For those people that need corrective surgery on their corneas, there are two different options to choose from. The first is Lasik eye surgery, and the other choice is PRK surgery. Both options have their advantages and disadvantages, and people with thin corneas are better off choosing to have PRK surgery as this does not require an incision to be made in the cornea itself. However, the major downside to PRK surgery compared to Lasik is the longer healing time required. Whereas most Lasik patients can recover within hours or a couple of days, PRK patients could find that it takes weeks for them to recover fully. Some people say that it is worth the risk to lessen the chances of injury that can arise when undergoing the Lasik procedure.
The Early Stages of Recovery
For the first few days after you have received your PRK surgery, it is not unusual to feel a certain amount of discomfort. This discomfort will usually take the form of a stinging sensation in the eyes, increased sensitivity to light, watery eyes and puffy eyelids. These symptoms usually wear off after 3 or 4 days, and some people do not have any side effects from the surgery at all.
One symptom that all people that undergo PRK will experience is the blurred and misty vision, but this is entirely normal and will dissipate after about 1 week, although it can take longer for the eye to fully recover.
Longer Term Stages of Recovery
One of the reasons why blurred vision occurs with PRK is due to the removal of the epithelium from the eye; this will grow back after no more than 3 months and will give you much clearer vision.
Within 3 to 6 months, your eyesight should have returned back to normal, without the problems that you had previously. In fact you will probably have better eyesight than those people that had opted for Lasik surgery.
To Summarize
From start to finish, the PRK surgery procedure only takes a matter of minutes to complete, and the epithelium will then begin to regrow, giving much clearer vision, although, this may take several months.
Even though the recovery period is longer with PRK than Lasik surgery, for those people that are deemed to have a higher risk of injury through Lasik surgery, it is a small price to pay.