Hi friends! After years and years of wanting to stop wearing glasses and contacts, I finally got LASIK and it FEELS AMAZING!

There are two main reasons why I decided to finally get LASIK. The first reason was that I hate wearing glasses (they’re hard to hike/work out in and are always sliding down my nose) and contacts (my eyes get really dry and irritated). The second reason was that during my Europe trip I almost lost my glasses looking over the Liffey River in Ireland and that was terrifying. I started to think about what would happen if I lost my glasses (and my sight essentially) in another country and that was the last straw.

Check out the video below which kind of gives a visual of my experience and then read the rest of the blog post to get all of the details. At the end, you can learn how to get 15% off of your LASIK eye surgery if you decide to do it!

I really wanted to get rid of my glasses/contacts but I was also afraid of the procedure, so I did what any logical person would do. I researched and I got informed.

I started by looking into several places in Arizona that performed LASIK. I looked at their reviews and the place that really stood out for me was LasikPlus, so I went in for a free consultation.

The staff at LasikPlus was so friendly and welcoming. I walked in, they did a few tests (typical tests that you get done when you are getting glasses/contacts) plus a few other tests to determine if I was a candidate for LASIK.

Things I Learned During My Consultation

1. Not everyone is a candidate for LASIK. This is why it’s important to go in for a consultation.
2. Wearing contacts changes the shape of your eye! I had no idea. They tell you this fun fact because if you are going to get LASIK done, they ask you to not wear contacts for at least three days because contacts distort the shape of your eye, and they can’t operate on a misshapen eye.

I loved LasikPlus because they give you a wealth of information in person, through a video, and then they give you some reading material. I walked out with all of this information and I was nervous but ready. After you schedule your operation, the doctor gives you a prescription for two different kinds of eye drops that you will have to use after you surgery and you can get these after your operation at LasikPlus.

Before The Operation

I googled. And I YouTubed. And I read. A LOT. I googled what exactly happens when you get LASIK. I googled what happens after you get LASIK. I read a ton of articles and googled a ton of weird questions like ‘what happens if you sneeze during LASIK?’. The answer is nothing. Nothing happens because your doctor holds your head so there’s no way your head will move.

All of this research calmed me down and prepared me for what was to come and that’s probably the biggest thing that helped me out. So if you are anything like me, I’d like to congratulate you for reading this blog post. You are well on your way to getting informed and that is the first step. I’ll post a link to the best video and article that helped me out at the end so that you can check them out.

The Day of The Operation

The day of the operation, I woke up, did some work on my computer, and then I drive over to my brother’s house because you need someone to drive you after your operation. My brother drives me to LasikPlus and it’s time. The staff was so excited for me. Like genuinely excited. It was really heartwarming how excited they were for me (and that’s another reason why I recommend them). I filled out some more paperwork, paid (I’ll talk about cost a little later), and then went through a few more tests (just to make sure my eyesight hadn’t changed drastically since my initial consultation). Everything looked good and I was ready to go.

I meet Dr. Perry and he walks me into the operating room. The operating room at LasikPlus is really cool. The walls are made of glass so your family members could watch to make sure that you are okay. Taking advantage of the glass walls, I asked my brother to record a little bit of the procedure. Dr. Perry gives me a cap to wear and puts some numbing drops into my eyes so that I won’t feel anything and tells me to lay down on a reclining chair. Normally I would have freaked out over the numbing drops but they put these same numbing drops into your eyes during your consultation so you know what to expect and what it will feel like. It basically just makes you blink a lot less and your eyes feel really heavy. Once my eyes are numb, Dr. Perry takes a marker and makes some markings on my eyes. It felt weird but since my eyes were numb, it kind of just felt like when you touch your eye to put on your contacts. The entire time Dr. Perry is super calming and making me laugh (which I really needed because I was so nervous that I thought I was going to pass out or throw up). I lay down and he starts explaining what is going to happen.

During The Operation

As he starts to perform the operation, I relax a little because after reading and watching videos I know what the next steps are. Dr. Perry starts working on my right eye. He puts a patch over the left eye. He tells me he is going to clamp my right eye open so that he can work on it. This was my least favorite part during the procedure but luckily my eye is numb and I feel no pain, just a little discomfort. The clamp basically looks like a bear claw trap (or an eyelash curler) and it is used to keep your eye open. Dr. Perry is really fast and I barely feel the clamp.

He then says he’s going to add ‘suction’ and everything goes dark. The suction ring placed over my eye is to hold my eye still. He brings over the machine and from my perspective I just see black, some red lights and a green dot. The black is from the suction ring, the red is the laser and the green is just a dot to focus on. He tells me to focus on the green dot and that I will feel a little pressure. I feel the pressure on my eye, kind of like a pen on my eye and it is so weird…but it’s not painful. I am focusing on the green dot and he tells me it will only last 22 seconds. I count to 22 in my head and that helps me relax and not freak out. He finishes and then does the same thing to the other eye. Once that is done, Dr. Perry moves me over to another chair for the second part of the operation.

The first part of the operation is cutting a flap in my eye. The second part of the operation is when the laser comes in and when the doctor pulls the flap back down. I lay down and I can feel a few tears sliding down my cheek (but again, no pain…I can’t stress enough that there was no pain). He tells me again to focus on the green dot and this time I can smell the laser. It smells like something is burning (which is totally normal, the staff told me this would happen) and then Dr. Perry grabs an instrument and starts brushing my eye to put the flap back. It felt really weird. I can feel him stroking my eye kind of like he’s petting a dog (lol) but then he’s done! That’s it. He did the same thing to the other eye and then I was good to go. The operation literally lasted less than three minutes and I know this for a fact because during the operation I could hear Jason Derulo’s song ‘If It Ain’t Love’ playing in the background.

After The Operation

Based on the information that I got from the staff at LasikPlus, Google, and YouTube I was told that immediately after the operation my vision would look like if I was underwater (a bit hazy) which it did but it was already a million times better already! My vision was really sharp in some places and blurry in others but I COULD SEE. It was unreal. Dr. Perry looked at my eyes through one of his tools and he gave me the okay to leave telling me that all looked great. He also told me that he was looking forward to seeing what I would write in my blog so I hope he likes this post (Hi Dr. Perry!).

I walk out to see my mom and my brother and it is so unbelievable because I can actually see their faces. My eyesight was so bad that normally without glasses, everyone’s faces was always super blurry. I wanted to cry because I couldn’t believe that after 23 years, I could finally see life in High Definition 🙂

Dr. Perry and his staff tell me to go home and rest my eyes for 1-2 hours and then to begin putting in the eye drops. I read online that you should go immediately home after LASIK and not make any pit stops but my brother wanted to go eat at Olive Garden and I thought I would be okay because at that point the numbing eye drops hadn’t worn off and I felt great! About 10 minutes later though, my eyes were no longer numb and there was no way I would be able to make it to Olive Garden. As I keep mentioning through this post, there was no pain…just some discomfort but the reason I didn’t want to go to Olive Garden was because my eyes were tearing up. It looked like I was crying. And not cute little tears….more like a waterfall was coming out of both of my eyes. And it only stopped when I closed my eyes.

So we decided to head home. By this point, my eyes are super dry and irritated and I just want to lay down and close my eyes. However, you have to put in two different eye-drops before you rest your eyes. I could barely open my eyes and hold the eye drops at the same time so my brother had to do it for me. Once the eye drops were in, I felt immediately better. I love modern day medicine and technology. I took a 2 hour nap and woke up with PERFECT VISION. It was amazing but so weird at the same time. I kept reaching for my glasses because I was just used to grabbing them right when I woke up but I didn’t need them anymore!

Another reason why I highly recommend LasikPlus is that at around 8pm, Dr. Perry called me to check in on me! Who does that?! How sweet is that!! My sister also recently got LASIK done in 2021 and he also called her! My boyfriend Matt got LASIK done in 2023 and he also called him!

Dr. Perry asked me if I had posted the video and blog post. He’s hilarious. And don’t think this is just a one time thoughtful thing. After my consultation, another doctor mentioned that if I were to ever need anything now or 10 years from now, to reach out to him. That’s probably one of the nicest things I’ve ever heard in my life.

The Next Day

The next day I had my post-operation check up. I woke up with even better vision than the night before and I can feel it getting progressively better which is awesome. My friend jokingly told me that next thing you know, I will have x-ray vision (lol). I woke up and was able to drive myself to LasikPlus. Again the staff is super excited to see me and I get checked out and they tell me that my vision is now at 20/15 (which is better than 20/20!!). Now that I’ve gone through the procedure and experienced the after effects and went to my check up, I learned a few more things.

More Things I Learned

1. I put on the eye drops right before I went to bed and when I woke up, I tasted something really weird and bitter. I thought maybe the eye drops had slid down my eyes into my mouth. When I went for my check up I was told that it is normal to get a taste of eye drops in your mouth because the tear ducts that drain tears will also drain some from the eye drops down your throat. Which is kind of gross when you think about it.

2. I also learned that it’s normal to get a headache and feel like your eyes are bruised. I thought my head ache after the surgery was because I was hungry (I didn’t eat before the surgery because I was so nervous I was afraid I would throw it up lol) but it’s really because your eyes are seeing a lot and your brain kind of needs to catch up.

3. I learned that you shouldn’t drink alcohol a day before your operation, the day of your operation and the day after your operation. I learned this while at lunch with my brother and mom after my check up. I ordered a glass of wine and my mom asked me ‘Are you sure you can drink?’. I googled and I found out that you shouldn’t drink because alcohol makes your eyes dry and you will feel even more discomfort and dryness.

A few days after the operation

Getting LASIK has been one of the best decisions of my life. I’ve lived a pretty good life and gone on some great adventures and had some great experiences but there is no better feeling than waking up and being able to see without the help of glasses and contacts. It feels unreal. I wish I had done this earlier. The worse part about recovering is the fact that I will randomly taste the really gross eye drops and that I can’t rub my eyes (for a week) but that’s it. Just minor nuisances but I’m so happy I went through with it. I absolutely love this and highly recommend it to anyone. The procedure literally takes less than three minutes, you only need about 1 night and the next day to recover and then you’re brand new. One thing that holds a lot of people back (including myself for a while) is the cost of LASIK.

2023 Update: 7 Year Update

Seven years later and my vision is still amazing and I can still 100% say that getting Lasik was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and I still highly recommend it!

How Much Does LASIK Cost?

I found out that the cost of LASIK at any place is usually around the same….so cost was not a deciding factor for me. What was important for me was if a place offered payment plans and of course their reviews. The price of LASIK will vary depending on how bad your eyesight is. My eyesight is pretty bad and I paid a little over $3500 for both eyes (including the eye drops which can be pricey) but if your eyesight isn’t as bad as mine you can pay a lot less. I encourage you to go in for the consultation. It’s free, you get a lot of good info, and you can get a quote (which ends up being very close to the price you pay). If cost is also holding you back, one thing you can do is mention my name (Maira Garcia) and since I sent you, they will hook you up with a 15% discount.

A 15% discount may not sound like much but let’s do the math. Let’s pretend you and I have the same eyesight so your price for LASIK for both eyes will be $3500. But remember, you have that 15% discount and 15% of $3500 is $525! So $3500-525 = $2975. That’s your final price, which sounds a lot nicer than $3500, wouldn’t you agree?

And my eyesight is pretty bad so chances are you won’t be paying as much as me. Another thing holding you back might be the fact that you don’t necessarily have that much money to pay the day of. That’s okay! LasikPlus has financing options. I’m doing a payment plan where I have 24 months to pay off the $3500 with NO INTEREST. So I’ll be paying $146 a month.

Helpful Videos and Articles 

How Lasik Surgery is Done (Animated Video)

The LASIK Procedure: A Complete Guide (Article)

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I really hope the video and this blog post help you out and if you do decide to go and get LASIK done, feel free to message me or comment below if you have any questions! I’m here to help. Good luck friends! Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below 🙂 thanks for reading and stay enthusiastic!

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Maira