Lasik Eye Surgery

Lasik Eye surgery: What is it all about?

Lasik is perhaps the most popular laser eye in the industry. With more than a million procedures being performed every year, it has become one of the first procedures being considered when treating eye problems such as myopia or nearsightedness, hyperopia or farsightedness and astigmatism.

The term lasik is actually an abbreviated form of the scientific name of the procedure, laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis. It is a common refractive surgical procedure that great advantaged over other procedures. It involves less pain afterwards and results in a really good visual acuity a day or two after the procedure.

Lasik surgery is performed by creating a thin flap in the cornea with the use of a device called Microkeratome. The flap is folded back so that the surgeon can remove the corneal tissues underneath that cause much of the visual problems. The tissues are removed through the use of an instrument called the excimer laser, a laser that makes use of cool ultraviolet light to “ablate” or tiny amounts of tissue and to reshape it to the desired shape and thickness.

Removing excess corneal tissues allows the eye to focus better, thus providing clear vision that no longer need corrective glasses or contact lenses. After removing the desired amount of tissues, the flap is then used to cover the area where the surgeon removed some tissues. As mentioned before, nearsighted and farsighted people benefit the most from these procedure.

With patients with myopia, the cornea is too steep. The object of the procedure then is to flatten the too steep cornea. The opposite can be said of patients afflicted with hyperopia or farsightedness. These people need to have steeper cornea. Astigmatism can also be treated by lasik by smoothing irregular cornea into a more normal shape.

Although lasik surgery is relatively safe and has successfully treated eye problems without any complications hundreds and million times, the procedure is still not complication-free. Like all medical and surgical procedure, lasik surgery also involves risks and side effects that you also need to know before deciding to go ahead with the procedure.

Studies in the late 90s placed the rate of complications at 5 percent but because of the development of the practice as well as the information that has been gathered about it, surgeons and experts in the field insist that the risk rate can now be placed at one percent. This is because doctors now can determine which patients are able to undergo the procedure.

What to expect before

If you are planning to get a lasik surgery, it is important that you find out first if the procedure is appropriate for your eye problem. Although lasik works with eye problems such as myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism, there are patients that are not good candidates for this procedure mostly because of the thickness of the tissues in the cornea. Too thin tissues in the cornea may not be recommended for lasik.

Instead, patients should consider other refractive surgical procedures such as Laser Epithelial Keratomileusis or lasek and the epithelial Lasik, which are also similar to lasik but have minor differences. In Lasek, for instance, doctor will cut the flap in the epithelial area of the cornea instead of the stroma. The e-lasik on the other hand do not use alcohol, which can be very painful.