Lasik eye surgery

Lasik eye surgery is an extremely safe, accurate and in many cases painless procedure. It is by far the most common laser eye surgery procedure (85% of all laser eye surgeries) and has corrected the sight of millions of people worldwide.

During the standard Lasik procedure your surgeon creates a flap (thin layer of cornea) using a microkeratome (surgical scalpel) thus enabling the surgeon access to the inner layers of your cornea that need to be lasered during the Lasik surgery. The reason your vision is blurred is beacuse your cornea is not the correct power to focus light entering your eye on to your retina. This is what happens when you put on your glasses or contact lenses.

During Lasik surgery, the laser reshapes your cornea in order to change the power of your cornea so that the light entering your eye is focused precisely onto the retina, thus giving you perfect vision.

After the laser has been applied, the flap is then carefully replaced and smoothed over ensuring a fast recovery from your Lasik eye surgery. Intralase Lasik is different in the way in which the flap is created, using a special type of laser (femtosecond) to create the flap instead of a microkeratome.

Lasik can treat the highest range of prescription of all the different types of laser eye surgery and it has the quickest recovery period following surgery. It it for these reasons that lasik surgery is by far the most common type of laser eye surgery that is carried out. Find out more on the lasik recovery and the lasik procedure in our additional helpful guides.

Prescription parameters: Lasik eye surgery:

• Short sightedness: -0.75 to -12.00DS.
• Long sightedness: +0.75DS to +5.00DS.
• Astigmatism: Standard treatment: Up to +/- 3.00Dcyl. Wave front: up to +/- 6.00Dcyl.

This is only a rough guide to Lasik parameters as they vary widely from company to company, surgeon to surgeon and depends on the individual being treated.

If there is still anything you are uncertain of why not ask a question in our laser eye surgery forum.