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What is laser eye treatment?

How Does Laser Surgery Improve Vision?

Laser eye correction (LASIK or LASEK) is a surgical treatment for people who want to reduce their dependence on glasses or contact lenses. If you are dissatisfied wearing glasses or contact lenses, then laser vision correction could be for you.

Imagine seeing clearly from the moment you open your eyes in the morning. Visualize yourself cruising effortlessly through your golf game without strain. Picture yourself walking confidently through your home when you have to get up with a little one in the early hours of the morning.

If fear of the unknown didn’t stand in the way, most people would make the choice to see clearly without the aid of glasses or contact lenses. Whether you are short sighted, long sighted, have astigmatism or need glasses for reading, laser vision correction could reduce or eliminate your dependence on glasses and contact lenses.

There are a few reasons to continue wearing glasses and contact lenses, but there are far more compelling reasons for wanting to get rid of them. The most common ones we hear are:

Is this you?

• My glasses always steam up!
• I hate my reading glasses!
• I can never find my glasses
• I am too vain or can’t be bothered to take them with me to restaurants – and then can’t read the menu!
• I am intolerant of contact lenses and heavy glasses
• I can’t stand always putting my glasses on and off to read
• Maintaining my contact lenses is a bother
• I would like to feel more confident and attractive and look younger
• Sports are dangerous because of my glasses
• I would like to wake up and see without having to reach for my glasses
• My glasses get wet when I go out in the rain

From golfing and swimming to driving and shopping, you could enjoy more freedom in your everyday life by restoring your natural vision. Gaining the freedom and security you want is actually quite easy. Laser vision correction is a pain-free process that takes only 5 minutes.

Who can benefit from laser eye surgery?
As a general rule, laser eye surgery can be beneficial to anyone who has poor vision that can be corrected by wearing glasses, for example, short-sightedness or loss of reading vision.

The surgery is not likely to benefit people who have an eye condition in which the vision cannot be improved by wearing glasses, for example, lazy eye or age-related macular degeneration. Read on to find out if laser eye surgery is the right choice for you.

How does reshaping the cornea help?
The cornea, because of its curved shape, bends and focuses light rays onto the back of your eye.

When you are short sighted the cornea is too curved and the light gets bent inwards too much. The focus is too far forwards, inside the middle of the eye.

If we want to bend the light rays less, we have to make the cornea flatter, not quite so powerful. All of the treatments for short sight aim to reduce the curve of the middle of the cornea. Operation such as the out-of-date radial keratotomy (RK) and the modern versions of laser vision correction all flatten the central part of your cornea, where most of the light goes through. In excimer laser surgery for short sight, the laser will remove more tissue from the centre of the cornea and less from the outside parts, as seen in Figure 2 below. If you are long sighted, the cornea isn’t curved enough. It needs to be more powerful, so that the light rays are bent in more. This will bring the image forwards. Instead of being behind the eye, it will move up onto the retina (the light sensitive layer at the back of the eye). To do this, we have to make the cornea more curved by removing tissue at the edges, all the way round, in a doughnut shape. The middle part of the cornea ends up more curved, as seen in figure 3.

How the Laser Works
The laser can remove tissue gently, without making any heat. We call it a cool laser beam. It is so precise it can remove only one quarter of a millionth of a metre with every pulse! Although there are different kinds of lasers they all will reshape your cornea, flattening for short sight and steepening for long sight.

You can also correct astigmatism by selectively removing tissue from a band across the middle of the cornea. This will flatten or steepen the cornea only in one direction (axis), getting rid of the distortion caused by the astigmatism. This must be done very precisely; the computer will move the laser beam to exactly the right places to do this perfectly.

Find out more about the amazing technology used at Focus Laser Vision. With state of the art lasers and wavefront technology for selected eyes, you will see the difference for yourself!

If you want more information, please see our frequently asked questions.