PRK involves removing the corneal epithelium, creating a large abrasion that requires a contact lens bandage to facilitate healing over approximately four days.

“so we the way we do it is that the very front coating of the cornea is called the epithelium it's a very thin layer kind of like how thick is the epithelium there so it's a it's about again about uh 50 microns something like that 50 55 microns so it's got a basement membrane it's but it's about call it 50 microns so we remove that layer of cells with i the way i do it is with a solution of some eye drops of uh of alcohol and it just sloughs right off and it grows back”

“now i've removed your epithelium so now you have this let's say it's a seven or eight millimeter diameter area of your central cornea that has no epithelium it's like has a that's like having a big corneal abrasion essentially luckily we have drugs drops that can reduce the feeling of the foreign body sensation dramatically so we put those drops on the cornea put a contact lens over the eye like a band-aid it's really like a like a regular soft contact lens and then the epithelium begins to heal from the outside in and that takes 30 days no that takes about four days”