April 17, 2018 - Lasik Surgery
Hi everybody. It’s Dr. Sam and I received the question on Facebook. This was the lady who’s 32 years old and she’s contemplating getting LASIK surgery.
So I want to talk about a study that was done by the FDA and published in The Journal of American Medical Ophthalmology. And in that study, they found that over 40 percent of the people that had Lasik surgery had complaints of dry eyes, double vision, starbursts, and glare between three months and six months after having the Lasik surgery. In this study, about one in four people were dissatisfied with the results of LASIK surgery.
So in terms of you getting LASIK to reduce your myopia and astigmatism, there are definitely things you want to know prior to getting this procedure done. So there are three main points I want to make about LASIK surgery:
- You want to make sure that you correct both eyes for distance. You don’t want to correct one eye for distance and one eye for near because that’s going to split your eyes and brain and that’s going to reduce your depth perception.
- I would recommend doing some eye exercises during recovery. This is very important for helping your eyes, brain, and body integrate with the new prescription and can facilitate hydration and circulation in the eye.
- I would recommend correcting your eyes so that you’re still slightly nearsighted. The reason why I recommend this is that if you are still a little near-sighted after the Lasik surgery you’re going to be able to read without reading glasses. Because what sometimes happens is when you get Lasik surgery and you’re not nearsighted anymore, you actually become farsighted. You lose your near vision and then you start needing magnification for near-focusing tasks like reading. This is a real bummer for many people because their near vision has been great their whole life and now they lose it after LASIK surgery.
Overall, I prefer to use vision therapy and focus on how our eyes interact with our brain and body. I’ve found this to be very effective at improving your vision over time. I have actually seen many people whose eyes continue to worsen even after they get Lasik surgery and ultimately end up needing corrective lenses again.
So that’s my message for today I hope that helps this gal and her decision making. I want to thank you for tuning in. And until next time take good care.