Are watery eyes normal after PRK?

What's normal

EyeWiki lists tearing along with light sensitivity and blurred vision as typical for days 1 to 3 after PRK. Eyes water because the exposed corneal nerves are firing, which is the same reflex that makes your eye stream when you get an eyelash in it.

Tearing usually tracks the pain curve. As the epithelium closes over roughly 3 to 5 days, per StatPearls, the nerve endings get covered and the watering drops off. Constant wiping is tempting but pressing on the eye is exactly what you are told not to do, so blot the cheek instead of the eye.

Confusingly, heavy tearing often gives way to dryness a week or two later. StatPearls lists dry eye as one of the most common complications after laser refractive surgery. Both phases are normal and they can even overlap, because reflex tearing and a poor tear film are not the same thing.

Heaviest days 0 to 3, easing as the surface closes around days 3 to 5, often replaced by dryness in weeks 2 to 8.

When it stops being normal

Clear watery tears are expected. Thick, yellow, green, or crusting discharge is not, and StatPearls notes that infection after PRK typically becomes apparent on postoperative days 2 to 4.

Call your surgeon if watering comes with increasing pain after day 3 or 4, with new redness, with discharge, or with vision that gets worse after it had been improving. Tearing that is simply heavy and easing over the first week is the normal pattern.