Ever wondered how you can see objects either near or far from you, equally clearly? Well. The cornea and your eye lens make this possible for you by adjusting their combined refractive index and bringing the objects to focus on the retina. When cornea and the lens allow light rays to pass through, they bend the rays precisely to focus on the retina. Regardless of the size and distance of the object from your eye the angle of the bend always readjusts to focus accurately. You need to have a refractive correction when focus occurs either in front or back of retina.

So how does Laser Refractive Surgery do it?

Laser Refractive Surgery on myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism differ both in principle and procedures. You have myopia or the near sightedness when light focuses before retina. Most of the cases it is because of elongated eye ball. LASIK or PRK are the techniques used for surgery. LASIK stands for Laser Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis. A cutting device called microkeratome slices a precise flap in the cornea and it is hinged over. Then the Laser in pre calculated intensity ablates (by vaporization) your corneal exposed area to a predetermined thickness and angle. This reduces the thickness of the cornea and incidentally overall length of your eye ball. If the calculations are maintained accurately it brings the focus back to retina. The flap that was originally hinged over is placed back. PRK procedure is similar to LASIK but it differs a bit. It does not require corneal cutting to flap. The laser ablation is done on the natural corneal surface.

The Laser Refractive Surgery for hyperopia is done by making the cornea to bulge up in an effort to increase the length of the eye ball. Yes. You got it right. Here the eye ball is shorter and the light rays focus behind your retina. It can also be out of flattened cornea. In order to set this right, laser makes serial shrink dots around cornea. This causes tissues around to stretch pushing the cornea to bulge out.

If you have your cornea focus on two different points on retina then you have astigmatism. This is because of asymmetrical curvature of the cornea. The laser treatment is by over correction. For example if your lens reads -1.0 dioptre laser should correct the cornea to +1.0 dioptre.

Laser Refractive Surgery: Points to Ponder

There is a possibility of result regressing to original condition. Statistically, the permanence of the laser surgery is not encouraging. Aging will have its own effect on your eyes like it were natural. Some of the post operative complications are severe. Like the lost or the mis-aligned flap and infection or wrinkles are common and call for surgical intervention to prevent serious implications. On the simpler side nausea, giddiness, longer recovery and bleeding may cause.

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