How to Protect Your Eyes After LASIK

It’s Saturday morning, the sun is up, and you roll over and decide it’s time for you to be up too.  You open your eyes…

Wait a minute!  You can see all the way across your bedroom, and there’s texture on the ceiling of your bedroom!  “Did I fall asleep with my contacts in again?” you ask yourself.  Then, like a lightning bolt across the sky, you remember!  “I had my LASIK surgery yesterday!”

Pretty awesome stuff!  This won’t be the last time that you marvel at how easy life is when you can just wake up and see!

You take off the goggles that you wore to bed last night and congratulate yourself on remembering to put them on before you went to sleep for the night.  Wearing the goggles helps you to not rub your eyes while you are sleeping for the first few nights after your LASIK procedure.

It’s drops time!  You refer to the instructions given to you yesterday at your LASIK appointment and put your drops in.  Okay, next, breakfast time & shower.  You head to the kitchen to get your day started with your favorite breakfast and again want to pinch yourself at how much simpler this morning is already!

“Oh…my…goodness!  My shower is dirty,” you think as you step in for your first shower with your new vision.  You have to give yourself a break.  It’s tough sometimes to really know what the status of your shower is when you can’t really see much in there!

The team at 20/20 told you that it is completely fine to shower after having LASIK, and that your friends will appreciate it!  You pay special attention to not have the water hit you directly on your eyes, and you skip washing your eyes & just let the water run over your eyes while they are closed.  When you get out of the shower, you dry off every part of your face except for your eyelids and around your eyes – that gets to air-dry for a couple weeks.  Works great, all clean!  Now, time for your checkup back at 20/20.

Starbucks & snack upon arrival, check!  Time to head back to an exam room with the friendly 20/20 staff member to check your vision.  You look on the eye chart and call out the letters: “T, Z, V, E, C” – the 20/20 row!  No glasses or contacts, Boom!  Dr. Danzo comes in and takes a look at your eyes with his microscope and lets you know that everything looks great.  He tells you to keep up with your eye drops and goggles at bedtime.  “So, doc, what do I need to do to protect my eyes from here?” you ask.  Good question.

Dr Danzo tells you that coming to your follow up appointments, is important as you heal, and that it is a good idea to avoid getting sweat in your eyes for the first week.  Awesome!  Now you finally have your excuse to wear your Richard Simmons headband to your workout!

Other than that, you’ll keep up with the medicine drops for a week, and artificial tears until you are fully healed.  UV-protection eyewear is ALWAYS recommended by eye doctors, especially here in Colorado, but now you can get a pair that aren’t going to cost and arm and a leg because you don’t have to get sunglasses with your prescription in them!

Lastly, Dr Danzo reminds you that you will come to 20/20 for checkups until your LASIK anniversary, and that after your anniversary, it will be good for you to have eye exams to continue to monitor eye health.  Dr. Danzo reminds you that while routine eye care is important for you to do for your eyes, you don’t have to be perfect with annual eye exam attendance in order for you to keep your Lifetime LASIK Assurance from 20/20 Institute.

“Just keep on seeing,” says Dr. Danzo!