I'm curious how long it took those who had PRK or LASEK to recover and be back to work e.g. coding and looking at a monitor for many hours a day. My insurance company is offering to reimburse 40-50% of PRK costs, so I'm thinking of getting it done sooner than later. Anyway how did it go for you guys/girls?
While cutting may sound traumatic, it doesn't affect your vision (they put a protective contact lens over it afterwards, it heals very quickly) and you come out of the operation seeing 20/20. With PRK, your cornea has to re-grow the cells that were scraped away during the operation which causes your vision to be cloudy for around a week. During this time your eyes will be painfully sensitive to light and you likely wouldn't be able to use a computer for 4-7 days. Another downside to PRK - you don't know how well the operation went until your eyes have fully recovered 2-3 weeks after surgery.
As far as I understand, PRK has little bit longer recovery, maybe 3-5 days, as it's a slightly different procedure (carving your cornea directly instead of cutting a flap, doing the work and putting it back). I'm not a doctor so I can't speak to exactly what's recommended with both or what to expect but my LASIK experience was great and I was told I could go back to work the next day.