Is Lasik Safe?

Video Transcript

"I'm doctor Jim Kirkconnell of Bellevue Eye Care Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Lasik is a very popular procedure today. I have worked at a laser center, and you can't really talk about whether Lasik is a safe procedure without talking about how it's done. The way that it's done is either a blade which is a disposable Microcuretome is run across the cornea to create a flap or some doctor's actually have a separate laser to create the flap and the flap is lifted out of the way, and then energy is placed on the cornea to change its shape, and then the flap is laid back down. Within a day, the flap really is fairly stable, within a week, it's really stable. All the consequences with the Lasik revolve around the flap. You can have a foreign body be underneath the flap, that gets in there in the first day of post-op when you're just in the environment, and it works its way under. The thing that we don't like to see is called DLK, where you have epithelial cells which grow from the edge. That, all of these things are managed, they're managed either by giving someone more eye drops which are typically a steroid drop to calm it down, or if you have something which is growing underneath that is not responding, you can lift the flap and scrape i,t and the same thing is done for a foreign body that's under there, that you don't want, you have to lift the flap and take it off and then what happens is, when you put the flap back down, you're effectually starting over again as far as your post-op care. Post-op care is usually the next day, a week later, and a month later, if there's no complications at all. There are very, very few cases of someone actually losing their vision with Lasik, it's extremely rare. You do have situations where someone is not happy with their vision, after they go through the healing time. The healing time is basically something that takes one month per doctor of correction that's done. So, if you were minus three, then it's three months and then you want to see that your vision is stable for a certain period of time. If you're not happy with your vision, then you have something done which is called an enhancement, which means you have it done again, and the surgeon is able to lift the flap with an instrument, and then you have it done again. Something that's very rare once again, is to have someone, somebody actually lose an eye. I really don't think that's happened three times in the U.S. that they've, someone has actually lost an eye from Lasik. The thing that you can do to help yourself is to know that the surgeon has done at least fifty eyes, if not a thousand eyes. You go to a reputable surgeon, and that you keep your side of the bargain which is that you keep your follow ups. It's very important that you use the medications as you're asked to, and that you use a lot of lubrication for particularly the first three weeks, because your eye will not heal unless your eye is moist."