LASIK/Surgery
The Pre-LASIK Consultation
Your pre-LASIK consultation will take place at the facility of your choosing 1-2 months before your desired date of surgery and will determine your eligibility for LASIK. Generally these consultations are performed by the opthalmologist who will eventually be operating on you, but you should check with your LASIK provider to confirm this. Having your pre-LASIK consultation performed by your surgeon is preferable.
- If you do qualify for LASIK and decide to go ahead with the procedure, the surgeon will scan and map your corneas and their irregularities. This data will then be used to guide the Excimer laser in removing corneal tissue during surgery.
- If you do NOT qualify for the LASIK procedure, your surgeon will recommend alternative procedures to correct your vision problems.
One Month Out
Although the LASIK procedure itself takes only a few minutes, preparation for LASIK starts around 1 month before.
- If you wear contact lenses: it is advised that you switch to glasses at least 2 weeks (soft lenses) or 4-6 weeks (hard lenses) prior to surgery to allow your eye environment to return to its natural equilibrium.
- Be sure to take all prescribed antibiotics and medications! An infection could force you to reschedule your surgery.
- Stay in good health. Even a surgery as noninvasive as LASIK will affect your body. It is ideal to be as healthy as possible to facilitate the healing process.
- Be mentally and psychologically prepared for any outcome. No surgery is without risk. While the vast majority of LASIK surgeries have positive results, there is a chance that your surgery will not go as planned. See the 'Side Effects' section below for more information.
Within Days
Avoid getting any debris, make-up, lotion on or near the eye as this may interfere with surgery.
The Surgery
Just before surgery the patient is given a mild sedative and antibiotics to prevent infection. A local anesthetic (usually eye drops) is administered to lessen the pain during surgery. Typically, one eye is operated upon at once. In some cases, patients schedule separate surgeries for each eye, opting to allow one eye to heal before the next operation begins. For more information, see LASIK Guide.
LASIK surgery is a two step procedure:
1) Flap Creation: this process varies depending on the type of LASIK Equipment your surgeon is using.
- Microkeratome: a small suction device is placed over the surface of your eye. It houses a microscopic mechanical blade that is then used to make precise incisions in your cornea (approx. 100-200 microns thick, about 1/7th the thickness of your cornea). The cornea is lifted by the suction device and inscisions are made by the blade.
- IntraLase: similar suction process in the mikrokeratome procedure, but the cuts are made under the surface of your cornea (closer to the corneal bed) and they are made with an IntraLase Laser. This is widely acknowledged to be the most accurate mode of flap creation.
2) Excimer Laser Correction: the corneal flap is pealed back and an Excimer Laser is used to remove and reshape tissue from the corneal bed. The laser is extremely precise and operates without emitting significant heat, so no other areas of the eye are affected. In most modern lasers the procedure is guided by a computer and is customized to the specific topography of your eye (determined during consultation or otherwise before surgery). Once the tissue has been reshaped, the corneal flap is put back in place and left to heal naturally. The reshaped tissue causes changes in your corneal refraction, leading to an effective change in eyesight.
Note: there are many different types of Excimer lasers; each is specifically designed to accompany a particular LASIK system. See our LASIK Equipment page for more information on lasers and microkeratomes.
Video
