Intralase LASIK Procedure with Fear-o-meter and Pain-o-meter

Hey, it's me, Dustin. I had LASIK surgery here at some random doctor's office. I'm not going to tell you which one it is, but, uh, anyway, the surgery went well, and I recorded it. Well, kind of recorded the video playing of it, so here it is, check it out! I'll give you some commentary, and I can see really good now, by the way. It was EY-LASIK.

All right, so I decided to give you the doctor's point of view. So, this is my eye upside down. Uh, the doctor is, I guess, up to the doctor is towards my mouth. I guess my forehead is down below the screen. This is the worst part of the whole thing right here. They put the super campomatic eye opener 3000 on you, and, uh, this is a little uncomfortable. That's the only bad part about it. I mean, the rest of the surgery is no big deal, but this is just so strange. You don't really know what to do.

So, they put this on you and they say, "Hey, look at this little blinky dot." There's this little blinky dot target that you're supposed to stare at, and there you go. That's all you do. So, you look at that dot like there's no tomorrow, and then this happens. They clamp you down, and they put a little force on your eye, holding it still, so they get you zeroed in here, and they mate the surface together, the clamp 3000 with this Duma fler, whatever this is. Then, they put some downward force so that your eye doesn't move, and this is most certainly the only, I would say, painful part of the process.

It's not super, super painful. Well, here the flap starts. You'll notice the laser cuts a flap, but it has a little anchor tab at the top here that doesn't cut all the way through. But then, the laser cuts all the way across your eye. Is that rad or what? So, it's a three-dimensional cut, so it's cutting like a hemisphere, and then once it cuts the whole tab, then it sears the edge right here. Isn't that awesome? That's the coolest thing in the world!

But anyway, so let's look at that again. Let's look at my other eye. So, they cut the tab right at the bottom, and then they go up and over. You can see the tab is not as deep there, and then they cut all the way across. I guess they're focusing the laser just below the surface of the cornea, I'm assuming. I'm not a doctor. And then, when they get to the far edge, the laser does the whole perimeter and cuts it loose. Yeah, that's awesome, really cool. Only cooler than that's lightsaber!

But anyway, so this is the scariest part because you're sitting here with two eyes that don't work, and you're sitting there praying to the Lord that the, uh, the power doesn't go off in the surgery facility. Or, you know, you're hoping they have uninterruptible power supplies on the laser machine. But anyway, that's probably the scariest part.

Well, then they clamp your eye open and then they mark the flap. At least I'm assuming that's what he does with this little dye thing. He marks the flap on each side, and my assumption, being a carpenter and an engineer, is that this is just in case he accidentally tears the flap off; he knows how to put it back on. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm a layman, but, uh, seems like that would make sense to me.

So, then he gets up under there with this little shepherd's hook-looking thing and he pulls the flap back. And, uh, this is, man, this is the part where you're really glad that your doctor's not an alcoholic or has jitters or anything like that. So, anyway, he pulls the flap back ever so gently. This part is really weird. I mean, this weirds you out. You're— I just can't describe how weird this part is; when he pulls the flap back, it's like you're in some kind of spaceship because you're still trying to look at that little target that he told you to look at and stare at.

So you're still looking as hard as you can, but everything is blurry. And I mean totally blurry. And then the lights go out, and he says, "Don't move," and he counts to 20. And while he's counting, uh, the laser starts firing. Now, I'm told that this laser will lock on and not fire if you move or anything like that. You can see here he has a lock, and he starts firing. At this point, I actually asked my doctor, I said, "Hey, what's that smell? Is that, uh, is that what I think it is?" And him being the joker that he is, he says, "Yes, sir, that is burning flesh."

So, you can actually smell your eyeball burning if you, uh, if you're so inclined to actually think about it, which I was. I was asking him what wavelength the laser was and stuff like that, but he's a pretty cool guy. So they put a drop of water back on and they laid the flap back over, and, uh, he said that the Vander’s forces will keep it in place there, which is some type of vacuum forces that apply on contact surfaces.

Then he rakes your flap back and then, uh, puts it back in place ever so gently. And, uh, then you go to the other eye, but, uh, it's pretty wild. You just have to go through with it, but, uh, I'm very, very glad I did. I can see very well. I've got 20/15 right now. So, at that point, you feel kind of like a wounded puppy, and you just want to go somewhere.

Here, we'll do the same thing in fast motion here so you can see. Mark it, mark it, and then pull that joker back. My wife can't watch this. She does a lot of surgery, but she doesn't do eyes for some reason. She could amputate your leg, but she couldn't take a splinter out of your eye! That's the funniest thing. It looks like he's playing tug of war with my eye. I wonder what happens when they rip the flap off on accident if that ever happens.

Guess this is one reason you definitely want a guy with a lot of experience. So, he acquires the target. He locks on. I feel like we're going to Star Wars TIE Fighter. Then he starts vaporizing flesh. The noise at that point is like a clicking noise. You can see he didn't acquire, so he had to walk back on and acquire, but it's like a tapping noise that you hear while this is going on. You can actually see the laser there. I don't know, it's like a bunch of sparks that you hear. See the little smoke? See that smoke?

Anyway, that's that, and here's what it looks like after the fact. That's 20/100. That's what my vision was. Now change this thing back to 20/20, if you don't mind! So, that's what my vision looks like now. Vision is actually this now; that's what I can see now. Mhm, awesome! Thank you very much!