Non-Lasik Laser Eye Surgery

February 27, 2007 12:43 PM

During a pre-screening for LASIK, I was told the shape of my corneas was too steep, and they recommended ASA (Advanced Surface Ablation) instead. Has anybody had this done? Any recommendations for eye surgeons in Austin? What should I know, given that I don't know anybody who's done this?
posted by stovenator to health & fitness (3 answers total)

A co-worker of mine had it and said he was in intense needing-narcotics pain for the first three days after surgery. But he loves his new vision.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:18 PM on February 27, 2007

There is a reasonably good (primer) article in the latest Newsweek (or was it US News?) about the various kinds of corrective eye surgery... including this one.

(Just a small FYI.)
posted by Luciferous at 2:57 PM on February 27, 2007

My boyfriend just had this done about 2 months ago, and I was the lucky person there to see the recovery... He had the surgery done courtesy of the US Army, which prefers Photorefractive Keratectomy (same thing as ASA, from what I understand) because its more time-tested and "rugged" in the long term. Even though LASIK is popular in the civilian world, the army does a ton of PRK surgeries everyday.

The results were fantastic, but what infinitewidow said about the pain is true... its no joke. BF was given 1 week of leave for recovery and he spent over half of it popping the narcotic pain meds and sleeping (and this is a guy who doesn't even like taking tylenol). He also was *super* sensitive to light for the first few days, he kept things as dark as he could - the light from my laptop 10ft away was painful.

You will probably need to have a good week off of work to recover, this isn't LASIK where you can go right back. Also, like any of the eye surgeries, make sure you're religious about all the drops they prescribe you. If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to forward them along... email's in my profile
posted by dicaxpuella at 3:22 PM on February 27, 2007