Lasik Eye Surgery

What Should I Expect Before, During And After Surgery?

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What you should expect before, during, and after surgery may vary
slightly from patient to patient and from surgeon to surgeon; however, the information listed below is a general guideline for the LASIK process. Each patient may also have slightly different expectations, and it is important to talk to your eye doctor about these expectations before surgery.

Before surgery

Prior to any procedure, you will need a full eye examination by your eye doctor. This process will help determine if you are a good candidate for surgery and whether you have certain risk factors listed above. If you wear contact lenses, you should take them out for many days before your initial examination and use your glasses full-time. This is important because contact lenses will change the shape of your cornea, and if your cornea has not had enough time without the contact lenses, then the measurements taken before surgery may be inaccurate. You should discuss the amount of time you are required to be out of your contact lenses with the surgical center performing your evaluation.

During surgery

LASIK eye surgery normally takes less than 30 minutes to perform surgery on both eyes. You will be taken to the surgical suite and placed into a reclining chair or bed where you will lie on your back. The laser system consists of a microscope that is attached to a large machine and a computer screen.

After you are lying down and have been positioned underneath the laser, numbing eye drops will be placed in your eyes, and the area around your eyes will be cleaned thoroughly. After your surgical team, including your surgeons and assistants, have reviewed and confirmed all of your treatment information, a lid speculum will be placed to keep your eyelids open during the surgery. When it is time to create the LASIK flap, a suction device will be placed on your eye that will fixate it. During this period, you may feel pressure that may be somewhat uncomfortable, and your vision will go dark for a brief period of time. Your doctor will then use the microkeratome to create the corneal flap. After the flap has been created, the microkeratome will be removed, the suction will be off, and your vision will return, although it will likely remain blurry for the remainder of the procedure.

After surgery

As soon as the procedure is finished, you may notice that your eyes feel irritated, burn, itch, or feel like there is something in them. Your eyes will frequently water or tear excessively, and your vision will be somewhat blurry. The most important thing to avoid during this time is rubbing your eyes. Do not rub your eyes under any circumstances, as rubbing can dislocate or shift the corneal flap, which could require you to have an additional procedure to reposition it. Using copious artificial tears and resting with your eyes closed will most effectively ease these sensations. In some instances, there may be increased discomfort or even a mild degree of pain, for which your doctor may advise you to take a pain reliever. In most cases,nonstreroidal anti-inflammatory drug , such as ibuprofen , are enough to relieve the pain. In addition to artificial tears, you will have antibiotic drops and anti-inflammatory drops (steroids) to use beginning on the day of surgery that you will continue to use for days to weeks after surgery.

What Are The Advantages of LASIK Surgery?

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In summary, despite the risks outlined above, LASIK has been proven to be safe and effective for most people. With careful patient screening and selection, reasonable expectations, and in the care of an experienced surgeon, most patients will be very pleased with their results. These are some of the other advantages of LASIK:

LASIK is able to accurately correct most levels of myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), and astigmatism.

The procedure is fast, usually lasting only five to 10 minutes, and is generally painless.

Because the laser is guided by a computer, it is very precise and results are very accurate.

In most cases, a single treatment will achieve the desired outcome; however, enhancements are possible if needed, even many years after the initial surgery.

What are the risks of LASIK?

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LASIK has been shown to be a very effective procedure, and most patients are very happy with their vision following the procedure. However, like any surgical procedure, LASIK does come with some risks. In order for you to decide whether LASIK surgery is right for you, you need to be aware of potential risks and complications and weigh these carefully before proceeding with surgery.

1. You may be over-corrected or under-corrected. Most patients are satisfied with their vision after a single treatment, but in some cases, you may not achieve quality vision initially and need a second surgery, called an enhancement, to sharpen your vision. Patients with more extreme prescriptions are at higher risk for needing an enhancement. This enhancement cannot be performed for many months after your initial surgery to allow for your eyes to heal appropriately from the first surgery and for your eyeglass prescription to stabilize. In some rare cases, you may not be able to have an enhancement if your corneas are too thin or abnormally shaped after surgery.

2. You may still need glasses or contact lenses after surgery to achieve your best vision. This is extremely rare for the average person; however, it is something you should discuss with your surgeon. In addition, if both of your eyes are corrected for good distance vision, you will still need glasses for close work when presbyopia develops as a part of normal aging process.

3. Your results may not be permanent. Although uncommon, some patients do experience a regression of their desired treatment effect many years after the surgery. This is more common in patients with hyperopia, or farsightedness. Those who need reading glasses are especially prone to having changes in their vision after LASIK surgery. If regression does occur, it may be possible for you to have an additional surgery many years after your initial LASIK.

4. You may experience visual aberrations, especially in low light. Visual effects that can occur with LASIK and decrease visual quality include: anisometropia (difference in refractive power between the two eyes), aniseikonia (difference in image size between the two eyes), double vision, hazy vision, fluctuating vision during the day and from day to day, increased sensitivity to light, glare, shadows, and seeing halos around lights. These visual aberrations are extremely unusual; however, they may be incapacitating for some time and may not ever go away completely.

5. Dry eye symptoms may persist or get worse.
Most people experience some dry-eye symptoms immediately after surgery. In some cases, people may develop worsening of dry-eye symptoms, such as burning and redness, or even decreased vision, after surgery. This condition is occasionally permanent and may require medication to improve tear production or punctal plugs, which temporarily close off the drainage system for tears.

What is LASIK?

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LASIK stands for laser in situ keratomileusis, which means using a laser underneath a corneal flap (in situ) to reshape the cornea (keratomileusis). This procedure utilizes a highly specialized laser designed to treat refractive errors, improve vision, and reduce or eliminate the need for glasses or contact lenses. This laser procedure alters the shape of the cornea, which is the transparent front covering of the eye. Though the excimer laser had been used for many years before, the development of LASIK is generally credited to Ioannis Pallikaris from Greece around 1991.

How does LASIK work?

During the LASIK procedure, a specially trained eye surgeon first creates a precise, thin hinged corneal flap using a microkeratome. The surgeon then pulls back the flap to expose the underlying corneal tissue, and then the excimer laser ablates (reshapes) the cornea in a unique pre-specified pattern for each patient. The flap is then gently repositioned onto the underlying cornea without sutures.

What is refractive error?

In the human eye, the front surface (cornea) and lens inside the eye form the eye's "focusing system" and are primarily responsible for focusing incoming light rays onto the surface of the retina, much like the lenses of a camera focus light onto the film. In a perfect optical system, the power of the cornea and lens are perfectly matched with the length of the eye and images are in focus; any mismatch in this system is called a refractive error, and the result is a blurred image at some location.

What are the primary types of refractive error?

Myopia (nearsightedness): In people with myopia, the mismatch in focusing power and eye length causes distant objects to be blurry and near objects to be clearer.

Hyperopia (farsightedness): In people with hyperopia, the mismatch in focusing power and eye length causes near objects to be blurry and distant objects to be relatively clearer.

Astigmatism: In people with astigmatism, either the corneal or lens shape is distorted, causing multiple images on the retina. This causes objects at all distances to appear blurry. Many people have a combination of either myopia or hyperopia with astigmatism.