Monthly Archives: October 2013

Problems After Lasik Eye Surgery

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Here are some of the first questions to ask your eye surgeon, concentrate first on questions about problems after Lasik eye surgery : Ask your eye surgeon about the things that might go wrong when operating on the eye.

Problems After Lasik Eye Surgery

Not every Lasik or refractory operation is successful after the first time. You want to know what the success rate of your prospective eye surgeon is. Small problems after Lasik eye surgery are usually resolved in the first six months, so ask what the reported complications are six month after.

Specifically ask about not only the clinical complications that the eye surgeon himself diagnoses, but also about subjective concerns of patients. That can i.e. be halos, starbursts, dry eyes or other complaints.

It’s generally accepted, that the number of patients that have problems after Lasik eye surgery and complain about it after 6 months are about 3%, a relatively small percentage. If your surgeon is vague and seems to hesitate to give you hard numbers, or even talks of none, be careful. Also if the number is significantly lower, ask for proof, just like in any other profession or procedure, total perfection is impossible…

Tricks To Keep Problems After Lasik Eye Surgery Low…

One way of keeping this number very low is by keeping complicating cases away and only accepting easy surgery. Also, some patients are simply not suited to refractive surgery and need to be told so, becaus it would cause more damage than help and a good surgeon will not hesitate to decline an operation in such cases.

So an other very good follow-up question is to ask, how many patients are turned away by your surgen. He will certainly not volonteer this number, but as long as you don’t get the annswer ‘None at all’, this is OK. If however you’re told ‘none’ then the red warning lights must go on immediately!

There are plenty more questions to ask your eye surgeon. Problems after Lasik eye surgery are a fact, and you should be aware that there is a risk, but you can try to lower it by carefully chosing your eye surgeon.

Outcome Of Lasik Eye Surgery

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The outcome of Lasik eye surgery is generally good, but like any other procedure, there is no 100% success rate, not even for Lasik eyes surgery!  Here are a few more questions to ask your eye surgeon before Lasik eye surgery:

Measurign Your Vision Before Lasik Eye Surgery

Let’s first explain how your vision is measured with the Snellen test, that’s the chart that we all know and the test that we have certainly all performed at least once in our lives: The Hughe ‘E’ on top, and then consecutively smaller letters further down. The chart is usually set up on a wall 20 feet away.

To determine what the vision of a person is, two numbers are used, separated with a slash.

‘20/20‘ means that the person is able to see a letter from 20 feet away with the same clarity that a normal sighted person can see it. (20 feet for me, same as 20 feet for normal sight).

‘20/40‘ means that the patient can see soemthing 20 feet away with the same clarity that a person with normal vision can see when it’s 40 feet away. Means before an item becomes clear this person needs to approach a lot closer. This is worse than normal vision.
‘20/10‘ means that the patient can see something 20 feet away with the same clarity that a person with normal vision can see when it’s 10 feet away. Means an item becomes clear way before normal people can distinguish details, eagles eyes! 20/10 is better than normal vision.

Ask your eye surgeon what the percentage of people is that reach 20/40 vision or better. It’s the accepted norm, that about 90% of the patients reach this value. If you are told a higher number, you should ask for proof. Follow up with a second question and ask how many reach normal vision (20/20), or even better, after the operation. The normal percentage for this outcome is about 50%.

What Could Diminish The Success Of Lasik Eye Surgery For You:

Also be aware, that if today before the operation your own correction in diopter corresponds to one of the conditions below, the probability to reach an uncorrected normal vision of 20/20 is lower, and you are certainly not an ideal candidate for for refractive surgery. If your eye surgeon tells you differently, look for an other one.

  • Higher than 10.00 diopter (myopia = you are unable to see objects far away, also called nearsighted or shortsighted)
  • More than +3.00 diopter (hyperopia = you are unable to see near objects, also called farsighted or longsighted)
  • Astigmatism greater than 2.00 diopter (astigmatisme = uneven radius of the cornea that results in distorted images)

Before you decide to have Lasik eye surgery, consider these facts, sometimes glasses or contacts are a better solution than Lasik eye surgery!