Laser eye surgery continues to be tried and tested over its 23 many years of existence. Over 36,000,000 LASIK procedures have been performed around the world, and nobody has lost a watch from getting the procedure. The danger related to laser eye surgery is under that associated with contact lenses, and as far as infection goes, it represents a little one-time risk, instead of the ongoing chance of infection with contacts.

Laser eye surgery's safety has been experimented with and assessed by government and military organisations such as the US Navy, the Australian Army, and NASA. Their investigations reveal that blade-free LASIK (ie. developing a corneal flap with a femtosecond laser) is safe and approved for that SAS, Top Gun pilots and NASA astronauts.

Professional sportspeople also have used lasek to ensure their best performance around the field. This includes sportspeople such as Padraig harrington and David Beckham, whose vision correction procedures undoubtedly allows them to perform at their peak.

Even with this kind of exceptional safety profile however, lasek is still surgery, and for that reason will invariably have the possibility for complications. Such complications are generally rare and always manageable though, that we will discuss below.

Enhancement:
LASIK surgical treatment is performed around the eye, an organic tissue. Although the procedure is very accurate, there is an average 3-4% risk the correction is going to be decent although not absolutely optimal. In these cases, I usually hold out 3 months to guarantee the stability from the residual glasses prescription, then lift the same corneal flap created earlier to "fine tune" the procedure's outcome. These enhancements are minor corrections, and therefore are therefore better. A great benefit of laser eye surgery is the fact that, although highly stable in the long run, should anyone experience any refraction shift in their vision, enhancements like these can be at just about any time in the future.

lasik surgery consultation

Risk of infection:
As i've already explained, the rate of infection as a result of lasek procedures is very low, far less than infections caused by contact lenses. Corneal scarring caused by infection occurs less than this, for a price of less than 1 in 20,000. Even if this occurs, it is correctible having a corneal transplant. Like a corneal subspecialist, I've performed lots of corneal transplants, but have never had to perform one for this reason.

Corneal flap issues:
Blade LASIK introduced the risk of creating an abnormal flap (such as a buttonhole flap). However, blade-free (femtosecond laser) LASIK eliminates this risk altogether, and for this reason enhanced safety, it's the only form of lasek I perform.

With blade-free lasek, inflammation underneath the flap can sometimes occur (this is called diffuse lamellar keratitis), and can be managed by an increase in anti-inflammatory eye drops. If cells around the cornea grow (epithelium - a really rare occurence), they'll generally absorb and disappear. When they ever proliferate, the flap can be lifted and the offending cells removed.

Dry Eye:
Temporary dry eye phenomenon is made when the nerves of the cornea are cut, which occurs during lasek. It can take about 3 months for these nerves to regenerate. During this period I'd advise replenishing the tear film with lubricating drops.

Ectasia:
Ectasia is fortunately a very rare occurrence by which laser vision correction causes the cornea being too pliable, and therefore bulges forward with time. Extreme cases of ectasia have been corrected by corneal transplantation, however fortunately pre-operative screening of patients has grown in accuracy, meaning candidates unsuitable for laser eye surgery are nearly always identified before the procedure. Recent advances in the technique of collagen cross-linking also permits us to stop this rare complication from progressing further, and lets the patient maintain their vision while avoiding a cornea transplant. I'm one of few eye surgeons around australia who's experienced within this and may perform it in my surgery, however haven't required to perform it on my own patients.

local lasik centers

Glaring and Halos:
Following the procedure, patients sometimes see starbursts or halos around lights in the night. This really is usually due to the corneal flap dehydrating and stabilising, which is rare to see this phenomenon persist longer than about a week.

Quality of vision:
The majority of patients feel that their vision after laser eye surgery is better than their vision with glasses or contacts before the operation. There's always a very small minority who experience visual quality less crisp than their pre-operative vision, but this situation is usually rectified by laser enhancement.

Laser eye surgery's proven and maintained track record of safety, accuracy and efficiency make it the clear treatment for becoming independent from contacts or glasses. Recent advances in blade-free femtosecond LASIK takes this to new levels, and surely represents the height of eye surgery and vision correction.