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Following a LASIK procedure, every patient has temporary dry eye, which can be treated most often with artificial tears. This dry eye sensation usually clears up in eight to 12 weeks except in rare cases, where it may take longer.
Patients with pre-existing dry eye may not be good candidates for LASIK, but may be candidates for PRK or LASEK. If you have dry eye, you should discuss it with your doctor at your pre-op examination. Tests can often diagnose dry eye but it is still somewhat difficult to predict who will experience significant dry eye following LASIK. A thorough evaluation of your current medications, medical history and work environment should all be taken into account.
Following your procedure, the flap stays in position without the need for stitches. Initially, there is a vacuum effect created by the cells lining the inner surface of the cornea. As the eye heals over the first few days, the epithelium (the outer surface of the cornea) seals the edges of the flap.
There is no pain during any of the laser vision procedures since anesthetic eye drops numb your eyes, although some patients may experience mild discomfort or a pressure sensation during their procedure after LASIK, you might experience mild irritation for a few days after your procedure. An over-the-counter pain reliever or use of artificial tears will generally take care of this discomfort. PRK and LASEK patients experience more post-operative discomfort for three to five days while the epithelium heals.
For most procedures, both eyes will be corrected on the same day.
Since both eyes are usually treated during the same appointment, you will be in the surgery room for approximately 30 minutes. Once in the laser room your eyes will be cleaned and prepared for surgery. The surgery itself usually only takes five minutes or so per eye.
Following LASIK, most patients return to work the day after their procedure. With PRK or LASEK, the recovery time may be a little longer.
If you are wearing hard or gas permeable contacts, it's important that you remove them at least three weeks prior to your exam. Soft lenses should be out for at least one week before your exam. Soft toric lenses may need to be out longer. Your doctor will advise you how long you need to be out of your contacts prior to your exam and prior to your surgery.
You need to be over 18 years of age, and your glasses or contact lens prescription should not have changed in the last year. If your eye is still changing from year to year, you should not have the procedure until the cornea is stable.
Pregnancy can affect your vision, therefore if you are pregnant or trying to conceive, you should not have laser vision correction. You should wait several months after your pregnancy or after you finish nursing before having laser vision correction.
Laser vision correction is considered to be permanent. However, your eyes can still change as you age which may cause a need for glasses or contacts or additional vision correction procedures in the future. As people reach their early forties, they develop presbyopia and begin to need reading glasses. If you're over 35, you may want to consider monovision.
Not necessarily. The effects of presbyopia continue to worsen as you get older, whether or not you have monovision. At some point in time, reading glasses or another vision correction procedure may become necessary. The benefit to having monovision is that there won't be a complete dependence on glasses for close vision. Many who have monovision are able to see well enough both at distance and near to do things at any age without corrective lenses.
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