1-year checkup

Last week was my 1-year checkup. Not much to report - both eyes are better than 20/20, though my right eye is noticeably better than my left. No health issues. The dilation drop during the checkup was super-annoying though: despite the short-acting name, it meant I was pretty much out of action all night. On night vision: I often complain that my night vision isn't as good as I want it to be. However, a couple nights recently (and the optometrist's diagnosis) have shown it to just be a lack of lubrication on the eye. Some nights things have huge halos, and some nights things are crystal clear. So it is likely that I just need to carry around a couple lubrication drops.

Summer half over update

So with summer half over, I thought I'd give an update on how the eyeballs work in a summer context. They're pretty fantastic. Whether cycling, running, driving, or just hanging around outside, it's wonderful to have such amazing vision, and not have rashes from my glasses frame always being covered in sweat. Because of the long days, lighting conditions that cause halos are restricted to a couple hours at night. That said, my halos are still there and are still annoying, but still aren't really a problem. Best eyesight moment so far: being able to clearly see the course markers, beach, and finish area during a triathlon swim, even when like 300m from shore. No more guessing about which blob to aim for! No more doing breaststroke for a couple seconds trying to figure out whether an orange blob is a close swim cap or distant bouy! I watched a 3d movie last week, and was reminded how annoying glasses are. Complaints: -About once every two weeks during the night, my eyes will get dry enough that a rubbing or touching the eyelid will (I'm guessing) scrape the eyelid across the surface of my eye with very little lubrication, and it hurts. Never happens during the day. -The halos are still around Overall, super-happy with the results.

6 month checkup

20/15 in my right eye, just better than 20/20 in my left. About where I was before, IIRC.

Old habits still die hard...

Totally had a complete "take my glasses off before bed" motion last night.

Dried eyes while cycling

Went for a bike ride today. I've been on lots this year without problems, but this one was a bit different. Something about the particular temperature, humidity, and wind appears to have dried my eyes out. Signs weren't readable until much closer than usual. It was like I was 20/40. Now having gotten inside it's much better, but I think I'll be wearing glasses in colder dry weather like this in the future.

Just to confirm, I did a quick macuyver test on my left eye:
10pt: 80.6%
12pt: 100%

So not that much worse, but noticeably worse than yesterday. And that's after 15 minutes of my eyes being out of the wind.

4 months and a week Macguyver

Left Eye:
10pt: 96.6%
12pt: 96.6%

Right Eye:
10pt: 96.6%
12pt: 96.6%

That's right, everything is the same this time. I've been watching for degradation since it's expected to have a bit of pullback and thought I had noticed some, but I guess it's not noticeable enough yet. My eyes have been itchy for the last couple weeks, but that may just be spring allergies.

Macguyver Results @ 3 Months

Left eye:
10pt: 93.1% (previous best: 80%)
12pt: 90.6% (previous best: 100%)

Nice to see things improving, though I think the variability from test to test may exceed the size of these improvements.

Right eye:
10pt: 88% (previous best: 97%)
12pt: 100% (previous best: 100%)

Not bad, although that might be a bit of pullback in the 10pt category.

3-month checkup

Everything is fine.

20/20 in left eye (which, to be honest, it was before. The last doctor gave me a gimme in saying it was 20/15)
20/15 in right.
20/15 combined.

The doctor pointed out to a student that tagged along for the checkup that my right eye looks like nothing has even been done to it.

Apparently my night-time halos are expected to go away over the next 3-9 months, which is nice.

Haven't posted in forever

Pretty much nothing to update.

About once a week I have a dry-eye incident overnight where I rub my eyes, and the eyelid uncomfortably brushes against the surface of the eyeball.

My starbursts/halos appear to be slowly getting better, but they're not really that bad and never were incapacitating. At 6:30pm last night when I went running there weren't any, but there were when I drove my car at about 8pm. It's only when I'm in deep darkness that my pupil dilates enough for them to appear.

4 days until the end of the revised eyedrop schedule.

Vision seems to be about the same as my last check, maybe even a little worse. I'll have to macguyver it up some morning to confirm/deny that feeling.

Week 7.5 side effect report

While driving to work this morning, I noticed that the starbursts and halos are nearly gone from around bright lights when it's dark out. I still wish I had devised a way to measure halos and starbursts pre-op so I could tell when I'm back to my old level of artifacting.

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning today, I woke up briefly and rubbed my eye, and it felt very uncomfortable. So it appears that my eyes aren't yet very good at self lubrication at night. I've had no problems during the day with eye dryness. That's the first time in a while I've done the "rub dry eye during the night" thing, but if I'm honest I have to say I specifically try not to do any eye-rubbing at night because I know the discomfort might be there.

I haven't removed my 'virtual glasses' in quite a while.

My eyedrop-plan adherence is dropping - I've forgotten at least two in the last week. Much to my surprise, it gets harder to remember to do them the fewer I have to do every day.

7-week Macguyver - Still getting better :-)

I had thought through this week that, unbelievable as it may be, my eyesight is actually still getting better.

So I did a Macguyver test this morning to test that theory:

Left eye:
10pt: 80% (previous best: 58%. With glasses: not measured, I had no clue my vision would get good enough to care about 10pt letters)
12pt: 92% (previous best: 100%. With glasses: 67%)

So my 10pt acuity continues to improve with the left eye.

Right eye:
10pt: 97.1% (previous best: 92.5%)
12pt: 96.1% (previous best: 100%)

Hehe, I don't think I'm supposed to see the smaller letters better. I think I mistook a 12pt Y for a V.

5 weeks 5 days checkup

Eye pressures are stable since last week, so we're staying the course on steroid drops.

20/15 in the right eye.

A qualified 20/15 in the left eye (I got a letter wrong, confusing G with Q, but the optometrist said G's shouldn't even be on the test since the acuity required to distinguish between G and Q is greater than it should be).

5 weeks and 4 days Macguyver

Left eye:
10pt: 36% (previous best: 58%. Never tested with glasses)
12pt: 83% (previous best: 100%. Glasses: 67%)
All others: assumed 100%

Not bad for an end-of-day effort. Despite the regression from my past result with the left eye, it's still far ahead of what I had with glasses. The left eye has plateaued a bit, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's related to the "smidgen of prescription left" that the optometrist talked about last week. If it's like -0.1, it makes sense that accuracy improvement will halt, no matter how much the still-healing epithelial/corneal tissue clears up.

Right eye:
10pt: 92.5% (previous best: not tested)
12pt: 100% (previous best: 100%)

My right eye is unstoppable, apparently. Shrinking letters barely do anything to its scores.