LAST EDITED ON Apr-05-16 AT 09:27PM (MST)[p]About 6 years ago I had prk or whatever they call it now because my corneas were to thin for lasik. It was done with a laser. Now, and for the last 3 years, probably for the rest of my life, I suffer from dry eye so bad the skin on my eye literally dies and peels off the cornea. The pain, more like severe irritation is extremely uncomfortable. It wakes me up out of a dead sleep every time it happens. I have learned to deal with it by putting liquid eye gel in my eyes before bed and if I still get an attack, I have a severe dry eye drop formula on my headboard that I start dumping in for the next hour or so so it will heal, hopefully.
Sometimes I get an attack during the day and my eye starts burning so I carry severe eye drops in my pocket as well. I also had to have 4 plugs installed to keep the tears from draining so now, I can't touch my eyes if they itch or whatever. If you rip the plug out, its about 120.00 to have it replaced. I've had it so bad, well actually every time it dies, that when I blink, the lid acts like sandpaper and one time it literally tore a piece of skin off my left eye. I now see a halo looking at lights at night in that eye and my night vision is now trash.
What they don't tell you about lasik or prk, is when they cut that flap, laser it off or whatever, it kills the nerves in your eye. Those nerves are what tell your tear ducts, "hey bud, we need some more water out here", without that signal from the nerves cause they're dead, dry eye can be the result.
Last elk season 3 days in I got hit by a cow fly in my right eye. Because of the dry eye it got infected, the hunt was over a couple days later. I almost lost my eye but got lucky we nailed the right drug right the first time. But now I am looking through scar tissue on that eye as well, night vision is trashed.
My brain has compensated and ignores the scar tissue during the day so vision is pretty good, but not like it was. If you have dry eye problems at all and are considering doing it, think twice. Have them test your tear production first. If I would have known this was going to happen, I wouldn't of done it and I didn't have a dry problem to start with... I have one now