I’m pretty sure if you asked me what the demise of my entire life has been, the only bad thing I could actually say is my glasses. That’s the only thing I’ve hated so much. And for every year that I probably had my glasses I could think of at least ten ways to destroy them. So that’s like 180 ways I would love to just gaa, these things right here, just to break them apart would be fantastic.