The effect of astigmatism – which may be very effectively cured by laser eye surgery – is to blur vision. The Alcon Wavelight Refractive Suite used by Eyesite surgeon Dr Simon Levy is capable of treating up to 5 dioptres of astigmatism – a truly enormous amount!.
The surgical procedure is deceptively simple – in essence Lasik requires a flap to be made in the cornea with either a Femtosecond laser or a device called a Microkeratome, the flap subsequently lifted to allow the region of the cornea at its base to be treated with the excimer laser. This laser emits ultraviolet light of exactly the correct wavelength to vaporise the cornea tissue without any heating or scaring. The amount and shape of the cornea tissue ablated (vaporised or removed) by the excimer laser is determined with exquisite computer-controlled accuracy such that a precisely defined new shape is provided to the cornea tissue. Since the cornea is the prime focusing component of the eye (no, not the lens inside the eye which is mainly used for focusing close objects and contributes less to distance focus than the cornea – read Eyesite.org’s ‘How your eyes work’ to understand more about this) providing a new shape for the cornea will adjust its function as a lens and so change the focus of the eye. Incidentally the outer part of the flap, which is not itself treated with the excimer laser, is replaced by folding it back onto the surface of the ablated cornea. Because it is thin (generally only 100 microns or less, thats less than 0.1mm!) it will drape and mould itself into the new cornea shape.
All refractive laser eye surgery technologies, whether flap-based such as Lasik or surface-based such as Lasek and epi-Lasik, are performed with the help of local anaesthetic eye drops – no injections are ever needed! By the way, laser eye surgery cannot be done under general anaesthesia – something that patients do sometimes request from time to time! Eyesite’s surgeon Dr Simon G Levy is often asked ‘does laser eye surgery hurt when you do the procedure’. The answer is ‘no’. You may feel pressure but this only lasts for a few seconds and the powerful anaesthetic eye drops used numb the eye very effectively. So….dont worry! Siimultaneous bilateral Lasik or Lasek normally require fifteen minutes or thereabouts from start to finish and, very importantly the reader will be reassured to learn that it is not possible to see the surgery being done on yourself! Laser vision correction surgery does not require an eye patch or cover to be worn after the procedure, but an overnight contact lens is usually applied after Lasik (or the surface eye laser treatments such as Lasek and epi-Lasik) to assist healing. It is removed a day or two after the procedure.
Most patients opt to have bilateral Lasik (both eyes done at the same time) but single-eye surgery is perfectly acceptable if you prefer. However you should remember that this requires two trips to the laser eye surgery centre and that in between the two operations you will not have ideal vision as one eye will have had vision correction surgery and not need glasses whilst the other will be untreated and will not see nearly as well. You will not have pain after Lasik eye laser surgery, although the situation is different after Lasek which is unpleasant (but manageable!) for a couple of days after the procedure. As with all medical treatments there are risks associated with eye laser surgery but complications, especially significant complications, are rare. Dry eye is probably the best known problem associated with eye laser surgery. It is probably slightly more frequent after Lasik than the surface treatments Lasek and epi-Lasik. The problem usually passes with time and patients use lubricated eye drops until they get better. A final point – laser eye surgery like all other types of eye surgery is ‘horses for courses’. By this, the writer means that eye laser refractive surgery is designed to treat short or long-sight. If you have another problem, for example age related macular degeneration or diabetic retinopathy, then you will need help from an entirely different type of eye laser procedure or even completely different technology such as Lucentis injections.
For more information on eye laser surgery and refractive eye surgery done using Eyesites’ customised lens implants, called our office on 020 8951 1951 or email using the button on the Eyesite.org home page.
