Since I’m an office worker, I was looking for a surgery with quick recovery, and because I didn’t really have other options, I got SMILE LASIK. I had the surgery Friday night, rested Saturday/Sunday, and went to work Monday.
It was about 5 years ago, so instead of the Zeiss SMILE LASIK device that had just come out at the time, I had the surgery with the VisuMax, which was one step more upgraded. At that ophthalmology clinic, it was a newly introduced device back then, and I was the first person to have surgery with it.
Preoperative visual acuity: 0.2 Visual acuity the day after SMILE LASIK: left/right 1.2 / 1.0
Right after SMILE LASIK, my eyes stung and hurt, so tears kept flowing and I went to sleep early. (The claim that it doesn’t hurt is a lie. I couldn’t open my eyes and kept them closed.) The pain disappeared the next day.
I could see better than before the surgery. Far distances were clear, but near distances looked blurry. But they said that was normal.
The most severe side effect during/after SMILE LASIK is dry eye syndrome, but I originally didn’t have dryness, so even now I don’t feel dryness or stinging or anything like that.
I heard that for about a month after surgery, you need to use enough artificial tears properly for the result to be maintained well, but somehow I don’t think I even used two packets properly..
But sometimes when I look at a monitor for too long or do close-up work for a long time, I do feel like temporarily I can’t see well or like my vision has dropped.
So I went back for a vision checkup a year ago, and it came out as 1.0..? Was it just my imagination.. I haven’t had a checkup recently, but I do feel like it has dropped somewhat compared to then.
But when I look at people around me who had SMILE LASIK, there are many cases where the visual acuity difference between both eyes is large, like 0.2/0.9.. And their vision also drops again pretty quickly..
People who had LASEK seemed to maintain their vision well. As much as it hurts, the effect and durability seemed better. (Although of course it may vary depending on how postoperative care was done..)
If I had had plenty of time, I think I would have just done LASEK. I already did SMILE, so I can’t turn it back, haha.
Conclusion: If you don’t have time and hate pain, save up some money and do SMILE LASIK, and if you have a relaxed recovery period and don’t want to spend a lot of money, I recommend LASEK!
This review is a surgery review pursuing natural beauty.