Some Laser Eye Surgery Risks You Probably Didn’t Know about!
There seems to be no end to where technology can take us. We all think nothing of using home PCs and the Internet these days and if we are tired of using contacts or eyeglasses in many cases we can just have laser eye surgery performed to eradicate the problem.
Being able to stop having to worry about taking your eyeglasses with you everywhere and to avoid getting them broken are more than enough reasons for many people to undergo laser eye surgery.
On the other hand, like any other medical procedure or treatment, there are complications that can take place when having laser eye surgery.
Some of these complications are already well known about by the public at large; however this isn’t the case with all of them so we will try to shed some light on them here.
Possible Risks
Besides having over or under correction of the eyes, flap wrinkles, and infection as laser eye surgery risks, there have been more dangerous risks that are involved in undergoing such procedure and one of those is having central corneal islands in your eyes.
Central corneal islands are small areas of raised tissue that show up on the cornea when the laser used during surgery does not remove tissue uniformity. Thankfully this complication only happens to one percent of patients.
Depending on your case you may have the option to undergo more surgery to correct this problem, but if not you will probably have to wear correction lenses of some kind.
DLK or diffuse lamellar keratitis as it is known technically is another complication known to take place in eye surgery when foreign bodies manage to find themselves within the corneal flap.
Symptoms to this include but are not limited to: pain in the eyes, the sensation of something being trapped in the eye, unusually blurred eyesight and sensibility to bright lights.
If a patient finds him or her self subject to these symptoms, he or she should waste no time in contacting his or her doctor even if the surgery was performed a long time ago. Normally this can be remedied with the subscription of oral and topical medication.
Another complication that can take place after the surgery is the appearance of epithelial in-growths under the corneal flap. If this starts to occur vision can be affected significantly.
Also, there is the corneal ecstasia that may weaken the cornea and make it bulge after surgery. This occurs when the surgeon creates a deeper incision during the flap creation process then necessary or when he or she removes too much corneal tissue.
Unfortunately, for this type of laser eye surgery complication, it can only be put right with a corneal transplant.
Although all of these complications can take place, the reality is that they are very rare. Before deciding whether to have laser eye surgery performed one should research all the available data on these complications and then make up their decision whether or not laser eye surgery is worth the risk for them.
Filed under: Computers & Technology