Life Matters | winter 2005



 

Take a Closer Look at LASIK

 
 
Melissa Graham has worn glasses since the age of 2. Her father took her to Dr. Eric Lindstrom for her very first pair of glasses and she has been a patient at the Lindstrom Eye Clinic ever since. On a routine eye exam visit with Dr. John Lyon, he told her she was a perfect candidate for LASIK surgery. She was excited about not having to wear glasses. The surgery was a tremendous success and she said it has made a world of difference in her everyday life.

If you’re tired of wearing glasses or contacts, maybe you are considering laser eye surgery. LASIK is an outpatient surgical procedure used to treat myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), and astigmatism. In LASIK, a laser is used to reshape your cornea without stitches. This procedure only takes 10 to 15 minutes for each eye. Afterwards, the cornea can better focus light in order to create a sharper visual image.

Hundreds of thousands of people have undergone LASIK, most very successfully, and more people have this popular surgery every year.

LASIK may decrease your dependence on glasses and contacts or, in some cases, allow you to do without them entirely. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, seven out of 10 LASIK patients achieve 20/20 vision, but 20/20 does not always mean perfect vision. If you have LASIK to correct your distance vision, you’ll probably still need reading glasses by around age 45.

LASIK is performed in a reclining chair in an outpatient surgical suite. The eye is numbed with a few drops of topical anesthetic prior to the procedure. While you stare at an overhead light, the laser sculpts the exposed corneal tissue and reshapes the cornea.

A see-through shield protects the eye for the first day and night. It is normal for your eye to burn or feel scratchy. This usually disappears in a few hours. Plan on going home and taking a nap or just relaxing after the procedure. You will be given eye drops to help heal and alleviate dryness. Healing after LASIK is usually less uncomfortable than with other methods of refractive surgery because the laser removes tissue from the inside of the cornea and not from the more sensitive corneal surface.

“The most common thing we hear the day after surgery is ‘I can wake up and see the alarm clock!’” states Dr. Lyon. Lindstrom Eye Clinic is now performing LASIK. If you want to find out if LASIK is right for you, call 426-9454.



The editorial content of this online publication is taken from the print version of Life Matters published by South Central Regional Medical Center.

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