Details of a typical laser eye surgery

People who are bothered by the use and care of corrective eyeglasses or contact lenses may want to have a try on laser eye correction for normal vision. Nowadays, nearly everyone knows that laser eye correction could be used to treat primarily vision impairments such as myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. However, many people may have little information about “how does an eye surgery works”. Even if LASIK has been one of the better-known laser eye procedures, few patients know enough details about it. This article gives a brief introduction of the process of a typical laser eye surgery.

Pre-surgery consultation and examination

First of all, it is necessary for a patient to make an initial consultation with an eye surgeon, who will test the eyes for their suitability and compatibility with laser vision correction. Not all patients are good candidates to surgical eye treatment. People with any form of certain eye diseases may be precluded, including severe dry eye, glaucoma, diabetes and cataracts. Such a prior examination should not be skipped. During the consultation, patients will be probably told some general details of the surgery. For instance, the actual operation will normally last only a few minutes and only one eye will be treated at a time. It is predictable to experience vision improvement within 24 hours after the surgery.

Necessary preparation

In fact, there are mainly two phases involved in an eye surgery. One is mainly about preparation. Firstly, the patient will be placed in a reclining chair, which helps his or her eyes look straightly upward. Secondly, the patient’s eyes will be administered with anesthetic drops, which help relieve eye discomfort or ache during the surgical treatment. After that, the eyelids will be forced by a speculum to be open during the surgery. Next, suction will be used around the corneal area, which may cause slight discomfort.

Remove some corneal tissues

The other phase involves actual corneal treatment. All of the above preparation steps are just supposed to facilitate real corneal reshaping. The surgeon will first cut a thin, circular flap on the surface of the eye. This flap should be very precise. Through the access to the cornea under the flap, the surgeon will use a preprogrammed laser to cut some tissues on cornea. The amount of corneal tissues to be removed should be precisely measured in advance. This is exactly corneal reshaping. It is widely known that a refractive error like myopia or hyperopia is caused by an irregular lens shape. Reshaping the corneal surface on the lens can correct myopia or hyperopia permanently. The final step is to place back the corneal flap, which helps the cornea recover after the surgery.