No healing process takes place instantaneously, and healing after PRK or LASIK is no exception. For PRK patients, the initial healing phase lasts only a few days. Vision improvement is noticed after the first several days, although it can take a month or two for vision to stabilize and up to six months to achieve maximum vision.

Bruce’s recovery after PRK was fairly typical. Immediately after the procedure, he received applications of three kinds of eyedrops: steroid drops to control healing, antibiotic drops to prevent infection, and antiinflammatory drops to minimize discomfort. The drops needed to be used at regular intervals. He was also given pain pills to take as needed.

LASIK patients usually heal much more quickly than people who have PRK because the surface of the eye is not treated with the laser. The top layer, or epithelium, of the cornea contains most of the cornea’s nerves. The epithelium is removed in PRK, but remains intact in LASIK The epithelium is part of the flap that gets folded back into place after the LASIK treatment. As a result, these patients typically feel much less discomfort.

LASIK patients also recover good vision more quickly than PRK patients. In LASIK the laser treatment is applied to tissue deep within the cornea instead of to its surface, shortening the recovery period. Because LASIK patients don’t need to wait for the epithelium to grow back, they generally don’t experience the blurriness and light sensitivity that often accompany the healing process in people who have had PRK Whereas PRK patients will usually use the protective contact lens for three or four days, LASIK patients will not use the protective contact lens at all, or will at most use it for one or two days. Most LASIK patients see well the day after surgery, though small changes will continue for several months. As a result, most LASIK patients prefer to have both eyes treated at the same time or just several days apart.

If eyes were made of marble, we could correct every one of them to a perfect 20/20. But eyes are made of living tissue. As can be expected, not all eyes display the same healing response. The individual healing response, which cannot be predicted accurately, affects the patient’s final vision. Unfortunately, your eye’s healing response cannot be predicted by how fast other parts of your body heal and cannot be determined by testing.

In LASIK, there is much less variation in the healing pattern of the eye. The healing pattern varies more when the surface of the eye is healing, as in PRK, than when the deeper tissue is healing, as in LASIK.

Most people exhibit a predictable healing pattern. As the eye heals during the first several weeks or months, there is a slight tendency for the eye to revert toward its initial state: nearsighted eyes will regress very mildly back toward nearsightedness and far-sighted eyes will regress slightly back toward farsightedness. Doctors take this tendency into account, and will create a small overcorrection initially. As a result, most patients will notice that their vision sharpens during the first several weeks or months of the healing period.

As a patient you must decide: Do you want both eyes treated on the same day, or each eye on a different day? Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. Your decision may also depend on whether you are having PRK or LASIK.

When one eye is treated at a time, you can resume normal activities within a few days, because you can see well out of the untreated eye while the treated eye is healing.

Ethan had his eyes treated on different days. After the first PRK procedure, his vision was so blurry that he could barely see out of the treated eye. While it was healing, he wore a contact lens in the untreated eye. He could drive, read, and go to work. “I would just concentrate on seeing out of the one eye,” he said. “It’s difficult, but you can do it.”

Nicole, a thirty-seven-year-old actress, also had PRK performed on her eyes on separate occasions. After her first surgery, her eye was tearing and scratchy. “It felt like someone had kicked a whole pile of sand into my eyeball,” she said. She relied on painkillers to dull the discomfort and slept a lot during the next two days.

What are the odds of eliminating my need for distance glasses with excimer laser treatment?

Overall, 75 percent of patients will have perfect (20/20) vision without glasses, and 95 percent of patients will see well enough without glasses to pass the driver’s license eye test (20/40). The results are better than this for patients with low amounts of correction and often can be improved by retreatment when needed.

Does excimer laser surgery hurt?

There is only mild discomfort during the procedure, usually less than having your teeth cleaned. For the first few days after LASIK, there is usually a mild scratchy sensation. PRK patients will experience a little longer and greater discomfort than LASIK patients.