Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) Discussion Board

Well friends and casual acquaintances, I am off tomorrow to the Big Smoke, which is a semi-affectionate term used by both natives and non-natives to refer to the city of Edmonton , the nearest center to us that offers specialist medical care and cool things like symphony orchestras and corrective eye surgery.

I see my sleep specialist on Wed, then the eye clinic on Thurs and Friday, If the examination on Thurs goes as expected, I will be getting PRK laser surgery on Friday to correct my distance vision on both eyes. I am told I must rest in bed!!! for 3 days!!! hahahahah, do no reading or looking at a computer screen or TV, and no strenuous physical activity. I can't use my eyes except to keep from walking into walls (thhey wont be good for much else for a while anyway), but at least I can walk!!

I will let you know how it goes, but clearly, I won't be able to do that until some time after the surgery. Yikes! Scared but I wish I'd done this years ago.

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badnights - my daughter in law has had laser corrective surgery and is very happy to have done so. I wish you well.

No reading - what about audio books, they might help as a distraction.

wish I had a couple. But no way am I that organized these days. I'm lucky I got myself here haha.

Good luck !

Beth - in seconds you can download an app to your phone. Try LibiVox - the books are free and if you haven't had the surgery yet, you can download and still get it in time!

I've wanted to have the surgery myself. I talked myself out of it because I'd still need reading glasses...looking forward to hearing your experience.

ViewsAskew wrote:I talked myself out of it because I'd still need reading glasses...looking forward to hearing your experience.

Same here. I went back and forth on getting Lasik for several years. Ultimately decided to go with progressive lens glasses. Before that, I wore contacts for 13-14 years. Couldn't get used to multifocal contacts. I don't like wearing glasses, but at least my vision is good and I don't have the discomfort that I had with contacts.

I understand there is a Lasik procedure undergoing clinical trials that will reshape the cornea in such a way that reading glasses won't be needed (http://www.allaboutvision.com/visionsur ... -lasik.htm. May have to look into this if/when it becomes available in U.S.

Best of luck, Beth. I hope it goes well and your legs are calm.

I'm jealous. Had to give up contacts (except for custom made rgp lenses which require very expensive solution) because my astigmatism has gotten so bad. Had my corneas measured for Lasik but they found non-senile cataracts (probably from long-time SSRI use - who knew?). But, when the cataracts are ripe...

JimmyLegs44 wrote:

ViewsAskew wrote:I talked myself out of it because I'd still need reading glasses...looking forward to hearing your experience.

Same here. I went back and forth on getting Lasik for several years. Ultimately decided to go with progressive lens glasses. Before that, I wore contacts for 13-14 years. Couldn't get used to multifocal contacts. I don't like wearing glasses, but at least my vision is good and I don't have the discomfort that I had with contacts.

I understand there is a Lasik procedure undergoing clinical trials that will reshape the cornea in such a way that reading glasses won't be needed (http://www.allaboutvision.com/visionsur ... -lasik.htm. May have to look into this if/when it becomes available in U.S.

Oooooo!

Hi! I'm back, and it seems to have worked....

I had chosen PRK over Lasik (both are laser methods, but PRK takes off the surface layer, then shapes the cornea beneath, whereas Lasik cuts a flap of the surface along with a bit of cornea, shapes the cornea under the flap, then places the flap down and it seals up quickly). My choice was made for three reasons (with Lasik there is more risk of dry eye, and my eyes are dry enough!, there is the risk of the flap popping open if you get hit in the eye, even years and decades later, and Lasik leaves less cornea for future possible surgeries). But they presented me with a third option, called SMILE (SMall-incision Lenticule Extraction), which didn't have any of the three problems and also didn't have the small risk of hazing that the PRK procedure has. It cuts a small lenticular piece of cornea without cutting through the surface layer. Then a tiny slit is made through the surface layer, and the lenticule is pulled out through that. The healing time is as fast as with Lasik.

So I selected that option, and it is healing really fast.

I also have presbyopia. I chose a compromise, which I think I'm going to be happy with, if the last week is any indication, My dominant eye was fully corrected, and the other was partially corrected. I used to wear contacts for sports, and my dominant eye wore a normal lens (full correction) while the other eye wore a multifocal (I couldn't tolerate multifocals in both eyes - made me dizzy). This also was a compromise, since my distance visiion was less than perfect and I still needed reading glasses to read most things. What I have now is better than that; I can read a lot more things without reading glasses. I am told my eyes will continue to improve as they heal over the next few months. My distance vision is not what I want it to be, yet; it is not good enough at night especially. They said before the surgery that some people need glasses just for night driving, with plain glass on the one side and a prescription on the other to bring that eye up to full correction.

I read the article on presbyopia laser correction with interest. I'm glad I didn't wait, though; it was time, it was past time, and I am quite happy to not be grabbing my glasses every time I wake up, or taking contacts out before I have a nap, etc etc. (I am only worried I might try to take my contacts out some night and take my epithelium instead!) (jk. Sort of.)

Congratulations, I'm so glad your surgery worked, you are very brave.

Congrats! It must be so cool to not have to grab your glasses!

Beth, great to hear how your surgery has improved things, quite a lifestyle change.

Glad you are happy with the results so far, and hope things continue to improve for you.

badnights wrote:But they presented me with a third option, called SMILE (SMall-incision Lenticule Extraction)

Never heard of this before...might have to look into it. I also shared your Lasik concerns about dry eyes and flap issues. I'm patiently waiting for lower-risk surgical options; until then I guess I'll make do with glasses. I kept reading about how 95% of Lasik patients were happy with their results. Ideally, I'd like to see that percentage much higher, although I guess there is some element of risk with any surgery. Dr. Oz did a segment on Lasik, and that was eventually what scared me off and made me decide to wait for something better to come along. He sufficiently reinforced my concerns.

I wish I had done it years ago. But it's a very personal decision, and your own feelings about it are paramount. I knew a guy who had it done in the early 1980s - I think it was before I had kids, so pre1985 but I might be off - and this was when it was still very new, and no lasers. He tlay there and watched the razor blade approach his eye - yikes! Because he lived an expensive distance away from the nearest city where he could get it done, he elected to get both eyes done at once, which was not advised in those days. He had just broken up with his girlfriend and maybe was feeling fatalistic. At the time, I would not have gotten both eyes done at once for all the money in the world. The risk of going blind was not very high, but any risk was way higher than I was willing to take.

If the risk was the same nowadays, I would have taken it, because I have changed, & my priorities have changed. (But the risk of going blind nowadays is so low there isn't a number for it).

I think it's good that I entered into it prepared for a compromise, too. I knew they couldn't give me perfect vision. The compromise between distance and reading is not ideal and I wish I could see better at night, but I am happy with it because my eyes sucked before, and now they don;t suck as much. If I had been expecting perfect vision, I'd be very disappointed right now.

That article on correcting for presbyopia shows how fast things are changing, so maybe there will soon be an option you can take. I hope so. It's way cool to not have to wear glasses

I had PRK laser surgery years ago and never regretted it. It was such a miraculous change. Then I got cataracts and, because the PRK made me very farsighted, I asked the doc if I could get some close-up vision. So she gave me one lens that is quite close up (I can see almost everything but very tiny print) and the other lens gives me vision slightly further out. It's perfect for me. Since I really live up close (cooking, sewing, reading, on the computer etc.) it's wonderful not to be reaching for glasses all the time. I do need glasses when I drive, but that's okay. I always wear sunglasses anyway and now I just have a prescription in them. But outside of that, I even see distance pretty well. In a typical day I will only wear glasses for driving.

But cataract surgery is really the best!!