I am in my early 30s and got PRK in my late 20s and absolutely do not regret my decision at all! It's been such a quality of life improvement. I am also a BJJ/Judo player and it really beats having to deal with contacts/glasses all the time. I believe they usually will have wanted you to have tried contacts for a time to make sure that contacts aren't a good use case for you, as with any surgeries there are always risks involves which the ophthalmologist will run through with you.
For me, this is so much better than contacts, not having to fumble around for glasses in the morning and being able to see clearly stuff that is further than 20 cm from my face is life changing (my prescription was -5.5 + astigmatism, so not the worse but still pretty bad) which I haven't been able to since I was like 12 years old. I know a bunch of people who have had it done and very happy as well and I do mention it to other friends. Though it is a personal choice as it is a very elective surgery.
1 week is the bare minimum to be able to took a screen again for a long length of time and "full" recovery can be months (you'll still be able to drive and use the computer fine but there will be some "fuzziness"). I was able to work after the one week. One of my eyes was over-corrected, as basically there is a bit of art of these types of surgery as it relies on the body's healing factor, and after a year of monitoring (which would have been standard even if the over-correction wasn't detected) hoping that it would work it self out, we had to redo the that eye and both eyes were fine after that.
You definitely want to not force it, just take sick/annual leave and don't stress out about working. I'm not based in the US but if you are, I would really recommend you research who you're getting your treatment from and what laser/approach they might be using. Because when I was researching before my decision it seemed like a lot of horror stories were US based (this just might be due to the demographic of the internet posters though). Stories of no contact with an ophthalmologist before the surgery, the surgery being done by technicians and not the surgeon, the responsible surgeon was based out of the state and only approved the surgeries, no follow up monitoring after surgery etc.
If you have an specific questions post then below and I am happy to answer.
No side effects for me. I've always had bad night vision even with glasses so no noticeable effect for me, and no dry eyes like someone else reported on this thread.
I guess my question for you is what is your prescription? Because mine was high enough (-5.5 + astigmatism) that even with glasses due to how thick they were, chromatic aberrations always existed especially in my peripherals, and contacts would cause dry eyes after 8 hours which would then drop visual acuity. So my reality never existed with "perfect vision" like you are worried about having to deal with... It was just a different type of aberration that eventually went away, became unnoticable. I definitely knew my glasses never corrected to perfect vision. Remember 6/6 (aka 20/20) also isn't "perfect vision", it is just the average vision person for a person doesn't "need glasses", people have a whole range of visual acuity.
While I am definitely a fan and would recommend it people who were thinking about it. If your prescription is low enough I believe surgeons will usually suggest that you probably don't need it, though my experience is not in the US so YMMV...
For me, this is so much better than contacts, not having to fumble around for glasses in the morning and being able to see clearly stuff that is further than 20 cm from my face is life changing (my prescription was -5.5 + astigmatism, so not the worse but still pretty bad) which I haven't been able to since I was like 12 years old. I know a bunch of people who have had it done and very happy as well and I do mention it to other friends. Though it is a personal choice as it is a very elective surgery.
1 week is the bare minimum to be able to took a screen again for a long length of time and "full" recovery can be months (you'll still be able to drive and use the computer fine but there will be some "fuzziness"). I was able to work after the one week. One of my eyes was over-corrected, as basically there is a bit of art of these types of surgery as it relies on the body's healing factor, and after a year of monitoring (which would have been standard even if the over-correction wasn't detected) hoping that it would work it self out, we had to redo the that eye and both eyes were fine after that.
You definitely want to not force it, just take sick/annual leave and don't stress out about working. I'm not based in the US but if you are, I would really recommend you research who you're getting your treatment from and what laser/approach they might be using. Because when I was researching before my decision it seemed like a lot of horror stories were US based (this just might be due to the demographic of the internet posters though). Stories of no contact with an ophthalmologist before the surgery, the surgery being done by technicians and not the surgeon, the responsible surgeon was based out of the state and only approved the surgeries, no follow up monitoring after surgery etc.
If you have an specific questions post then below and I am happy to answer.