Corrective Eye Surgery

A corrective eye surgey operation has three phases, the preoperative phase, the operation itself, and the postoperative phase. In order to get the best results of your corrective eye surgery, you'll want to follow exactly what the doctor says for you to do before and after the operation. Let's review what might be instore for you, if you decide to have eye surgery, like LASIK.

Corrective Eye Surgery and Contact Lenses

If you normally wear soft contact lenses, then your doctor will probably tell you to stop wearing them 5 to 21 days before your surgery. If you're a hard contact lens wearer, then you'll probably have to stop a whole 6 weeks before your surgery. Plus another six weeks for every three years you've worn hard lenses. Now, don't do this on your own. Consult your physician.

Before the corrective eye surgery, your doctor will examine your cornea with a device called a pachymeter. This will determine the thickness of the cornea. Also, a device called a topographer will use lasers to create a topographic map of the surface of your cornea. This is done in order to detect astigmatism and other irregularities. This information is used by your surgeon to figure out how much corneal tissue to remove.

Finally, most doctors will prescribe an antibiotic before surgery to lessen the chances of any infections.

The Corrective Eye Surgery Operation

Patients are usually awake during these operations, although they are usually sedated. There are three steps to a LASIK operation 1) flat creation 2) remodeling of the cornea and 3) repositioning of the flap. Let's look at each of these.

• Flap Creation: The eye is immobilized and a flap is cut by either a special knife or a laser. The flap is folded back, which reveals the stroma, the middle section of the cornea.


• Remodeling: Next an Excimer laser is used to remodel the stroma. The laser vaporizes the tissue without harming surrounding tissue.


• Flap Repositioning: Finally, the flap is carefully repositioned back over the cornea and checked for bubbles. The flap naturally stays in place until the tissue has grown back together.

Corrective Eye Surgery Postoperative Care

Normally, you're given antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drops. This continues for a few weeks after surgery. Your doctor will probably tell you to get a lot more sleep than you normally do. Also, you'll be give a darkened eye shield to prevent you from rubbing your eyes in your sleep. If you follow your doctor's orders completely, you'll greatly increase your chances of having problem free corrective eye surgery.

Corrective Eye Surgery Satisfaction

Corrective eye surgery is no different from any other surgery. The outcome is not 100% guaranteed. When you do a procedure like LASIK, your doctor is actually using a laser to reshape your cornea. Mistakes can be made (although rarely), and also results can differ because everyone is different. People who are farsighted sometimes have slightly different results and healing times that people who are nearsighted. If you're considering corrective eye surgery, then you need to know what potential problems might lie ahead, how severe they are, and what percentage of patients have them. That way you can make the best informed decision.

Surveys of patients who had undergone LASIK style corrective eye surgery have found that by far most patients are very satisfied with the results of their operation. Indeed, about 92-98 percent of those surveyed were satisfied with their results. In March, 2008, the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery looked at the data in 19 studies comprising 2,200 patients and found a 95.4% satisfaction rate.

Corrective Eye Surgery Safety

As far as safety of corrective eye surgery procedures like LASIK, you have to make up your own mind, but here are some studies and results you might want to consider. Although in 2003, the Medical Defense Union (MDU), Britain's largest insurer for doctors, reported a 166% increase in the number of claims involving laser corrective eye surgery, the MDU reported that most of these claims stemmed from patients' unrealistic expectations.

In October of 2006, WebMD did a statistical analysis of LASIK cases and determined that contact lens wearers have more chance of getting eye infections that recipients of the LASIK procedure. According to that study, daily contact lens wearers have a 1/100 chance of serious eye infection over a period of 30 years. They also have a 1/2,000 chance of vision loss as a result of infection. The risks of significant vision loss through LASIk is more like 1/10,000. As you can see, there's quit a difference. LASIK surgery is much safer than wearing contacts over a period of a lifetime. Yet no one worries about wearing contacts.

Corrective Eye Surgery Patient Dissatisfaction

There are patients who report dissatisfaction with the outcomes of their LASIK treatments. Of course, this is probably true for any kind of surgery. A good eye clinic will do a full medical eye exam before surgery, and also give good post-operative patient care. This can minimize the risk of negative outcomes of corrective eye surgery.