PRK in late 2009.
I got it for a similar reason as mtr (combat sports) but I also didn't at all like the idea of being forced to watch my eye get cut open.
If I knew that the first thing they do in the PRK surgery is take a thing that looks like a giant version of a dentist's tooth cleaner and scrub your whole eyeball with an abrasive, I probably would have considered Lasik a little more.
Also, let me set the record straight as far as recovery time. The ladies at the office who did my procedure told me that some people have some discomfort for a day or two with PRK, but it's really not that bad.
FALSE.
The recovery from PRK was motherfucking horrible.
For three days it felt like I had sand in my eyes all the time, no matter what drops I put in. And I couldn't stand light at all during that time. I basically spent Thanksgiving weekend lying around the house with my eyes closed.
Once the discomfort went away, there was still a solid month of shitty vision. PRK blasts the cornea away entirely, and it takes a long time to grow back, and until it does, you're not going to see right.
I had to go back to work after that weekend of recovery, and IIRC there was at least a week where driving was just out of the question.
In order to read text on my monitor I seriously had to get my face six inches away from the screen.
That went away in about a week. But for the next month I gauged how my vision was doing by how many traffic lights I could see from a distance.
When I was in a car, each lit traffic light showed up as seven dots, in this pattern:
o o
o o
o o
o
Then after a week it got down to five:
o o
o o
o
Then another week later it was three:
o o
o
And another week later it was down to one big fuzzy dot.
I did the surgery before Thanksgiving: my vision was up to specs by Christmas. I think I was driving in the second week, but I had already been driving for 18 years at that point and had a good bit of experience driving in altered states so I basically ballsed my way through it for a week until my vision got to the point where it wasn't less safe than normal.
As far as side effects, I know that my right eye is not as strong as my left at this point. I don't see halos at night: in fact I believe halos are mainly an artifact of Lasik, since - think about it, you're picking up a flap of cornea, removing material underneath, and putting the cornea back down. It's literally impossible for that cornea to seal up around the edges - you're going to have an overlap of cornea, and therefore halos.
What I do get is what I call "ghosting". I can see one speed limit sign in the distance, and another "ghost" image next to it. The effect is kind of like having a pane of glass in between which is refracting the image somewhat.
My night vision is excellent, otherwise.
One other thing: if you can afford it, definitely do the custom wavefront. I couldn't afford it, but I wish I was able to.
