I had the YAG laser procedure done yesterday and am posting my experience and results here.

I am a 38 yr old male, healthy, have an active lifestyle, have had moderate floaters all my life. I am myopic and have worn glasses since I was 14 yrs old. The floaters I always had never bothered me, as a matter of fact, I remember having fun with them as a kid, watching them trail around as I shifted my eyes. About a month back, I woke up, logged into my laptop for work and noticed I was having trouble seeing the screen properly. Looked like a big smudge in front of my eyes. Thought I had something on my glasses, vigorously cleaned them with a generous amount of lens cleaner, which obviously didn't help. Spent the day wondering if my prescription had changed and went to the local lenscrafters store to get my prescription checked. The eye doctor there saw my eyes through her equipment and told me I have a large floater in my left eye. Now I really focused on the grey blob and realized that's what it was.

Went to a retina specialist immediately to rule out a tear or detachment and was perplexed at how this medical provider trivialized the issue, basically saying, "you'll get used to it". By this time, I had obviously googled the condition and was aware of the YAG laser and vitrectomy options and mentioned those to him. He immediately came down hard on both options, saying both are extreme solutions for what is basically an inconvenience. He said both solutions had chances of blinding me,and he wouldn't do it.

So I spent the next couple of weeks trying to get used to it, work was hard (I am a software pro). I found myself trying to avoid meetings where I had to conduct demos of software products and that was a bad thing. Started researching vitrectomy and laser more intensely. Exhcnaged emails with Dr.Wong and Dr.Karickhoff. Eventually found Dr.Chaudhri close to where I live who has been doing YAG laser for floaters for a few years. Met him and felt comforted by his calm and reassuring attitude. He is a retina specialist and does non floater related laser and vitrectomy procedures all the time. Though he has never done a vitrectomy for floaters, he has done, by his account, between 50 and 100 YAG laser vitreolysis procedures for floaters and said he had no complications as yet. He explained that the laser process will not eliminate the floaters but will break them up so they are not as annoying. When he looked at my floater, he said it was a large size and fairly in the middle of the eye, almost equidistant from the retina and the lens. He also looked at my other eye which also has a fair amount of debris but said he wouldn't laser that one as it was a lot of debris scattered around and he wouldn't be able to guarantee improvement.

I pondered over the options for a couple of weeks and finally got an appointment and had the YAG laser process done by Dr.Chaudhri yesterday evening.

The process was painless, just the dilation effect and the pressure of the lens pushing at the eye and the bright light that you have to stare at. It took about 10-15 mts and left me blurry and a little dry in the eye. The blurriness was from the dilation and cleared completely after about 4 hrs. There was some soreness in the eye and that went away in that time too. It is the next morning and the annoying floater is gone. The smaller pieces that Dr.Chaudhri said I would still see are negligible. I do see them in bright light but they are few and far between and I am not bothered by them. My life is back to normal.

I think I was lucky that the floater I had was a good candidate for laser and I had a great result. Obviously everyone needs to make their own decision after weighing the pros and cons.

If anyone has any questions, I will try to answer the best I can.

Good Luck!

Edited 1 time by kayyaan Sep 9 14 3:33 PM.