The Lasik Procedure
By M. Jedediah
Lasik is basically a two-phase process. The first phase is the pre-operative phase, while the second phase is the procedure itself. The pre-operative phase of varies for different patients. While some may be asked to stay without their contact lenses for a week, in some cases the timeline may extend to 10 days.

The pre-operative phase is vital to the success of the procedure in its entirety, as it helps the patient prepare for life without glasses or contact lenses, while enabling doctors to examine the shape of the patient’s cornea and determine the kinds of irregularities existing, if any. This helps the doctor know if the patient suffers from astigmatism, a distortion of the shape of the cornea that results in poor vision.

The examination of the cornea itself is a scientific process that involves using a scanner, controlled by a computer to create a map of the patient’s cornea by shooting low-power lasers at it. Once the corneal surface has been mapped, the surgeon works out the different parameters critical to the success of the surgery. These include the amount of tissue to be removed from the cornea, the location of the tissue, and other related parameters. During this phase, the doctor usually advises the patient to use a mild antibiotic. This step is taken to ensure that there are minimal chances of an infection after the actual procedure.

The operation itself is quite simple, and is performed using a local anesthetic.

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This is usually an eye drop, and the patient remains awake during the procedure. Depending on the requirements of the patient, and also his general physical condition, the surgeon may opt for general anesthesia. However, this is an exception, and is not done usually.

The surgeon first uses the microkeratome to make an incision into the cornea. Other choice of application may be a femtosecond laser. Afer making the incision, the surgeon next cuts out a flap of the cornea at the appropriate location which he has determined from his studies of the corneal surface during the pre-operative phase.

Cutting out the flap of the cornea exposes the mid-section of the cornea, the stroma. The third step in the process involves the surgeon realigning the stroma using an excimer laser. During this entire process, a computer continuously monitors the position of the eye itself. The computer operates at very high speeds; the computer tracks the eye movement up to 4,000 times per second.After realigning the stroma, the surgeon places back the flap of cornea.

As seen above, offers numerous advantages to patients and surgeons. However, it is not totally without side effects. While the complications are not commonplace, they do exist. There are quite a few complications related to lasik, and while all of them are not seen in a patient, different patients may exhibit different symptoms, or a combination of symptoms.

A patient, during the post-operation phase, may sometimes experience starbursts when he is near a light source. The patient sees this kind of an illusion usually in the form of a halo. Other common side effects include double vision, a wrinkling of the corneal flap, induced astigmatism, which is basically secondary astigmatism (the patient may not have had astigmatism prior to the operation), sensitivity to light, under- or over-correction of the corneal defect, fluctuation in visual acuity, and also decentered ablation.

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