EYE CARE – LASIK TREATMENT

What is Lasik?

LASIK stands for Laser In Situ Keratomileusis. Its name refers to reshape the cornea without the invasion of neighboring cell layers. It is one of the most commonly performed refractive procedures in India as well as United States. It is a vision correction procedure that is used to correct refractive errors of the eye. LASIK is a variant of excimer laser photorefractive keretectomy (PRK). Despite being a new procedure, LASIK has become increasingly common surgery amongst patients who opt to treat refractive errors.

LASIK is capable of correcting wide range of nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. LASIK combines the precision of excimer laser that is used for PRK procedures with the flap technique that characterizes ALK. With LASIK, there is less scarring of the cornea in the long run with better stability of correction.

The procedure consists of two parts which are creation of flap and correction of vision.

BENIFITS OF LASIK

• During LASIK procedure, removal of corneal surface tissue is not necessary and hence the pain after the procedure is very much reduced compared to PRK.

• Postoperative visual acuity gets restored only few days after the procedure rather than weeks.

• The effects of LASIK are permanent, they do not wear off. But it is important to note that a person’s eye can still change internally during the lifetime. This is the reason why LASIK is not recommended for children as their eyes undergo different changes in the early years.

• The downtime with LASIK procedure is minimal. The patient can resume normal activities immediately after the procedure. Majority of the patients are able to achieve good vision only a day after the surgery and find that their eyes feel fairly normal within a day.