From birth until your twenties, your eyes are constantly changing. That’s why your twenties are considered to be the optimal time to start considering laser eye surgery – it’s when these changes come to a halt.
You’re in the prime of your life and your peak medical condition, so why not undergo an optional procedure in your twenties to improve the one thing holding you back? This post will outline how risky laser eye surgery is in your twenties and what you should look out for.
We’ll cover:
- What are the Risks of Having Laser Eye Surgery?
- What are the Benefits of Having Laser Eye Surgery?
- How to Choose the Right Laser Eye Surgeon
What are the Risks of Having Laser Eye Surgery?
It doesn’t matter how big or small the treatment is. With any medical procedure, there are always bound to be risks involved. Laser eye surgery is no different, but this doesn’t mean that the results are ineffective and it doesn’t work. Generally, the procedures are relatively painless and the recovery period is minimal, with most patients having 20/20 vision just hours after undergoing the treatment.
It’s important that you understand the potential complications before you opt to have laser eye surgery. There are various risks involved but it’s worth knowing that the chances of these risks described below affecting you are very low.
Too Much/Little Treatment
The excimer laser used in treatment is extremely accurate, with each pulse removing 0.2 microns – that is one-fifth of one-thousandth of a millimetre! The main variable affecting the visual result is not the laser but each patient’s individual healing response.
So a patient could be either under-corrected, e.g. they remain slightly short-sighted, or may be over-corrected and find they are now long-sighted.
Luckily this isn’t too big of a problem and can be fixed with one straightforward retreatment procedure, usually referred to as an enhancement. With LASIK this involves re-lifting the original flap followed by 2-3 seconds of laser correction.
However, after having a treatment that’s failed, we understand that the patient’s confidence may not be very high and may not want to commit to another surgery.
That’s why it’s important to take your time with this procedure and choose a surgeon who is prepared to work with all the correct planning and follow-up methods in place.
And choose somebody with an excellent track record.
Possible Eye Infection
Like with any medical procedure or operation, an infection can occur if the eyes aren’t looked after properly post-procedure. An eye infection can be treated with antibiotic eye drops. Again, this is highly unlikely to happen after your LASIK eye surgery. The risk of a post-operative infection with modern femtosecond LASIK is now as low as 1 in 20,000.
Sore and Itchy Eyes
The most common initial side effect of laser eye surgery is dryness in the eyes. This typically settles in 3-6 months for most patients. Sometimes dry eye can go on longer, and a recent study found this was the case in around 1% of patients at one-year post-treatment.
The mainstay of treatment involves the use of lubricating eye drops, but several other forms of therapy are available.
Night Vision Problems
Night vision symptoms include halos, glare and starbursting. This is now unlikely with modern LASIK and LASEK (PRK), but was much more common with older laser before wavefront-optimised treatments. It’s usually the patients with larger prescriptions who develop these aberrations more commonly than others. In a review of multiple studies, pupil size at night was not found to correlate with developing night vision symptoms.
These defects usually happen at night or when the light is dimmed and symptoms include double vision, glowing rings around light sources and light radiating from light sources too.
Corneal Ecstasia
Corneal ectasia is the one of the more serious potential side effects that can be caused by laser eye surgery. It’s also relatively rare and occurs in less than 0.05 percent of all procedures. This is caused by the bulging and thinning of the cornea and often happens when the patient has a predisposition to a weak cornea, a condition known as keratoconus. Fortunately, collagen cross-linking has revolutionised the treatment of ectasia and keratoconus, preventing worsening of the condition.
What are the Benefits of Having Laser Eye Surgery?
Freedom
Before the surgery, patients will have had to rely on contacts or glasses just to be able to carry out their everyday tasks. It can be quite the relief to not have put your glasses on or even switch pairs to carry out the most simple of tasks, like sending and receiving text messages.
Patients have described being able to fully depend on their eyes without needing glasses or contact lenses after surgery as “life-changing” and feeling “a great sense of freedom.”
See the world in all its beauty with your own eyes! With your improved vision after surgery, activities like watching TV, reading and even driving become much easier. Not only these activities but exercising without your glasses falling off constantly or steaming up is much easier and more enjoyable.
Affordable
The cost of buying new glasses because your current ones are now out of fashion, long-term contact lens subscriptions and prescription sunglasses can all quickly mount up.
Laser eye surgery is often thought as the most expensive option for clearer vision, but is actually the cheaper option. If you carry on purchasing the three products mentioned above throughout your lifetime, you’re sure to spend a whole lot more.
Save yourself money in the long-term.
Plus, like Focus Clinic, many providers offer a range of finance options to suit everybody, including 0 percent finance options.
As Brits, we know discussing the price of things can be a bit awkward, so that’s why we’re always up front with our total treatment price. We don’t want you to be hit with any unexpected costs further down the line.
It’s Quick
It only takes approximately five minutes to treat each eye. It’s a very quick procedure with no overnight hospital stay required. Your treatment visit will last for around an hour and a half altogether.
Recovery is also very quick. Most patients have improved vision immediately after surgery and, within four hours, most can enjoy 20/20 vision. This means the surgery causes minimum disruption to your busy schedule.
How to Choose the Right Laser Eye Surgeon
Many surgeons learn refractive laser eye surgery on the job after they’ve qualified. This means that the standards around the country are varied. Obviously, you want the best surgeon to perform your surgery, right? Well, here are a few tips to make sure that your surgeon is the right one for you.
- How many procedures he/she performs a week.
- How many procedures they have performed in total.
- Check their experience and success rate. Be careful though – large surgery turnover rate and numbers don’t guarantee skill and success.
- What range of prescriptions can your clinic offer?
How Can Focus Clinic Help?
Laser eye surgery is highly successful but requires an experienced and skilled surgeon to carry the procedures out correctly. Which is why you want the best, and with Focus Clinic, that’s what you undoubtedly get.
At Focus Clinic, we’re the only clinic in the country with a 100 percent success rate. This is why we’re the UK’s most trusted laser eye surgery clinic, ranked #1 on Trustpilot.
Download our free information pack below. It’s filled with everything you need to know about how procedures work, the benefits and (lack of) potential side effects and much more.
