An Unfinished Man’s Experience with Laser Eye Surgery

With the world population at 6 billion plus people, about 21 percent of the population wears corrective lenses. The people who need and wear corrective lenses know how much of a pain in the butt it is to carry out daily life. Enjoying sports or a leisure run through the park is made difficult with glasses on your face, bouncing everywhere, and fogging up from the heat created by your face and sweat. Yes, you can wear contacts but even contacts get annoying. Your eyes dry out quickly and if you work in dusty conditions, you’re SOL. Thank God the smart doctors of the optometrist industry came up with laser eye surgery.

The technique of sight correction was first developed in the 1950s by Jose Barraquer in Bogota, Colombia. He would cut thin (one-hundredth of a mm thick) flaps of the cornea to alter the shape. Long gone are the days of cutting into a cornea and advances in science have helped reshape the laser eye surgery industry. The first successful laser eye surgery was performed in 1989.

So now that we have a little bit of history under our belts, now to the good stuff. When a person is ready to take that leap and decides they want the freedom of perfect vision and no more nuisances of glasses, they have to decide which laser eye surgery is the best for them. Well, the optometrist decides which option is the best for the patient.

Since I have gone through the process of receiving Lasik eye surgery, the reader will be able to relate with me as to what I had to go through. The first step is deciding to go through the procedure. The biggest question mark when it comes to doing it is age. As a person gets older their sight stabilizes and then it can stay stable or deteriorate. Some surgeons say to wait until the age of 26, as that is when a person’s sight is most stable. I have seen people as young as 19 receive the surgery. It all depends on the surgeon you choose. It’s a big step in my opinion and I was a bit scared to take that feat.

The second step is to go to the preferred location and surgeon of your choice and spend about half an hour to forty-five minutes of tests on your eyes. The process is very thorough and pain-free. This is where they decide if the patient requires PRK corrective surgery (no cutting of the cornea flap, laser correction right on top of the cornea to shape the cornea) or Lasik corrective surgery (cutting of the cornea flap and correcting with laser and then putting the cornea flap back on). Depending on the thickness of your cornea, your surgeon will let you know which is best for you.

The third step is to go under the laser and receive the laser eye surgery. As with both surgeries, they are very fast, less than 5 minutes per eye. As you lay down on the table, the surgeon uses eye drops to numb the eyes and your heart starts to race a little bit. As the surgeon tells you to relax and look at the red dot, you cringe as you know the process is about to begin. With Lasik eye surgery, the technology has changed over the years and recently they have been using what’s called the Intralase technology. Before they would use a blade to cut the corneal flap move it aside and then use the laser to shape the cornea. With this new technology, no blade is needed to cut the corneal flap. Instead, Intralase uses computer-guided ultrafast short-light pulse technology to create microscopic bubbles within the cornea at a predetermined level. Thousands of these bubbles are precisely positioned next to each other causing the corneal tissue to separate. This process of photo disruption allows a corneal flap of exact diameter, depth, hinge position, and location to be created. Then the Lasik laser is used to shape the cornea, followed by the corneal flap being placed over the cornea. After the procedure, your vision is blurry but the results are immediate. Recovery time is anywhere from 24 hours to a couple of days.

The PRK procedure is the same as Lasik as it is quick but recovery time is anywhere from 10-15 days. With PRK, the surgeon numbs your eyes and then scrapes the cornea. Vision is blurry and the laser is shot into the eye as the laser shapes the cornea. You smell the burning of your cornea with both procedures. The smell of burning flesh is nauseating and hopefully, you have a strong stomach. Just as with Lasik, after the PRK procedure, vision is a little blurry but the change is immediate.

After having the eye surgery, I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s been a year since I’ve had it done and I love it. I would recommend anyone wearing glasses to seriously consider it as it is liberating and will allow you to do so much that you couldn’t do before, for a great place to get laser eye surgery procedure performed, check out Laser Sight and their various treatment options.