What are the LASIK eye surgery risks?

In this post, we answer a question on many people’s minds, “What are the LASIK eye surgery risks?”

LASIK eye surgery is an exceedingly safe surgery with the highest rate of patient satisfaction in the world. But like any surgery, there are some risks associated with it that are important for you to know.

A risk with LASIK eye surgery is that, in very rare cases, about one in a thousand, we may not be able to raise the flap during the procedure. In this case, we have to stop and come back three to four months later when that partial flap is healed and continue the procedure then. It’s nothing to worry about. You won’t feel any adverse effects; all we do is delay the procedure until it’s safer to do so.

After LASIK eye surgery, a very small number of patients, about 1%, have microscopic folds in the flap that we need to smooth out. This is a simple process where you’ll feel as much as you felt during the initial procedure – which is virtually nothing. Once that’s done, the laser flap is typically stable, and your vision returns to being excellent.

As far as things that can seriously affect the vision, such as infection, the risk for those types of problems is less than one in 20,000. And the risk of losing vision altogether in the eye from LASIK is less than one and 3 million.

When compared to the risk of a sight-threatening infection from daily use of contact lenses over 30 years, the risk of LASIK is comparably tiny.

If you’re considering LASIK, the most important things to remember is:

• We know who is more at risk because we’re experienced
• We know how to avoid risks because we perform the right tests, techniques and use the right technology for the job
• We look for side effects at your aftercare appointments
• We know that risks are often minor and temporary
• We know that if the risks aren’t temporary, we can address them because our expertise and partnership with our sister clinic, OKKO Eye Specialist Centre, extends far beyond laser eye surgery

After 20 million procedures, you can rest assured LASIK surgery is still one of the safest elective procedures available.

To learn more about LASIK and which laser eye surgery treatment is best to free yourself from the hassle of glasses and contact lenses, please book a free laser vision assessment today.