After making the decision to have lasik eye surgery to correct your vision problems, the day finally comes when the doctor with user their lasers to reshape your eye and hopefully restore your vision to 20/20. There will be a significant amount of apprehension as regardless of how the surgeon or their staff has explained the procedure, there is really no way to mentally prepare yourself for an operation during which you will be awake.
Many people think about movies where laser are used to burn holes through steel or to shoot down alien spacecraft, but in reality the lasers used in lasik surgery although similar, do not provide the same type of intense heat. Lasers for eye surgery can trim off exceptionally small areas of the cornea without damaging adjacent tissue or the nerves in the eye. Occasionally, there may be some conjunctive bleeding, but typically there is no damage to other areas of the eye during lasik surgery.
The doctor will first take a picture of your eye, resembling a topographic map showing the hills and valleys on the surface of the cornea. It is this uneven surface and is bending the light away from the lens and causing your vision problem. The concept behind lasik eye surgery is to smooth out the surface and reshape the eye to make it more conducive to providing proper refracting of the light so that that it passes through the lens nearly in focus.
The information from the map will be fed into the computer that will control the movement of the laser. You will then be given a light sedative, such as Valium and anesthetic eye drops will be used to deaden the nerves in the eye. Otherwise, you will be awake and mobile throughout the procedure. This will be necessary so that you can respond to any instructions the surgeon may give during the operation.
The surgeon will then use either a scalpel or a laser to cut a thin patch from the front of the cornea, cutting it on three sides, using the fourth un-cut side as a hinge and fold it out of the way. He will then place the laser in the starting position and once they hit the begin switch, the computer will follow the information from the map to burn off some of the irregular areas on the surface of the cornea.
Most surgeries are completed with little or no discomfort to the patient as they are under the local anesthetic and the only thing the patient will be able to see is the white lights of the operating light and the orange glow of the laser. After the operation is complete, the small flap will be folded back into place and antibiotic eye drops will be dripped into the eye and a bandage put in place, along with a protective patch to prevent you from inadvertently rubbing the eye and dislodging the loose flap.
You will then head home, hopefully with someone else driving, where you may experience some pain or discomfort from the surgery, but typically that will fade during the first three days after the operation.
