strain in eye at computer after LASIK

I feel like you are both telling my story.My time frame is same as marinem.

I can see the computer and everything great because one of my eyes has good vision, the other is blurry at all distances on details.

Its all related to dry eyes I think.

I am seeing a dry eye doctor since 2 weeks ago. I have a whole annoying regime now. My contact lenses were in and out in moments and i never had dry eye. Lasik is mental anguish and time consuming.

1. I think the eye drops make it worse. But you have to have a moist eye for your cornea so you cant really forgo drops if you arent tearing correctly so that stinks. For me the drops made my eye sight so much worse in 10 different ways. I have been weaning myself off of them and am now at 2x per day. This is not advisement from any doctor, i am doing the weaning on my own.

2. Supplements: fish oil which i think might be a farse, plus i just ordered theralife and have no idea if that works. Fish oil is something that the dry eye doctor told me to take, theralife sounded good on ****** and their own website. It should arrive friday or saturday.

3. Sleeping with glad press and seal on my eyes. I saw this trick on a mesage board. Its the best remedy so far. My eyes feel good in the morning now. Just cut a piece the size of your eye and it sticks on.

4. The heat compresses. I tried them around the 1 month point but stopped because my gut told me that if you have surgery you get inflammation heat causes more inflamation so it didnt make sense to me to apply heat. I started it back up agian 3 weeks ago and now i think its helping whereas back at the 1-2 month point i think it wasnt helping. Just a guess on my part.

5. Doctor put me on lotemax drops and punctal plugs. I think it is doing something good. There has been improvemet since i started them 2 1/2 weeks ago.

The biggest problem with all of this is the failure to warn me properly if at all about dry eye consequences prior to lasik. Now i see stats online that are alarmingly high for dry eye at the 6 month point. There is some sort of weird lasik industry dont talk about it thing going on i think.

Whiskey, what did your dry eye doctor tell you the problem was? Are you not producing enough tears, or are your tears not producing enough oil? Did he mention Restatis?

I am severly stressed out from all of this. I have been losing weight and can't sleep at night. It is a daily struggle to get my work done on the computer. When my doctor mentioned dry eyes I said what do you do about that. He said, oh we just put plugs in. Well guess what. I have had them in for 6 weeks and they aren't doing a thing. I am so angry at myself for not researching this more before having it done. I am not sure how I will get through the rest of my life if I have to look through these eyeballs.

Also I told my doctor I couldn't wear contact lenses because they bothered my eye. He never once mentioned because of dry eyes. I just want to scream. Maybe I could deal with it a little better if I had perfect vision, but I don't.

I fell like I am going to end up in glasses for distance, computer use, and reading. What an epic mistake this was.

But the wierd thing is I have been back to see my local optometrist and he checked my eyes for dryness. He said they don't really look dry. But then I have days like this where it feels like someone is poking me in the eye with their finger all day long!

What to you guys dryness feel like? Is it the sandpaper, eyelash feeling. Or the burning sensation?

God I wish I could go back in time and just put my glasses back on, and then take them off when I read on the computer.

Well if the industry was actually providing proper information then you could have made an informed decision. Instead you thought that you were choosing between assisted eye sight vs unassisted eye sight being considered as equals give or take some operation risks at time of lasik.

That said, you are actually pretty early and alot can change in the coming months.

Despite my current problems, i had many more at the 1-2 month point. Here are some:
1. Side vision was blurry in left eye. That started to clear at around 4 months then fluctuated between horrible and improved. Now i hardly notice it because it is virtually gone. I dont want to get too excited though because it could return...

2. Glare was worse. I dont mean starbursts, i mean glarey light on the microwave buttons for example. Its improved

3. Lots of text at any distance were blurry. Now its more clear than not but it still fluctuates a little.

My dry eye feels like raw eyes eg if you went snowboarding with no goggles. Sometimes it can just be in the corner of the eye and other times its all over. But its not all the time. Every day maybe for a few hours or less. Like right now my right eye is normal, left feels a little mentholish. And usually not both eyes at the same time. i got the feeling of something in my eye like an eyelash when i would use the eye drops. The visual results of it are:
1. Left eye fluctuating vision
2. Starbursts in low light when viewing some lights at a distance of lets say 15-20 feet. These fluctuate alot. For example, last night i woke up in the middle of the night and had none as i walked around my house in the darkness, but before i went to bed they were present. Its all tear film i think.

Also forgot to mention before that i started wearing clear construction glasses while on the computer and it helps a ton with dryness. Not the kind that look like scuba gear . The ones i have been wearing look like regular plastic glasses and are clear including the ear pieces.

I thought I'd chime in...

I had custom wavefront done in January. I'm 26 years old and have been wearing contacts/glasses since I was 10. I stabled out at a -5.75 prescription for about 3 years prior to the surgery. No astigmatism.

It's been about 6 months since the surgery and overall I'm pretty happy with it. There is one problem that bugs me. My right (dominant) eye can see very very very good afar. Noticeably crisper than my left. At about 15 feet and closer the tables turn. From 15 feet (give or take) and closer, my left eye is crisper. The thing is though it only happens in lower light, office light as well. Outside it doesn't bother me at all until the sun goes down, then I notice it. Also, on the computer screen with both eyes open I can read fine, but with my right eye it's very strained looking at the screen. When I squint, the strain seems to lessen a significant amount. One of my hobbies is playing computer games and it's very annoying to do so. I can do it, but it's not very comfortable. My lasik doctor tested me out last week and showed me at 20/15 on both eyes (however, the 20/20 and 20/15 lines weren't as crisp as I'd like them). He scheduled me to see a very good ophthalmologist the beginning of September to have him test my eye muscles, because he is very very pleased with the optics of my eyes. It's one of those situations that you can see pretty darn good but you just know it can be better.

From researching on my own I feel as if my right eye may be over-corrected a smidgen? Could it be dry eyes? I have noticed that my right eye is usually the dry one (even back when I wore contacts, it was the right eye that always gave me the dry eye problems).

I use restasis, thera tears (tablet gel form), and systane ultra.

Can anyone comment on my situation? Dry eyes? Should I get glasses for the computer (specifically for computer gaming)? I'm obviously going to go to the ophthalmologist in a little over a month to see if he sees any problems. Sometimes I'm compulsive to a fault and when I get my mind thinking about my eyes it really frustrates me.

I am actually going to see a doctor in Boston this Tuesday for a second opinion on my dry eye issue. But I have actually been on vacation all of last week and the dryness seems to have gotten better. It is usually just really dry in the morning. But I am not getting my hopes up too much yet. I will wait to see what this doctor says.

Deeseclyde, I actually have the opposite problem as you. My non dominant eye was overcorrected a bit. So I see really good far in that eye. I also have left over astigmatism in each eye. So when the lights go low my dominant eye gets really blurry.

Also I still can't figure out why only my dominant eye gets really strained when reading or working on the computer. I work on the computer 8 hours a day so it is very frustrating. I can read the words and everything, but when I look up in the distance after working, my right eye is really blurry. But my left eye is always fine. Its like my left eye is just along for the ride!

So now I feel like I am going to need glasses for driving at night due to the dominant eye blurriness, computer glasses for work, and reading glasses for things like the Iphone. I could have avoided all of this by just keeping my distance glasses and then get bi-foculs once presbyopia kicks in.

The part that bugs me is that I did alot of research on my doctor. He was one of the first ones to do all laser LASIK in the Boston area. He actually trains other doctors on how to do it. He has written books on refractive eye surgery. He does all kinds of other surgeries, not just LASIK. I feel like I did all the right things, yet my eye sight is worse now than when I just used glasses.

It was a huge waste of money and the amount of stress it has caused in my life is unreal. I am trying to just come to grips with it and move on with my life.

Do y'all have starbursts? If so, can you describe when you see it, on what types of light, and if they fluctuate ie improve and get worse moment to moment or day by day?

Whiskey, what do starburst look like? I don't think I am getting any of that, but I am not sure what it would look like if I was getting it.

Starburst looks like thin rays shooting from a light source.

I see them in dim/no light on led lights on the bottom and left of the light. Led like the tv on/off light or the clock on the cable box.

I have been told its from dryness in my eyes. I am 7 months out so am now skeptical of that being the cause.

So I went to the specialist in Boston this morning. He diagnosed me with SLK. He put some funky die in my eyes and diagnosed me immediately. He took pictures of my eyes so I could see it. I am not sure I am totally convinced. He said it could be caused by a thyroid issue. So he did blood work too. Basically the first step is to change to a gel type eye drop. I have been using the preservative free ones. He said I can use the gel 4 times a day. I asked if LASIK caused this and he said no. He thinks I already had it and the additional dryness caused by LASIK unleashed it on me. They checked both eyes for vision and both were 20/15.

They did a schirmers test on me. I believe the results were 9 in one eye and 5 in another. Something like that. He said my eyes don't look terribly dry. But now that I google the results of that I see that the eye with the 5 is pretty dry. But maybe I have the numbers wrong. I go back to see him in 1 month.

I have searched for SLK on the web. Some sites say use a prescription drop, some say surgery, some say lubrication. But the damn lubrication hasn't worked so far. So I am not sure why he think the new drops will work. But SLK also causes the foreign body sensation and sand pebble feel. That is what I now have. The last 2 days have been awful.

I just pray that there is some relief in the future.

Hi Db99

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. Wish your doc would have checked before hand. I dont think any docs check thoroughly for any conditions in advance.

Keep us posted on how you are doing and your treatments.

Whiskey

Thanks Whiskey. I have been to 2 LASIK surgeons and my local optometrist. This doctor was the first one to flip my upper eye lids inside out to look. I guess SLK has lots of the same symptoms as dry eye. So it just goes on without a diagnoses until you find a doctor familiar with it.

I did ask how the flaps looked my the surgery and they said very good. Also I think this might explain why the top right side of my right eye feels sore after computer work. That is the area that the SLK affects.

I just hope I can get some sort of relief without needing any more surgery. So I go back to him in less than a month for a follow up. If the thicker drops don't do anything I will call and ask for something else.