My daughter, 33 years old, has a worker in Beijing, a senior myopia patient.
Wearing glasses since junior high school, my degree has undergone a process of "rising - stabilizing", from the initial 200 degrees to 600 degrees. Fortunately, the degree of myopia in both eyes is not large, and there is no obvious astigmatism.
Over the years, there have been more and more glasses in the drawer, and I have been piled up without throwing them away, and I always feel that I can still make a spare.
For senior myopic eyes, there's nothing more secure than waking up and touching your glasses. In our house, the most common conversation we hear in the morning is, "Where did I put my glasses?" "Husband, help me find my glasses!" "Baby, help mom see where the glasses are."
Glasses, glasses, the top priority is all about finding glasses.
Once, I casually put my glasses in a corner of the bathroom before taking a shower at night, and the next morning I couldn't think of anything, so early in the morning the whole family mobilized and turned the house upside down, just to find glasses and give me a clear world.
I am a very timid person, and I am also squeamish among girls, afraid of pain and trouble. In fact, I have long thought of doing myopia surgery, but I have never dared to put it into practice. One is the lingering fear, "in case the operation fails, I can't see what to do", the second is because myopia surgery costs a lot of money, I feel that it is more cost-effective to have this money than to eat, drink and have fun, and the glasses can be made up, anyway, I have been used to wearing it for so many years.
However, I still have some envy when I see that girls who have undergone myopia surgery can beautifully wear full makeup without thinking about wearing contact lenses.
I've been swinging back and forth in this tangle.
But who would have thought that what prompted me to finally make up my mind to go to myopia surgery was the epidemic — or rather, the intimate life with masks under the epidemic.
Glasses are piled up on the outside of the mask, and if you are not careful, you will be full of lenses, and the world in front of you will be instantly pasted. This kind of annoyance brings a chain reaction, every day to constantly push the glasses with your hands, trying to maintain visibility in the field of vision, at the same time, you have to spend a lot of effort to find the delicate angle of the glasses and mask friendly coexistence, which is really troublesome.
And I also found a bad rule in my continuous attempts: the degree of wear and tear of glasses is related to the use habits. Because I wear a mask, I need to often push the glasses or take a wipe, a copy of the glasses that can be worn for two or three years are more than a year and then mutilated: the mirror legs are loose, the nose clip is deformed; the lenses are also scratched inexplicably, and can only be replaced.
I calculated a "glasses account" for myself: referring to the normal price level in Beijing, changing a pair of glasses, using a decent lens, how to get 1500 pieces in a full set, counting my spending in the past decade and the cost of the next few decades, it is not a small amount.
So, if this cost exceeds the cost of myopia surgery, it will be more cost-effective to do the operation once to solve the problem, right?
I suddenly realized that in my heart, I was very eager to take off my glasses completely, so I used various methods to convince myself to rationalize the idea of "doing surgery". Looking back at the friends who have already had myopia surgery and the "patients" who are eager to try, I decided to find out.
The next period of time is "investigation time".
I learned through various channels that at present, in China, myopia surgery technology has been very mature, the most common is full femtoseconds and half femtoseconds, as well as crystal implantation, doctors will decide the applicable form of surgery according to the patient's eye conditions.
The technical doubts were basically solved, and I was stuck with "fear of pain".
When I was still struggling with whether to put it into action, the male colleague who had always discussed myopia surgery together before, "Corner Overtaking", first went to full femtosecond surgery, and went to work normally a day after the operation! Listening to how smooth and clear his vision was in the office, my desire to have myopia surgery became stronger.
I started looking for videos about myopia surgery and sitting specialists at various hospitals in Beijing.
After watching so many videos, what scared me the most was the "eyelid expander" thing - perhaps the sequelae left by horror movies, and I was inexplicably afraid when I thought of the operation to support the upper and lower eyelids.
Also, watching the video of the surgical process is to hit the laser, the eye follows the light spot to stay still - what if the eye moves, the laser is deflected?
Finally hung up the number of a well-known expert, and quickly made an eye examination. The nurse reminded me very intimately that I should not drive on the day of the examination, I would drop a drop of medicine to dilate my pupils, and my eyesight would be restored in about three hours, and it was best to have a family member accompany me. Nervous, I made an appointment with a small friend.
During the epidemic period, the medical procedures are much more troublesome, and in addition to measuring body temperature and scanning health treasures, the check-in desk also needs to fill out a particularly detailed flow schedule.
I was called into various examination rooms, after the regular vision test, there would be an intraocular pressure test, and before I was mentally prepared, I was startled by a breath blowing into my eyes. There is also a check on the thickness of the cornea, which is very critical and determines which surgical method I am suitable for.
After various tests, the doctor told me that the degrees of my eyes were 550 degrees and 575 degrees, respectively, and accompanied by 50 degrees of astigmatism. Regarding astigmatism, I also specifically asked the doctor, in the past glasses dispensing process, I was not told by the optical shop that I had astigmatism symptoms, and I was worried that I could not perform surgery because of astigmatism problems. The doctor told me that under normal circumstances, astigmatism below 100 degrees is not worthy of the lens, and it will not affect the subsequent surgery.
Next, three drops of eye drops are given for mydriasis, followed by a vision test. After the pupil is dilated, the eyes themselves do not have any discomfort, but the nearby things cannot be seen clearly. As a result of another vision test, myopia in both eyes dropped by 50 percent, and the astigmatism did not change.
Eventually I took a bunch of reports and went to the doctor, and the good news was that my eye condition could satisfy the full femtosecond, with minimal incision, without affecting any movement. The doctor also introduced the half-femtosecond surgery, that is, the incision is larger, but the cornea that needs to be cut off will be less, and it cannot be a pilot and an athlete in the future. The cost of the two surgeries was 10,000 yuan apart, and the doctor told me to "make up my own mind."
In the end, I chose the relatively expensive full femtosecond surgery.
(My check results.) Patient courtesy of)
The nurse explained to me the preoperative precautions alone, two kinds of potions, one to be dripped 12 times before the operation (that is, three days, four times a day), and the other was accompanied by drops, while paying attention to the eyes before the operation, more rest and adjustment.
I deliberately chose the date of the operation on February 14, Valentine's Day, to give myself a clear world as a gift.
On the day of the surgery, my hands were shaking and cold, and the entire afternoon of meetings was spent pretending to be calm. The operation was about 5 p.m., and my girlfriend came early to pick me up and take me to the hospital.
Almost stepping on the spot to the hospital, the nurse was outside the operating room to give preoperative instructions to the day's patients. Remove the glasses and make sure to wear a bracelet that identifies the patient's information. Each person was given a post-operative list with instructions for the use of each type of potion. I looked around, everyone was sitting quietly, and when it was time, I wasn't so scared.
Even for surgery I need to wear a mask, but I can keep my nose exposed. Entering the operating room, a male nurse was responsible for preoperative eye irrigation and eye area disinfection, and he took me to a seat dedicated to eye irrigation and rinsed the left and right eyes with a special liquid. Afterwards, I was taken to the seating area and disinfected the area around the eyes with alcohol, or iodine if I was allergic to alcohol. But I don't know if it was nervousness or habit, after the poison was eliminated, my left hand habitually made a push of glasses, causing me to eliminate the poison again.
Talk and chat are not allowed in the operating room, and pop songs are played in the stereo to make everyone relax. After waiting in line for more than thirty minutes, I finally heard the nurse calling my name.
I was so nervous that I whispered to the nurse, "I'm afraid." "The nurse sister very intimately stuffed a decompression ball into my hand, leaned into my ear and said, don't talk, there are people doing surgery." She instructed, "In a moment, you will change beds, first go to one bed to complete the laser, and then someone will help you change to another bed and complete the operation."
After the nurse first dropped an anesthetic in my eye, I closed my eyes and rested. After a while, I was led to the machine by the hand, and the whole person lay flat and relaxed; a second anesthetic dripped from my eyes.
When it came to the part where I was most afraid of placing the eyelid expander, I found that I was just scared by my own fantasies. You can feel that the upper and lower eyelids are supported, but it does not hurt at all, and the eyes can be completely controlled autonomously, without any discomfort. I relaxed and followed the doctor's instructions for the operation.
First of all, the left eye, staring at the small green dot do not move, the green dot disappears do not chase - it feels like it is completed in no more than 30 seconds. Then there's the right eye, and the same process is repeated.
There was no discomfort during the whole procedure, just a little panic when the little green dots finally disappeared. When I got up to change the bed, I didn't feel any pain, I kept my eyes closed, and I was taken by the nurse and taken to the other bed.
When I lay down again, it was the surgeon who performed the operation.
"Next we need to work together to get this done." The gentle female doctor said after introducing herself, "Your eyes are chasing the light, and I will help you take out the lens." ”
"Okay, you did a very good job, the lens was taken out, it was complete, the operation was very successful!" In this way, the myopia surgery was completed.
It was still the nurse who took me by the hand and sent me out of the operating room, and when I opened my eyes, my first feeling was that there was a layer of frosted glass in front of my eyes, and it was like a thin layer of fog in my glasses, but there was no special feeling. The nurse dropped two more eye drops on me and handed me over to my girlfriend who had been waiting. "You can go!" Go home and get some sleep and come back tomorrow for a review. ”
It didn't hurt at all, and I could open my eyes, but for post-operative recovery, I put on my sunglasses and was safely sent home by my girlfriend.
When I woke up the next day, I saw a clear world that I hadn't seen in a long time! When I went to the hospital for a follow-up examination, my vision had returned to 1.0; the eye fissure, although a little swollen, was recovering well. Follow the doctor's advice, do not get dirty water within a week, drop eye drops on time, and then go back to the review after a week, and the vision has been restored to 1.2.
It's so cool to take off your glasses! One of the most correct decisions to spend the first big money on yourself in 2022 was to go for this surgery. Over time, my eyesight has recovered better and better, and I have become more and more clear in seeing things.
More importantly, after this time, I feel that I am finally a little "brave": some things, may be missing is action. Once you do, you will find that the fear is not so difficult to overcome.
Expert reviews
The number of people suffering from myopia in the mainland is increasingly large. The methods of myopia surgery can be roughly divided into corneal surgery and intraocular surgery. The "full femtosecond" and "half femtosecond" mentioned by the author refer to the use of femtosecond laser for surgery, which belongs to corneal surgery, while crystal implantation belongs to intraocular surgery. There is no good or bad in these surgical methods, but for different groups of people, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
The age of surgery is usually 18-45 years old. Due to physical development and eye pressure in minors, the degree of myopia will change greatly. After the age of 18, the degree of myopia has also entered a stable period (provided that there is no bad eye habits), and the postoperative effect will be more stable. After the age of 45, most people will begin to appear presbyopia, that is, the regulation of nearby will decline.
As a icing on the cake surgery, preoperative examination is especially important to better reduce the risk of surgery. Routine examinations include vision, intraocular pressure, accurate degree, ocular surface condition, corneal thickness, corneal morphology, fundus condition, and more. During the corneal myopia surgery, the cornea should be thinned, but the cornea cannot be infinitely thin, because the tissues in the eye will exert pressure on the cornea, and if the cornea is too thin after surgery and the strength is not enough, it is easy to have accidents. Before surgery, the cornea thickness after surgery is calculated by formula according to the patient's myopia and astigmatism. If it is within the safe value, laser surgery can be done. Similarly, for patients who re-develop myopia after surgery, secondary surgery can also be performed if the thickness of the cornea allows.
Patients with insufficient corneal thickness can further see if intraocular surgery is appropriate.
Text: Huo Xiang, Aimina Yuan
Editors: Wu Jiaxiang, Ye Zhengxing
Proofreading: Wu Yihe | Typesetting: Li Yongmin
Operation: Han Ningning | Coordinator: Wu Wei