Generally, laser eye surgery is safe, but just like any other surgical procedure, it does involve certain complications. Although a large number of patients have been able to stop using their glasses after surgery and achieved a 20/40 vision or better, there are still some complications that could happen and should be taken into account before choosing laser eye surgery.

What Should I Expect From Laser Surgery
A few patients experience halos, glare, or double vision after surgery, which can be a serious night vision problem. Even if they have good vision on the vision chart, they might not see well at night, in fog, or in other situations of low contrast.

Only a small percentage of patients obtain 20/20 vision after surgery without glasses or contacts. You might need additional treatment in the coming years. Many types of LASIK eye surgery can leave scarred tissue, resulting in a vision lower than the one the patient used to experience before surgery. Over corrected or under corrected vision is also a common side effect of LASIK eye surgery. In such cases, you might still need glasses or contact lenses or another surgery for more effectiveness.

What are some of the severe complications of laser surgery?
After surgery, your eyes might not be able to produce enough tears for keeping moist. This not only produces discomfort, by can also reduce quality sight due to permanent blurring and other problems. It is usually treated with intensive eye drop therapy.

Choosing a experienced surgeon is helpful to make laser eye surgery safe, but there’s always the complication of post operative infection. In most cases, these infections can be treated with antibiotics and usually does not turn into long-term problems. However, more severe infections can result in temporary vision loss or even worse.

Laser surgery procedures that use a microkeratome blade to cut a flap involve the risk of cutting it off instead of leaving it hinged. If the flap is damaged, the patient might suffer vision loss. Successful procedures that use a blade can still leave small imperfections that can result in blurred vision. Newer technology that doesn’t involve cutting a flap from the corneal tissue, such as IntraLanse makes laser eye surgery safe. These procedures are more precise, but more expensive.

People who are pregnant, have diabetes, experience problems with binocular vision, have very dry eyes, thin corneas, are not good candidates for laser eye surgery. To make the right choice, talk to your doctor and discuss the pros and cons of several procedures and how would each of them respond to your needs.

Filed under: Eye Care

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