How Different Types of Refractive Surgery Corrects Vision

How relevant are the different types of refractive surgery for vision correction? These days, eye problems and vision correction are not an unusual topic.

And even if you don’t wear eyeglasses, you probably know at least one person who does.

And whether that person is a close friend or just a familiar face, it’s safe to say that you know enough about how eyeglasses help them with their vision problems.

Aside from eyeglasses, contact lenses are also very common these days. In fact, a report by MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly, shows that approximately 45 million people in the United States wear contact lenses.

So it’s safe to say that contact lenses are gaining as much praise as eyeglasses in our current generation.

Although eyeglasses and contact lenses really help with vision correction, some people may like to live life without these visual aids.

And with the advancements in technological science, there are now different types of refractive surgery available to correct your vision. Generally, refractive surgery is an alternative to contact lenses or eyeglasses.

And it’s gaining popularity because it’s the closest thing you can get to having a good natural vision. So if you don’t like wearing your contact lenses or eyeglasses, you might find this article interesting.

What is Refractive Surgery?

As visual creatures, our eyesight plays a crucial role in how we live our lives. Although a rare few individuals can cope without vision, most of us rely on our sight for almost everything we do.

That’s why we’ve always been looking for better ways to improve or correct our vision problems. A few of our major advancements are different types of refractive surgery.

We commonly use corrective eyeglasses or contact lenses to correct simple vision problems like myopia (nearsightedness) or hyperopia (farsightedness).

But eye surgery can also fix your vision issues. In fact, there are different types of refractive surgery that you can choose from.

Refractive surgery is a process of adjusting the refractive features of your eyes. This procedure can correct myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), and astigmatism, to name a few.

Refractive surgery mostly fixes eye problems that can be corrected with eyeglasses or contact lenses.

However, refractive surgery makes daily routine more convenient since you won’t have to worry about wearing any sort of lenses anymore.

When do you need refractive surgery?

As mentioned above, refractive surgery helps you do away with eyeglasses or contact lenses.

This is especially important if you’re the type of person who’s always on the go and you don’t want to constantly wear eyeglasses or contact lenses.

Want to learn about the benefits of contact lenses? Read this article: Top 5 Benefits of Contact Lenses.

Aside from the freedom you get when you don’t need eyeglasses, it’s also important that you accept the following conditions that are associated to the different types of refractive surgery:

• The refractive surgery must be compatible with your refractive error or eye problem.
• You must not currently have any other type of eye condition that may be affected with refractive surgery.
• Like any other type of surgery, you should be aware that refractive surgery comes with possible risks and side effects.
• For the best visual result, you might still need to wear corrective lenses even after surgery.

Now, if you have no problems with the conditions that come with this procedure, let’s talk about the different types of refractive surgery.

In other words, you’ll learn about the different details that differentiates a certain type of refractive surgery from another.

The Different Types of Refractive Surgery

The seemingly endless improvements in technology and medicine are opening up numerous solutions to our problems.

For instance, a few decades ago the options for vision correction was very limited. In fact, if you have an uncommon eye problem, there’s a chance that you won’t have any effective options to correct your vision.

Luckily, there are currently more and more equipment, technology, and procedures that help us deal with countless numbers of eye issues. In this case, the emergence of different types of refractive surgery is evidence of our technological advancement.

Refractive surgery works by modifying the shape of your cornea, which is the transparent area at the center of your eye.

By reshaping your cornea, the light that enters your eye can be effectively focused to your retina, which is located in the back part of you eye.

The most common of these refractive surgery is LASIK or laser in situ keratomileusis.

LASIK

This type of refractive surgery is the most common among the others. In fact, you might have already heard of this.

According to a study by the Department of Ophthalmology of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, LASIK is the most common refractive surgery and approximately 18 million LASIK procedures have been done.

To put it simply, LASIK is popular because it corrects myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), and astigmatism. With LASIK treatment, doctor’s slice open a flap of corneal tissue called epithelium to expose the stroma tissues in your eye.

Then, they use an excimer laser to reshape the stroma, and then seal the opening by closing the flap of cornea back into place. Here are some of the benefits that you experience with LASIK:

• It’s not very painful because doctors use a numbing eye drops for this procedure.
• You’ll see quick effects of vision improvements within a day after the procedure.
• You don’t need to wear any sort of bandages or stitches with this type of surgery.
• You can get another LASIK surgery if your vision quality decreases in the long run.
• After this procedure, your need for corrective lenses will significantly decrease. In fact, some patients stop wearing corrective lenses all together.

Risks of LASIK

As convenient as LASIK seems, it’s not without any risks and disadvantages. However, it’s only natural since any type of surgery will always have some sort of risk involved. Here’s a couple of key points that you should take note before you get LASIK:

• Take note that is a complex procedure so errors can still occur. In this case, the flap that doctors create on your cornea can lead to permanent vision problems. So remember to look for a reliable surgeon who has plenty of experience with this type of surgery.
• Most of the time, the quality of vision that you get with LASIK is not as high as the vision you experience with corrective lenses.
• LASIK also has a couple of side effects that you should take note of. One example is a glary vision, which can also make driving at night harder for you.
• Another side effect is the presence of halos when you look at objects or lights.
• You can also get fluctuating vision and some extent of dry eyes after your LASIK procedure.

Photorefractive Keratectomy

PRK or photorefractive keratectomy is a surgical procedure that can correct nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. Just like LASIK, PRK corrects vision by using a laser to modify the shape of the cornea.

When the cornea is correctly reshaped, your eye can correctly focus light to your retina for better vision.

The initial process of PRK is what differentiates it from LASIK. Because with LASIK, doctors cut out a flap on the outer layer of your cornea (epithelium).

After cutting the layer, they lift up the flap and use a laser to reshape the corneal tissues inside. They cover the opening by placing the flap of cornea back into its original position.

With PRK, doctors permanently remove the epithelium or the outer layer of your cornea, and then reshape your stroma tissue with a laser.

After the reshaping process, your eyes naturally repair itself and grows its epithelium over the layer that was previously removed. |

Compared to LASIK, PRK takes longer to heal because the epithelium takes a couple of days to regenerate.

LASEK

LASEK or laser epithelial keratomileusis is a procedure that has the characteristics of both LASIK and PRK.

Like the previously mentioned procedures, LASEK uses an excimer laser to alter the shape of your cornea. The similarities of LASIK, PRK, and LASEK end on the preparatory process of the laser operation.

As mentioned before, LASIK treatment involves slicing a flap from your cornea to create space for the laser treatment.

While with PRK, doctors completely removes the layer of epithelium from your cornea. But for LASEK, doctors don’t completely remove the layer of epithelium that they slice open.

In fact, similar to LASIK, they leave out thinner flap of tissue which they use to cover the opening after the laser reshapes the stroma.

After putting the layer of epithelium back into place, they place a bandage contact lens over your eye. The bandage contact lens keeps the flap in place and helps the cornea heal.

Refractive Lens Exchange

RLE or refractive lens exchange is similar to cataract surgery. RLE is also known as PRELEX, clear lens extraction (CLE), clear lens exchange (CLE), and refractive lens replacement (RLR).

The procedure involves cutting open your cornea to remove your organic lens, which allows the doctor to replace it with a plastic lens implant.

RLE usually takes 5 to 7 minutes for each eye, and does not require anesthesia to be injected.

So if you’re afraid of needles poking your eyes, don’t worry, the doctor uses anesthetic eye drops to numb out the surgical pain.

Right after an RLE surgery, your vision will be very blurry and you might also see some random colors in your vision.

Additionally, you might feel some slight burning or stinging sensation as your eyes heal. This discomfort usually lasts for around 1 to 2 days.

However, some people can experience a better vision immediately on the next day after the procedure. Normally, your vision will be blurry for a few days after your RLE surgery.

But if your cornea swells a little more than average, then it will take a few weeks for your blurry vision to get better.

But don’t worry, because your doctor will arrange followup check ups to keep your eyes monitored.

RLE Risks

Like any other surgery, RLE does not come without any risk. Although severe complications aren’t common, here are some of the risks with RLE:

• Eye Infection
• Internal Bleeding
• Retinal Detachment
• Eye Inflammation
• Corneal Swelling
• Swelling in the back of the eye
• Droopy Eyelids
• Glaucoma
• Glare and halos in your vision

As scary as the side effects may seem, you don’t really have to worry too much about them. That’s because most of these risks are not permanent and some are typically easy to treat. In addition, retinal detachment is more common in people who have extreme myopia or nearsightedness. If you do have extreme myopia, your doctor will most likely advise you to see a retina specialist before considering RLE surgery.

Intracorneal Ring Segments

There are a lot of different types of refractive surgery and Intacs is one of them. Intacs or intracorneal ring segments (ICR) involves placing to curved plastic rings in your eye.

For this procedure, the doctor cut opens your cornea and inserts the plastic rings at the edges of the outer part of your cornea. The plastic rings compresses your cornea to adjust how light focuses on your retina.

Though intacs was a procedure that was commonly used to correct myopia, it is now more used to treat keratoconus.

Do You Need Refractive Surgery?

Now that you know how the different types of refractive surgery work, you’re probably wondering if these procedures are right for you.

And to be frank, the real answer to that question is up to you. However, here’s a couple of things to consider before you decide on any of the mentioned types of refractive surgery.

Do you have healthy eyes?

The health of your eyes is something to consider before you decide on getting refractive surgery. Normally, people with mild refractive errors are most suitable for these types of surgeries. Additionally, surgeons want to make sure that you don’t have any existing eye conditions that may cause complications to the procedure.

Do you have good health?

Having good overall health is also important for any of the types of refractive errors.

You should be mindful that some medical conditions that are not related to your eyes can still create complications with your refractive surgery.

So talk to a doctor about your pre existing conditions before you decide on getting refractive surgery.

Final Tips

Finally, all the types of refractive surgery do not guarantee 100 percent safety and effectiveness.

So you should be realistic about what to expect after the surgery. In addition, you should also be the type of person who is capable of dealing with the side effects that come with this surgery.

Other than that, you should be all set. Just make sure to consult with a trusted doctor and ask for opinions about this surgery.

And if you do go through with it, pick a surgeon that’s very experienced with the type of refractive surgery you’re planning to get.

References:

Basic Knowledge of Refractive Surgery

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696744

Risk Behaviors for Contact Lens–Related Eye Infections Among Adults and Adolescents

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6632a2.htm

A Guide to Refractive and Laser Eye Surgery

https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/overview-refractive-laser-eye-surgery#1

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