LASIK Side Effects

Every surgery carries risks – removing an ingrown toenail, removing a cyst from your earlobe, or even removing a wart from your feet.

Likewise with LASIK too. Here are some common LASIK side effects:


1. Flap-related Complications
Lasik surgery requires the creation of a flap, either by a blade or by laser. Many things can happen to this flap, that can potentially cause irreversible poor vision, including:

a) Incomplete cutting of flap with the blade method. The surgery will have to be aborted.b. Unable to lift the flap after laser separation with the fentosecond laser method.

b) Flap dislodging / displaced, many hours or many days after surgery. Have to return to clinic asap to put the flap back into position!

c) Flap striaes or folds that can occur if the flap is not placed back nicely or smoothly, or is disturbed.

d) Gas bubbles formation below the cornea, that can hinder and delay surgery.

e) Inflammation and/or infection between the flap and the cornea.


2. Cornea Ectasia
By cutting the cornea, the strength of the whole cornea architecture is actually weakened. This can cause  thecornea to go out of shape! Once the cornea is in an abnormal shape, the vision becomes blurry and distorted. This cannot be reversed! The only way to mitigate this and see better, is to use specialized hard lenses. The exact condition is keratectasia.


3. Dry Eyes
During the flap creation process, cornea nerves that run from the edges of the cornea towards the surface is being severed off. While doctors will sometimes say that their method of flap creation will keep the amount of nerves being cut off at a minimum. But who is to know? It is impossible to quantify cornea nerves before and after surgery. Once the nerves are cut off, the brain would not know that the cornea is dry, and thus cannot get the tear glands to supply tears to the cornea. Therefore, this causes or worsens existing dry eyes!

Epi-LASIK - A More Advanced Solution?