20/200 in one eye after Intralase/Wavefront

I had Intralase/Wavefront on Friday, and it is now 4 days later. I am 26 years old and before surgery my contacts I wore were -5.5 power and I had astigmatism in both eyes. After the procedure, my right eye is seeing pretty well 20/25, but my left eye can only see about 20/200 right now (that big E on top of the eye chart is still pretty blurry). My first follow-up exam was yesterday and the doctor didn't say anything was unusual and said that because there was such a big correction, it is going to take longer to adjust (which is weird because my right eye is doing ok).

I see other people complaining about 20/40 vision after lasik, but no one saying that had 20/200. Did anyone else experience this bad of vision after lasik? Did it improve? I am having trouble being patient because the really bad vision in one eye is making it difficult to work on my computer at work. I just need some reassurance at this point that an eye with this bad of vision can improve to 20/25 or 20/20.

In case anyone is interested (which I am assuming not very many people by the amount of replies...), yesterday, I accidentally bumped my eye, not very hard, but enough to make me paranoid that I did something. I set an appointment to see my doc even though my next follow up wasn't until Monday. Turns out, I did displace my flap a little on my left eye (the blurry eye). Also, apparently, my right was was slightly off too.

Doc had me come in during the afternoon so he could do a "flap lift." More drops, more Valium, more awkward "eye massaging" from doc, more contacts, more shields, more 4 hour nap and time off work.

After I woke up from my nap, I looked at my eye chart I had hanging up in the room. I was able to read a the letters (although still blurry) on the 20/60 and 20/50 lines. This gives me some hope.

Also, the tech mentioned yesterday that I had "mostly astigmatism" in my left eye, and that sometimes, they need to do two procedures to correct astigmatism if it is bad.

For those of you following my story (all 0 of you....), I had a follow-up today. I has now been one week since my LASIK and 2 days since the flap lift. Left eye is seeing a very blurry 20/50, however, doc said there is a wrinkle. He said that sometimes, these can go away on there own, but that he may need to do another flap lift. Right eye looked good. I follow up on Monday.

Blur it scares me mostly about the wrinkle in your left eye. Hopefully it smooths out. Did you get both flaps lifted?

I did have both flaps lifted before. The right eye seems to be okay now.

I got my flap sutured down in my left eye today. Vision will be super blurry while stitches are in. My left eye is about at 20/50 before the stitches. Supposedly, the myopia in my left eye is mostly gone, but it still has a bad astigmatism (3 - which I think is pretty bad). The wrinkle in my flaps may have been causing some of the astigmatism, but I was having the blur issues before the flap wrinkle. Hoping for some improvement. Stitches get removed in 2-3 weeks.

Having stitches in your eye does not sound pleasant at all! Hope it heals fast for you and you get your vision back again!

Originally Posted by ktez

Having stitches in your eye does not sound pleasant at all! Hope it heals fast for you and you get your vision back again!

Thanks! I appreciate the well wishes! Getting stitches in your eye sounds terrifying and I was so nervous beforehand even with the Valium I could feel my eyelid shaking on the thingy that was holding my eye open. But I couldn't feel a thing. I hadn't even realized that the doc had even started putting stitches in my eye at first and thought he was doing prep work still. They put a contact lens in the eye afterward so you don't feel the stitches. In a way, it was less awkward than the actual LASIK procedure and the flap lift procedure. And now I don't have to worry about it healing with the wrinkle in it. I do suspect I am one of the people who may need an enhancement down the line.

So do you have to have the stitches removed later? My mom had stitches when she had her cataract surgery and her doc said they just stay in unless they are pulling unevenly and causing astigmatism. Just curious if its the same for yours. My left eye is still blurry too from my Lasik a week ago, I called and got an appointment for tomorrow to see what's going on.

My god blur, I wish you the best. Must be pretty stressful to have to go through this followed by LASIK. Those continous wrinkle problems scared me from the get go. Hopefully this straightens things out with the flap now. Looking forward I realize you may be considering more surgery. Hopefully you won't need it. Maybe glasses would help. Specialty contacts possibly. I don't wanna see ya go in for an enhancement. Requires more lifting of the flap. Can't be good regardless. Keep us posted. Good luck!

Yes, the stitches get removed in 2-3 weeks. I go in for a follow-up tomorrow just to make sure there are no infections.

Originally Posted by BlurEye

Yes, the stitches get removed in 2-3 weeks. I go in for a follow-up tomorrow just to make sure there are no infections.

Keep us posted how it goes tomorrow! Hope all is well so far and keeps getting better.......

Originally Posted by BlurEye

I had Intralase/Wavefront on Friday, and it is now 4 days later. I am 26 years old and before surgery my contacts I wore were -5.5 power and I had astigmatism in both eyes. After the procedure, my right eye is seeing pretty well 20/25, but my left eye can only see about 20/200 right now (that big E on top of the eye chart is still pretty blurry). My first follow-up exam was yesterday and the doctor didn't say anything was unusual and said that because there was such a big correction, it is going to take longer to adjust (which is weird because my right eye is doing ok).

I see other people complaining about 20/40 vision after lasik, but no one saying that had 20/200. Did anyone else experience this bad of vision after lasik? Did it improve? I am having trouble being patient because the really bad vision in one eye is making it difficult to work on my computer at work. I just need some reassurance at this point that an eye with this bad of vision can improve to 20/25 or 20/20.

Is that wavefront optimized or custom?

It was optimized.

1 year follow up:

So one year ago I got LASIK. It was a rough ride. I had bumped my eye a few days after the procedure and had to get a flap lift to smooth the bumps. This corrected one of the eyes but the other still had a wrinkle. After a couple weeks, the wrinkle did not sort itself out so I had to have the flap sutured down. The stitches stayed in for a couple weeks and then I had to have them removed. My eye was still blurry after that so 6 months later, I got a touch-up. The doctor did not want to lift the flap up so we opted to do a PRK touch-up.

6 months after the PRK enhancement, my eyes are doing great. I think they are 20/25 which is a lot better than what I started out as. I have not had dry eye issues or anything else wrong.

I love that I can see without glasses or contacts.

Also, if I had to do it again, I would opt to have the PRK done instead.