LASIK, 6 weeks on

As you may gather, today's picture is not especially encouraging, but I am hoping it is going to be a short-term measure.

I had my 6-week check up earlier this week, and as I've previously said on here, I hadn't thought that there had been any improvement for a while, and that I hadn't yet got the perfect vision I was after. Well, that was confirmed at my appointment and as I'd guessed, I am still a little bit short-sighted. I'm -1.25 in the left and -0.75 in the right, which is still a darn sight better than I was before, and within the predicted range for the surgery given my former prescription. My consultant was very happy with how things have gone - aside from being a little under-corrected I have had no problems, have healed very well, and am not experiencing any dryness or other side-effects. He has said though that I have to wear glasses for driving especially at night, but I am going to try not to wear them at other times as I do not want to be reliant on them, despite the fact that I cannot read the TV guide on my TV. So I have ordered a pair of the glasses shown here for under £20 off of the internet, as even if they look rubbish, I'm hoping that they won't be a permanent fixture.

So what now? My consultant has said that there is the option of having a "refinement" ie another laser procedure in 3 months time if my vision has been stable, but that he wouldn't automatically recommend it for such a relatively low level of myopia especially if there is any chance of it thinning the cornea too much. I guess it depends on the actual measurements which I will have taken at my next appointment in July - if it is down to me, and assuming the cornea can take it, I definitely want it done as I'm quite conscious of the deficit. It would only require a very small additional correction, and I would like to do all I can to get the best possible result overall.

People have asked me whether I am annoyed at not having 20/20 vision yet - I'd say that whilst yes, it is bummer and not quite what I was hoping for, I had been fully informed beforehand that especially for high prescriptions, it is not possible to guarantee perfect vision and the improvement has been so good that I would still certainly recommend having it done. I can't fault the clinic or surgeon and I think one has to be realistic about the limitations of treatment and the fact that there are no absolute guarantees. I have been looking on some LASIK fora and have seen some people on there who clearly were not adequately prepared and have found it hard coping with results, so I am pretty chilled for the moment. I have found someone who is in almost exactly the same position as me in that she had treatment at the same time, also from a -8.5 baseline, and who also has ended up similarly under-corrected - so we will be comparing experiences in the coming months.

My next appointment is at the end of July, the week before I go to Africa, so I will update re the LASIK then. The next topic will probably be on a more dental theme...