ep451

Hey everyone I'm really frustrated right now, and need some of your help to know if anyone has had similar occurrences post lasik, and I'll try to keep this as short as possible. Basically I play soccer and I am a Goalkeeper so my vision is absolutely vital to the position. When I was back in high school, at age 17, my vision started to get a bit weaker. It wasn't really a big deal; you know nothing that I couldn't play through. By my senior year my vision had weakened a bit more so to the point where I had to wear glasses but only while driving at night and to see objects from a far distance in class. In terms of soccer I sort of just adjusted to it. I could still see the ball fairly well from a far distance, and basically it was still no problem. Then my freshman year in college is when the real trouble started because it became nearly impossible to play in night matches so I had to get contact lenses. However, with the lenses I was never able to focus on the ball, and it became difficult to track. Granted I could see everything clearer, but it was difficult to pick up on the ball when struck at a fast pace. I also saw double vision close up so you can see how hard it was to pick up a ball struck 60-70 some odd mph. I tried wearing the contact lenses while playing under my optometrists advice that my eyes had to adjust to them, and that I should wear them all the time, but I ditched them after about three weeks. I managed fine without them for the rest of the year and still as I always had managed to played well. However, back last summer my eyes finally weakened to the point where I couldn't perform to my full ability anymore. It became difficult to see the ball from a far distance and thus I couldn't react as fast as I could. Granted there were moments when I could do what I could before, but all and all it finally caught up to me. I tried contacts (only wore them when I had to play for practice and games) all of last fall while playing, but had the similar result as I stated before, and so my game suffered. I decided that since contacts didn't work I was pretty much at a dead end so I looked into Lasik. I was pretty much considered a perfect candidate due to my overall vision not being that bad, and had wavefront Lasik done in January at Kremer Lasik Eye Center in Marlton New Jersey by a very high profile and experienced doctor. My initial results post op were great, 20/20 vision in both eyes. Even though I shouldn't have, three weeks out of surgery I had my friend strike some balls at me, and I was doing great, much better than with the contacts. Granted, I was still adjusting and it was a bit difficult to track the ball, but I was able to play and see like I did much better than with the contacts. However, three months post surgery my vision has started to take a turn for the worse. While I had great results tracking the ball initially after surgery, it became very very difficult and progressively worse to track the ball and react to it. I've been playing worse and worse etc. It's probably worse than contacts in the sense that I can't even track the ball off of someone's foot when it's hit. It's like someone hits the ball and then boom it's close up and, while clear, untrackable and fast. I don't have the dynamic ability to focus in and slow down the ball like I used to. The same even holds true when someone throws a football at me, or baseball, etc. I just can't seem to pick it up like I used to. I also have problems playing at night. More so, my vision in my right eye is now 20/25 and 20/20 in my left eye. My optometrist says that my eyes have to heal and adjust and it takes time, but I have read articles out there about tennis players and baseball players who have had similar problems with the surgery and never were the same. I'm at a point where I am just frustrated and ready to give up because now I am unable to really even perform at a decent level. I'm mad at myself for not just giving the contacts a true shot by wearing them all the time, and feel that by doing lasik I have ruined myself permanently. You have to remember that my vision has gotten better, but still not for soccer. I think that maybe there's something about Lasik that destroys dynamic visual ability (tracking fast moving objects) and that is why you see most athletes stay away from it. Anyway if anyone out there has had a similar experience with tracking fast moving objects post lasik, baseball, football, soccer, whatever please let me know. Or any info on the healing process or anything that pertains to my situation would be of great help. Thank you for taking the time to look at my problem I appreciate it.

evan