It is true that laser eye surgery is a safe and efficacious method for correcting a host of visual anomalies. However, because with some surgical method, refractive surgery has potential side effects or complications. Complications due to laser eye surgery possibly will be classified into four categories – preoperative, intra-operative, early postoperative, and late postoperative. Peruse this article to have a clear understanding of the primary complications associated with laser eye surgery.
One of the more regularly reported complications is dry eye. It has been reported that the surgery worsens the dry eye situation, where the tear gland’s capacity to produce tears is diminished. Another possible complication is higher than/beneath-correction, and inside the worst case, loss of corrected vision. Inside the latter of the mentioned complications, the postoperative visual acuity is less than the preoperative one.
Patients who have undergone laser eye surgery could experience halos or starbursts around light sources at night. The eyes may possibly experience strange light sensitivity and the patient could suffer from ghost vision or double vision. Then there are a few likely flap complications. A small microkeratome malfunction may perhaps result inside an inappropriately cut flap. This in turn can lead to a number of different flap complications.
The most familiar among flap complications is flap dislocation, where the flap no longer rests on a hinge and is rather detached from the cornea. Another flap complication involves the appearance of folds inside the flap. This hampers the normal healing procedure and typically necessitates repositioning of the flap. On the other hand, an awry healing procedure possibly will result in debris or growth below the flap.
Though quite uncommon with the new breed of lasers, another probable complication is “de-centered ablation”. This pertains to an imprecise ablation of the corneal tissue since of an inaccurately focused laser. Another rare laser eye surgery complication is induced astigmatism.
The rapid enhancement inside laser technology and other pertinent eye surgery equipment has reduced the complication rate to a meager 3%. This is also owing to an enhance in the experience of eye surgeons. Each inside each, laser eye surgery is a potent procedure to right a type of refractive errors thereby enhancing a patient’s visual acuity.