LASIK Eye Surgery Procedure

Before the procedure begins, anaesthetic numbing drops are applied to your eyes. Once your eyes are completely numbed, your LASIK surgeon will use a laser to create a thin corneal flap, which is typically less than the thickness of one human hair. Your surgeon gently folds the flap back to expose the cornea. A computer-controlled laser then emits cool pulses of light to reshape the cornea to your individual vision correction needs. Lasers are used during vision correction procedures as they are incredibly precise in the permanent removal of microscopic cells of tissue that are causing the patient’s vision problem. The flap is then laid back over the cornea and begins to heal immediately. Our 100% bladeless procedure, from start or finish, takes less than 15-minutes for both eyes, offers minimal discomfort, and fast recovery. In fact, most patients return to work or normal activities within less than 24 hours. Patients notice an immediate improvement in their vision, which improves as the eye continues to heal.

(Bladed vs. Bladeless LASIK)

While LASIK is one form or technique of laser vision correction, there are differences in the way the epithelial flap can be created during the LASIK procedure. “Standard LASIK” involves the use of a bladed microkeratome to create the flap. “Bladeless LASIK”, also referred to as iLASIK™, IntraLASIK™, or all-laser LASIK uses cool pulses of light emitted by a femtosecond laser to create the flap instead of the bladed microkeratome. LasikPlus uses 100% bladeless LASIK for the flap creation. At LasikPlus, we have opted to perform 100% bladeless LASIK eye surgery as it allows the surgeon more flexibility to plan and execute an individualized and customized procedure for each patient.

Bladeless LASIK is different from PRK. PRK is a type of corneal preparation where the cornea is exposed for treatment by the epithelial cells being gently removed from the front of the eye. While a blade isn’t used, it is different from what is known as bladeless LASIK. You can read more about PRK here.

Standard or conventional LASIK uses the patient’s prescription alone as the guide to treating a patient’s refractive error – nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism. Custom LASIK refers to computer-optimized LASIK and uses the “wavefront” technology to measure the eye from front to back and creates a three-dimensional (3-D) image or mapping of the eye. This corneal mapping, which is like the fingerprint of each patient’s eye, allows your LASIK surgeon to not only treat the refractive error but the higher-order aberrations – the peaks and valleys of the cornea. These aberrations include poor night vision, glares and haloes, starbursts, and low-contrast vision problems. With computer-optimized technology, we can actually soften that transition to recreate the round shape of the cornea. It can decrease the chance of getting glares and halos. It’s better for patients and better for maintaining the stability of the procedure afterward. To learn more about Custom LASIK, please read the article, What is Custom LASIK by LasikPlus Dallas LASIK surgeon, Dr. Robert Smith.

This is one of the most commonly asked questions about LASIK eye surgery.

With more than 40 million procedures having been performed worldwide and close to 20 million being in the US, LASIK is one of the most popular and studied elective procedures performed. The high rate of patient satisfaction with visual outcomes, as well as the percentage of patients that refer their friends, family, and co-workers to have LASIK is largely due to the very low complication rate and risk factors associated with LASIK. From a statistical perspective, recent studies report that the rate of infection found in one year of extended contact lens use led to three times the infection rate (microbial keratitis) when compared to LASIK.

• LASIK is one of the most studied elective surgical procedures in the world. To date, more than 7,000 clinical studies on LASIK have been conducted. The tremendous amount of published data supports the safety and effectiveness of the LASIK procedure.
• Many patients report their vision after LASIK is better than the vision they had with their glasses or contacts.
• LASIK eye surgery may be a better vision solution than contact lenses. Contact lenses require significant daily care. Without this daily care, contact lenses could lead to eye infections, some of which could be eye-health and even vision threatening. Not to mention, this ritual can just be a time-consuming pain. After the short period of LASIK recovery, there isn’t any daily maintenance to have to worry about.
• In the more than 40 million procedures performed worldwide, LASIK has never been the reported primary, exclusive cause of blindness.

One of the most important factors in making the decision if LASIK eye surgery is right for you is to know you are a safe candidate for the procedure. Advances in laser vision correction mean more and more people are safe candidates for the procedure, but the best way to know if you are a good candidate for the procedure is to have a comprehensive LASIK eye examination by a team of LASIK specialists. At LasikPlus, we make this comprehensive examination FREE to interested patients. We use a full range of diagnostic equipment, some of which is specific to determining your candidacy for LASIK and some of which would have been used by an optometrist during a routine eye examination. Our goal is to ensure precise diagnosis and measurements so we can provide you with a customized treatment plan for your individual and unique vision correction needs.

Some factors considered when determining LASIK candidacy include:

• Vision prescription ranges and stability. While many people think their prescription, whether nearsighted, farsighted, or astigmatism, will be too high for them to qualify for LASIK, this is usually not true. Prescription alone is not the only factor in determining candidacy, so even if you have a high prescription, you should be seen for a LASIK examination. We frequently hear patients say they didn’t think they were going to be a candidate because they had astigmatism, but LASIK has been effectively correcting astigmatism for years.
• General eye health. There are some eye health problems such as glaucoma or keloid scarring that may prevent a patient from being a candidate.
• Corneal thickness. For a small number of people, their corneas are too thin to either allow the creation of a flap. If this precludes them from having LASIK, they may still be candidates for PRK, another type of laser vision correction.

In most cases, the results provided by LASIK eye surgery are permanent; however, there are rare instances where some regression of the improved vision presents the need for an enhancement laser vision correction procedure. At LasikPlus, patients can feel peace of mind with our Lifetime Advantage Plan. This plan provides medically appropriate re-treatments, free of charge for life to help you maintain your best-achieved vision results.

Immediately upon sitting up from your procedure you will notice improvements in your vision. These improvements will only continue to improve over the days following the procedure. You will be asked to take a nap once you get home after your procedure. While the eye will start to heal right away, taking a nap will help facilitate the initial healing. You will be able to see better when you wake from your nap, but we do recommend relaxing for the remainder of the day. A majority of patients are seeing 20/20 the morning after your procedure and most patients return to work and most of their daily activities, including driving. Over the course of the following few weeks, you may notice slight fluctuations in your vision, which are a normal part of the healing process.

Prescribed anti-inflammatory and antibiotic drops, as well as lubricating drops used following the procedure, will facilitate a faster recovery with minimal discomfort.

The short answer is no, LASIK surgery doesn’t hurt. The eye can actually be numbed with drops alone, so one of the beauties of LASIK is that no other sedation is needed. No heavy sedatives, no injections, just eye drops! The most you would feel is some mild pressure. After your LASIK procedure, you may experience some sensitivity and dryness, similar to having a dry contact in your eye. The prescribed drops will help alleviate this feeling.

We understand that the concept of having someone do something to your eyes can be unsettling, but rest assured, you don’t experience pain. Since the eyes are easily numbed with anaesthetic numbing drops, you won’t feel pain. Being asleep during LASIK eye surgery would actually be detrimental as in order for the cool-pulses of laser light to reshape the cornea in the right places of your eye, you will be asked to focus on a blinking light during the very short procedure (less than a 60 seconds per eye).

Yes. Both Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Health Spending Accounts (HSA) are approved for LASIK as LASIK is considered a qualified medical procedure.

LASIK is the most commonly performed laser eye surgery to treat myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness) and astigmatism.

Myopia is the medical term for “nearsightedness”.  Being nearsighted means you can see near objects well without the use of glasses or contact lenses, but your distance vision is blurry.  Myopia affects about one out of every 3 or 4 people.

In order to correct nearsightedness with LASIK, the steep parts of the cornea, which cause the refractive error are flattened using cool pulses of ultraviolet light emitted by the laser, thus allowing light to focus directly on the retina in the back of the eye.

LASIK is the most commonly performed laser eye surgery to treat hyperopia (farsightedness), as well as myopia (nearsightedness) and astigmatism.

Hyperopia is the medical term for “farsightedness”.  Being farsighted means you can see far away objects well without the use of glasses or contact lenses, but your near vision is blurry. This is caused by the shape of the cornea being too flat, causing light to focus on a hypothetical point behind the retina.

The LASIK correction of farsightedness is accomplished by steepening the central cornea, thus allowing light to focus correctly on the retina. During the procedure, pulses of cool, ultra-violet light are emitted from a computer-guided Excimer laser to remove corneal cells according to your unique prescription.