There seems to be no end to where technology can take us. We all think nothing of using home PCs and the Internet these days and if we are tired of using contacts or eyeglasses in many cases we can just have laser eye surgery performed to eradicate the problem.
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.
Aside from the already publicly known risks in laser eye surgery, here are some of the other more dangerous rarer complications that are usually not talked about.
The risks of laser eye surgery
We’ve all heard about over and under correction associated with laser eye surgery, maybe some have heard of flap wrinkles too, but it is more than likely that you will not have heard of some of the more dangerous laser eye surgery complications such as central corneal Islands in the eyes.
It is very rare and only 1% of patients suffer from it but central corneal islands have been known to create problems for patients. Essentially central corneal islands occur when tissue is not removed uniformly across the eye.
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.
Symptoms to this include but are not limited to: pain in the eyes, the sensation of something being trapped in the eye, unusually blurred eyesight and sensibility to bright lights.
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.
Then there’s the epithelial in-growths which can occur when cells from the corneal epithelium start growing under the corneal flap. This can significantly affect vision.
The corneal ecstasia is another complication that can essentially weaken the cornea and make it bulge out after the surgery. This is caused by an error in judgment by the surgeon when a deeper incision than necessary is created during the flap creation process. It can also occur when the surgeon removes more corneal tissue than necessary.
When this occurs the only available option is to perform a corneal transplant to put the damage right.
After reading this article you may be feeling a little more uncertain about laser eye surgery. Nevertheless it is important to remember that these complications only take place a very small percentage of the time. But of course before undergoing surgery you should evaluate whether it’s worth that small risk to you.
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