Laser eye surgery helps to improve the quality of human life, by improving the eye vision. Despite the benefits of the surgery, the fear of pain worries many people and make them hesitate to go through the procedure.
One has to realize and understand that laser eye surgery cannot be painful as the procedure does not make use of the blades or incision into the skin. The procedure gives a bit discomfort it is minimal, if no fear is added, it can be very easily ignored. The experience and discomfort are different for different kinds of procedures, Lasik, Lasek and SMILE.
Lasik Laser Surgery
Lasik is the most commonly performed surgical procedure and takes overall 15 minutes of time. Prior to the surgery, anaesthetic eye drops are given to the eyes and it prevents from causing any pain to the patient. Even after the surgery, there is no question of pain as there is no incision or usage of blade in this procedure. During the procedure, there may be slight discomfort and it is minimal that can even be ignored, if one is out of fear. Lasik is trust by majority of people and has faster recovery time.
During the surgery, femtosecond laser is used to enable the microscopic pulses to be directed at the upper cornea layer. It creates bubbles and also flap forming the corneal tissue. This flap is lifted gently by the surgeon to expose the tissue’s deeper layers. Then cornea is reshaped by using excimer laser thereby correcting the eye’s refractive errors. Then the flap would be replaced and it gets healed by itself. Lasik can correct the refraction errors like astigmatism, hyperopia, myopia and also wave-front abnormalities. More than 90% of the Lasik patients enjoy the positive results of the surgery, consistently.
Lasek Surgery
Lasek is a good alternative for the patient, who cannot undergo Lasik procedure. People with too flat and too thin corneas are not suitable for Lasik procedure and have to look for alternative procedures like PRK or Lasek. The procedure is similar to the Lasik and so performed with the laser beam. Hence, there is no pain felt in this surgery too, since anaesthetic eye drops are used.
During the Lasek treatment, gentle ethanol solution is used to soften the cornea’s outer layer and detaches the cornea from the underneath layers. Then the deeper corneal tissues are exposed, by moving the outer layer aside. The next step is to reshape the cornea with excimer laser. After correction of refractive error is done, outer corneal layer will be replaced by the surgeon. After the surgery, bandage contact lenses are worn to protect the eye from external environment and heal without any such disturbances.
SMILE Surgery
SMILE is one fo the latest laser eye surgery and corrects myopia of higher degrees combined with or without astigmatism. This procedure is also initiated after appling the anaesthetic eye drops. Among these three procedures, this procedure is less invasive and involves like a keyhole surgery. So, many people prefer this one for correction of myopia.
The procedure is performed by using a laser that directs microscopic pulse series towards the cornea’s central part. The result of the pulses is tiny bubbles, indicating the tissue that has to be removed for cornea reshape. This non-invasive technique is quick and gives least discomfort among the three procedures.
In a nutshell, none of these three procedures hurt the eye and are painless.