An estimated 60 million Americans suffer from vision problems, such as myopia, commonly called nearsightedness, or hyperopia, farsightedness, and astigmatism. This year 1.5 million of them, with the advice of their eye surgeons, will undergo one of these laser eye surgery procedures, to correct their vision problems. Are you one of them? If so, it's to your advantage to know what the different laser eye surgery procedures are and how each procedure works to correct vision problems. Laser eye surgery is a surgical procedure in which the laser beams an intense ray of light through a microscope. This short list is concerned only with the latest, safest and effective laser eye surgery procedures used by today's eye surgeons. LASIK stands for Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis. FDA has approved this surgical technique for use since 1995. More and more surgeons use this laser eye surgery procedure because for the results. The patient's vision is restored from one to two days after, it's relatively painless and operating on one eye generally takes only one minute. This laser eye surgery procedure corrects farsightedness, nearsightedness and astigmatism. Only patients with thick corneas are good candidates for this procedure. During the operation, the eye surgeon uses the laser to sculpt the exposed cornea into a curve by evaporating tissue under the flap. LASEK is short for Laser-Assisted Sub-Epithelial Keratectomy. This laser eye surgery procedure is the second most popular alternative other for those who do have hyperopia or farsightedness but have thin or flat corneas. PRK is the acronym for Photo Refractive Keratectomy. Although the FDA gave it a nod only in 1995, this laser eye surgery procedure has long been in use, since the 1980s. It corrects mild to moderate farsightedness and astigmatism. During this laser eye surgery procedure the surgeon uses the laser to evaporate tissue from the surface of the corneas. The laser machine does most of the work, and works best on patients with large pupils or thin corneas. Patient recovery takes longer though by as much as several months. The laser eye surgery procedures mentioned here have become popular with more doctors performing them because the procedures are safe, permanent and faster results are evident. |
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