Problems with surgery results - on way to 2nd fix

Regarding the "nick," that is the medical term he used when explaining why he needed me to do drops instead of the shot. He did say that he was now concerned that the medicine of the shot might seep in around the lens and damage it.

I will go to my records regarding the 2nd procedure. 

As I said before, please make sure to get an opinion from another opthamalogist or surgeon about your issues before taking any major steps to correct them.

Ok, turns out the laser procedure he performed was a capsulotomy and it was on the eye right behind the lens and not the lens itself. It was performed on both eyes. The procedure he is recommending is a PRK but I visited him yesterday for more information. He did tell me that glasses would do the same correction he thinks the PRK would perform and he will fit me with glasses so that we will know in advance whether the issue is the eye which the PRK would correct vs. me just not being able to adjust to the monovision.  If I'm not handling the monovision then we would need to look at other alternatives. That seemed reasonable, but a 2nd opinion still seems like a possibility.

Ragarding the possibility of a PRK to correct the vision, my personal preference will be to use LASIK enhancement (instead of PRK), with which I have had very good results. Recovery from LASIK is much easier and quicker. You should at least consult a LASIK surgeon before making a decision.

What is your distance prescription (spherical and cylinderical) and uncorrected / corrected vision right now? Depending on what these are for each eye, you may need to try using a contact lens in one or both of the eyes instead of glasses to determine what the best future step may be.

Recovery is faster with LASIK, but some surgeons prefer PRK for post-cataract surgery corrections. Obviously there are tradeoffs, neither is perfect so it depends on individual preference and the state of people's eyes.  Some think there is less risk of dry eye (which is already a concern post-cataract surgery for some) with PRK, but I hadn't checked the data. I hadn't researched it enough to decide for sure what my preference will be if I do a minor tweak to my slightly hyperopic eye, but I like the idea of avoiding the potential for flap complications with PRK.

For those outside the US (there are many here from the UK), they might check into TransPRK (not approved in the US last I checked).  I hadn't looked into it enough to be sure its what I'd use if I had the option, but it seems to make sense. That  is  an "all laser, no-touch" variant of PRK where the entire process is done by laser.  I can't seem to find it now, but I'd recently seen an article from this year suggesting good results for TransPRK using the newest software updates, that its noticeably better than prior results (for some things they used to use average data for some parts of the process from many past patients to guide the laser, but now use data from the current patient's actual measuremetns for more of the process instead). 

Glasses (or better, contacts) give a good  indication of how well the procedure will work. I'll note though that if they are correcting astigmatism,   if the  astimatism is irregular,   then laser correction can potentially provide a  better result since it corrects it more precisely, shaping the surface of the eye to exactly what it should be at every point. That is one of the reasons why a minority of patients see an improvement in best corrected vision after laser (while a minuscule fraction see a very slight reduction in best corrected vision, even if uncorrected may be better, which is a risk, but low enough most don't worry about it, its especially unlikely with a small tweak).

Glad you are comfortable with the approach that your surgeon is taking.

Best wishes for a successful LASIK surgery to correct astigmatism and any spherical error. Please make sure that you let the surgeon know that you  don't want him / her to over-correct any spherical error in the process.  It is better to end up with -0.25 or 0 instead of +0.25 or +0.50.

The LASIK procedure itself should not take more than 5 minutes. You should not feel any pain either.

Surgeon took several more measurements of both eyes yesterday. My right eye is better than 20/20. My left eye now follows at better than 20/20 ... the prep was an hour, the surgery was 30 seconds. He lasered both sides of the cornea... I watched the laser of course, I had no choice. I thought the suction cup that came down and vacuum attached to my eye was interesting. Then the laser color was bright red. No pain, but my eye did itch, the nurse put in some drops that stopped the itching. I will return for a check up in about a week. Good close up at 10" to read fine print on my iPhone, and distant vision is very clear. Possibly better than before I started wearing glasses in the 70's. There was a little scratchy feeling this morning, but gone this evening. Eye drops 4x a day for 7 days. It has been worth it all. I went to work as usual this morning with no side effects and excellent vision.

That's good to hear. Enjoy the new eyes!