It is quite understandable that people still are uncertain about undergoing the surgery, wearing contact lenses or glasses may be somewhat of a pain but at the end of the day for the most part they do not really stop someone from getting on with their day-to-day lives.

Lots of folks who are on the fence as it were about laser eye surgery, read about the latest technology to dispel some myths and come to a conclusion that it is a reasonably safe procedure. At the end of the day we are taking a risk when you step out out all each morning, it is just a question of deciding whether or not the risk is worth the possible gain.

A lot of work has been done in recent years to improve surgery techniques in order to keep mistakes to a minimum. while they may still happen every now and then, the latest technology in laser eye surgery has become developed enough to calm many fears. Here are two components of latest technology in laser eye surgery that have produced more clients with less worries.

IntraLase

The biggest fear that patients have when they consider laser surgery is that a blade is going to make an incision in their eye and create a flap that opens. Just visualizing this from a layman’s point of view can be pretty disturbing. Enter the IntraLase which does not require any firm of blade. It does the same procedure but with a laser beam instead of a sharp blade. This latest technology in laser eye surgery may also have its risks but they are less than a surgeon with a knife near your eye.

Custom Wavefront Laser Eye Surgery

One drawback that does arouse from time to time, is that patients did not get the near-perfect vision they had hoped for from the operation, and instead only see a small improvement. In many cases when this happens the patient requires additional surgeries to improve their vision more.

Quite a number of cases of under and over correction have come up over the years, hence resulting in the patient requiring some additional surgery interventions.

However with the very latest technology in laser eye surgery the surgeons actually customise the surgery for each and every patient. The technology used to do this is called wavefront, the result is far less cases of over and under correction. This is thanks to the extremely precise measurement equipment used in the wavefront technology.

Naturally even the use of this technology can not give laser eye surgery a 100% success rate, like with all surgeries however much we perfect them there is always going to be some error involved. But there is now doubt that using this latest technology in laser eye surgery the success rate for the patient is considerably better. However the price of the surgery is generally some $350 extra for each eye.

But Who Invented Laser Eye Surgery?

Lots of folks ask the question of who invented laser eye surgery and the truth is that there are several answers to that question. It was Dr. Fyodorov, a Russian doctor who actually first applied the idea of refractive surgery in the early 1930s, while it was not until 1960 when Theodore Maiman invented the first true laser, which is known as a ruby laser.

Therefore there was not actually one single person who invented laser eye surgery, but rather a few that were involved in the entire process.

So How Does it Work?

Although the procedure itself is pretty simple, the technology and relevance behind it is considerably complicated . Basically short pulses of invisible ultraviolet light, or laser, is used to remove a small flap off the surface of the cornea, and in doing so correcting the curvature of the patients cornea.

By doing this, the retina is able to focus and concentrate on images much better, and so the patient having the operation performed is able to see a lot better.

People from all over the world have already taken the leap and had the laser eye surgery performed, and the majority of people are completely satisfied with the results. Nevertheless as if true with any health related procedure there are some risks involved that one should know about.

They are however these days very rare, but all the same anyone considering taking up an operation of this kind should still take some time to learn of them so they really do know what they are getting into.

The most typical laser eye surgery complications are overcorrection and undercorrection, overcorrection meaning that too much tissue was removed during the procedure, undercorrection referring to the fact that too little tissue was removed.

If you do your research and get your operation done by a qualified and well experienced surgeon with a good track record, nine times out of 10 your operation will go fine and have a very favourable result for you. Nevertheless no surgeon is 100% perfect and no operation can have a 100% success rate, so you must still remember the risks before you have the operation performed.

Even if you did end up being unlucky and you had something like overcorrection or under correct you should still be able to have an additional operation performed to put this right, of course any additional operations still carry the original risks you had in the first one, so there is still a slight chance things could end up worse, but that’s the risk you take.

For most people this operation will turn out fine and they will almost definitely be glad they had it performed, as having perfect vision when you have been used to seeing things fuzzy can really make a difference in your life.

So now you know a little bit more about laser eye surgery and the answer to who invented laser eye surgery in the first place, why not do some more reading on the subject of laser eye surgery by reading for more of our categories.

The following is a brief rundown of all the risks and costs of laser eye surgery. Please remember most of the risks and costs of laser eye surgery we are about to talk about are not the norm.  Most people’s operations go well, this is just information we believe you should know to help you make an educated decision. All medical procedures have their risks, that’s just a fact of life, you the patient must weigh up the benefits and possible risks in order to make the best decision in your case.

Excessively dry eyes

The most common cost of laser eye surgery is that the patient ends up with excessively dry eyes after his or her operation. This Cost of laser eye surgery is most common in colder countries and states and with people who take antihistamines and also with post menopausal women.

When this occurs eye doctors, generally speaking, will issue artificial tears lubrications for your eyes which of course will add to the initial dollar cost of your operation.  In some or extreme cases doctors will have microscopic tear plugs inserted into your eyes to remedy this problem, again adding a higher dollar cost to your overall laser eye surgery costs. Patients are often advised to use a humidifier if they are suffering from dry eyes. Patients will also obviously have to keep regularly in touch with their doctor to check on the progress of their recovery in this instance.

The dreaded over or under correction issue

When this problem arises often the patient will have improved eyesight but will not have obtained the perfect vision they were after.  In this situation the patient normally will have the option to have further surgery to perfect their vision. It will depend on the exact reasons for the follow-up surgery and the clinic you have your surgery performed on, but these follow-up surgeries could very well add to your overall cost of laser eye surgery.

It is also possible in some rarer cases that in your case it will not be possible for you to have additional surgery and you may end up having to live with your eyesight the way it is.

The ghostlike night vision affect

It is also possible that you may require additional surgery if you find yourself seeing ghostlike Hallows at night.  This mostly takes place when you’re looking at bright lights at night and can be dangerous especially when you are doing night driving.  This cost of laser eye surgery will often go away after some time as your eyes heal from the operation, but this is not always the case and sometimes you will need additional surgery to stop this from happening.

Naturally with every follow-up surgery you have the same risks apply again and in fact in some cases the risks can even be greater.  Again it is very important to remember that although all these risks and additional costs of laser eye surgery are very real and do happen, they are not the most common outcome for a patient’s laser eye surgery, simply a possible outcome that you should be aware of and be prepared for in the worst case scenario.

Like any medical procedure or treatments, there are complications that can occur leading to any number of laser eye surgery risks. It is up to you to do your laser eye surgery research into these risks and side effects and come to your own conclusions, you can bet that the eye clinic you visit won’t go into too much detail in this area innless you push for information. Aside from the already well known risks in laser eye surgery, here are some of the other complications that are often not brought up and are actually considered to be some what more dangerous.

Possible laser eye surgery risks:

Apart from having one of the most commonly know problems from your surgery like flap wrinkles, under correction or over correction of the eyes, and infection as laser eye surgery risks, there have been some more dangerous risks that are involved in undergoing eye surgery procedures, below we will list some of them:

Having central corneal islands in your eyes:

Central corneal islands are very small areas of raised tissue that show up on the cornea after a procedure when the laser used did not remove tissue equality. This is only known to happen to round 1% of the folks who have had laser eye surgery performed. Typically your Dr. will prescribe you corrective contact lenses to cure this laser eye surgery risk and to smoothen out the cornea surface or you may be able to have more surgery to correct the error.

DLK:

Another laser eye surgery risk that is of the more dangerous category is the DLK (diffuse lamellar keratitis). DLK can occur when certain foreign bodies become trapped in the corneal flap. If you began to suffer from this, you could experience blurred vision, sensitivity to bright light, pain and or have the ongoing sensation that something has got trapped inside your eyes. When patients experience these types of symptoms, they have no choice but to talk with their doctor immediately, even after years of surgery this could occur. The normal treatment for this would be for your doctor to prescribe oral and topical medication to cure the condition.

Epithelial in-growths:

An additional laser eye surgery risk is the epithelial in-growths which can happen when cells from the corneal epithelium begin to grow under the corneal flap. This could potentially considerably affect your vision.

Corneal ecstasia:

Last of all, there is the corneal ecstasia that could weaken the cornea and cause it to bulge after the surgery. This can occur when the surgeon created a deeper incision than necessary during the flap creation process or removed too much corneal tissue. Unfortunately, with this particular type of laser eye surgery risk, the only way to correct the problem would be with a corneal transplant.

As stated in the beginning these laser eye surgery risks a things that happen to a very small amount of people and the chances of it happening to you are most likely very unlikely, but nether the less, they do occur and we feel that any one thinking of under doing laser eye surgery needs to know what can happen before making the decision to go ahead with the procedure.