Owner of a gym and jiu jitsu master, Matt lives a very active lifestyle. He came to Chu Vision for a solution to get out of his contacts. Dr. Chu suggested PRK over LASIK so Matt wouldn’t have to worry about a LASIK flap, and he could quickly go back to living his life to the fullest. Now he is 20/20 and thrilled with his results!
Matt’s story contains video of the PRK procedure.
Transcription:
my name is matt groves and i had prk done on both eyes [Music]
i run a gym and i’ve been doing that for eight years as hobbies go i have always been athletic whether it’s jiu jitsu sand volleyball i run all those things i play golf so vision was really important to me i’ve been married gonna be four years and we have a dog bibi who’s awesome i had contacts since i was probably 16 15 somewhere in there uh and i got glasses when i was probably about 12 or so when i couldn’t see the white board and i just thought it was everyone couldn’t see i was just squinting a bunch and then i got into contacts as fast as i could because i was in high school sports things of that nature my biggest frustration with contacts was taking them out because i used to wear monthlies and every night you have that dreaded my routine the five to ten minute routine of gotta take my contacts out find the case all the things and especially when you’re super tired it’s like the last thing you want to do so i moved to dailies which was kind of nice because you could just pull them out but it was still just every day a new piece new piece of plastic you’d have to open it felt very wasteful and so to just be able to see is amazing uh the the way i knew now was the time was i wasn’t broke um but i had an hsa that i was able to use to contribute to you know to this cost of the procedure um but i just kind of got fed up with it it was you just do it enough times and it felt like something i’ve always wanted to do and uh finally i was like oh i get to do do the procedure so chu vision uh they were um recommended to me by a by my eye doctor actually i had two consults i went with one place that a bunch of people in my network had gone to and then i figured i’ll just get one more consult for why not just to do my due diligence and when i came here i was it was not even close i was like i’m going there it wasn’t like a lasik mill where you walk in and they’re like all right what’s your prescription they look at your eyes all right great we’ll schedule you next month i came in for my initial consult it’s probably like 75 minutes i was going to get lasik and then i met dr chu and he asked me like what my hobbies were what i was interested in what my lifestyle was and be based off of that conversation like sitting down and just him listening to me he recommended prk so that’s why i went with prk and that’s why i’m here the way i know it which might not be correct was uh prk is um they like just blast off part of your eyeball right and then just grows back and it’s better where lasik has the flap prk i think has more integrity long term where i was in uh jiu jitsu i was a little nervous about having some sort of like you know accidental contact to my eyeball and he was like that’s something that you might want to mitigate against that risk and then you’re talking to prk yeah laser day uh you’re a little nervous of course because you’re gonna shoot an eyeball with a laser and you’re like i’m gonna see better after this you walk in you’re greeted by a nurse they take you back and they ask you a bunch of questions if you’re ready for prep all those things they ask if you want a warm blanket obviously you do they ask you if you want the laser gator obviously you do and it’s the easiest thing in the world even though everything in your head tells you that you should be nervous uh once you’re on the other side of it it’s it’s so much easier i remember the first thing i said when i sat up was that was it like what was i afraid of i think the whole procedure took me like five minutes my wife is very diligent in regards to researching stuff i’m a little bit more kind of just go with the flow sort of deal you go on google you hear about you read about prk and it says recovery time is longer it’s really painful all those things i didn’t have any of that uh pain was non-existent i actually went to a concert like two days post-op which probably isn’t recommended but i just went for it but in regards to pain and discomfort incredibly mild compared to what you read it was kind of nice to have like the day of the surgery right when you’re you’re out of the surgery you can see and then they’re like it’s gonna get worse from here and then even then it was just mild discomfort you gotta wear sunglasses sometimes and then after like three days it’s smooth sailing as long as you stay on top of the drops i first noticed the change in vision when i would wake up in the middle of the night and just crack like one eye open and i could see out of it and i kept thinking i fell asleep with my contacts again surely i did and then you have that moment where you realize oh right i got that laser surgery and i’m just going to be able to see now after prk it’s much easier to do the hobbies that i want to do because with jiu jitsu if you wear a contact you’re going to have times where there’s friction and the likelihood of you losing a contact is not super high but it’s high enough prk i can just get on the mat i don’t have to think anymore and that’s not even a concern whatsoever so it just makes life significantly easier sure the team at Chu vision was great during the process of the initial consult i met with two different people one being a doctor and then dr chu where they actually listened to me with what i do what my interests were and then fitting the surgery to me as opposed to the other way around the care along the way post-op the check-in process the nurses in pre-op the team during the surgery everybody looks like they’ve been doing this for decades and there was no point along the way where if i had a question i couldn’t ask it or if i ever had a concern a comment i could bring it up right away and there was someone answer it it was fantastic yeah everyone who has some sort of corrective wear i’m always like you should just get lasik like what are you doing it’s weird like i still haven’t wrapped my mind around like what life is now we’re like the new normal for vision um but yeah lasik or prk in my instance has been a game changer so my advice for someone who’s on the fence is don’t go with the buy one get one free sort of guy Chu vision has been awesome and to get this quality of help and this level of service has been fantastic and it’s when you compare that cost over the long run it’s not even a question
