The Additional Laser Eye Surgery Risks Not Normally Discussed
August 28, 2008
In our world today technology has advanced to the stage where it has made our lives a lot easier than they once were. Whether it be the invention of the intranet and home PC or more importantly advancements in health care. When it comes to health care for instance in recent years one of the most noted advancements has been laser eye surgery.
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.
However no medical procedure, no matter how advanced it is, is without risks. In most cases with laser eye surgery everything goes go to plan though.
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 complications that can take place in laser eye surgery
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.
Your doctor may simply prescribe corrective contact lenses to cure this problem or you may be able to have more surgery to attempt to correct the problem.
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.
When this occurs a patient can experience blurred eyesight, more than normal sensitivity to light, possibly some pain and or the sensation that something is trapped in the patient’s eye.
When patients experience these types of symptoms, they must immediately talk with their doctor, even after years of surgery. A common remedy for this is for your doctor to prescribe oral and topical medication to cure the condition.
Epithelial in-growths can grow under the patient’s corneal flap and in doing so cause significant vision problems.
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.
When this occurs the only available option is to perform a corneal transplant to put the damage right.
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.