Myopia Surgery: Everything You Need To Know

See everything you need to know about myopia surgery from Kraff Eye Institute for instance, the procedure that corrects a patient’s grade and improves their quality of life. Myopia surgery, also called refractive surgery, is indicated for correcting the patient’s degree and may dispense with eyeglasses and contact lenses. The same surgical procedure can also correct, at once, other refractive problems, such as farsightedness and astigmatism. Understand the complete surgery process, from the indication of the operation by the ophthalmologist or the patient’s manifestation of his desire to operate to post-operative care and recovery.

What Do You Need To Do Before Myopia Surgery?

Before myopia surgery, the patient must undergo preoperative exams so that the individual’s ocular health is known and whether any problems may pose some risk to the surgery. For this purpose, the necessary exams are usually fundus, intraocular pressure measurement, corneal topography, and grade evaluation, among others. With all this, the ophthalmologist will be able to know if the patient is suitable for the procedure and if surgery can be indicated.

Some factors can prevent myopia surgery from being done for the patient’s safety. Among them is keratoconus, a problem that causes the cornea to change its shape; glaucoma, which is related to intraocular pressure; diabetes, which hinders the healing process of the operated cornea; the cataract; systemic autoimmune diseases; amblyopia (lazy eye); ocular herpes; and also the patient’s age, which must be over 18 years old. Contrary to popular belief, degree instability is not an impediment, as myopia tends to progress less in eyes that have already been operated on.

How Is Myopia Surgery Done?

The two methods most commonly used to perform laser myopia surgery are LASIK and PRK. Both have the same objective, which is to remodel the cornea, making the light that reaches the eyes, responsible for image formation, manage to focus on the retina, which does not happen in myopia – the refractive error consists of focusing the light before itself hits the retina, resulting in a blurred image for distant objects.

The LASIK method is the most advanced and is indicated for patients with a certain thickness of the cornea, making it more resistant to the process. In this procedure, a small cut, about 0.1 mm, is made in the patient’s cornea. The part that suffered the cut is lifted so that the laser has direct access to the cornea and, thus, can remodel it adequately, according to the existing degree.

The PRK method is indicated for patients with a thinner cornea, preventing the small cut of the LASIK method from being made. Here, the epithelial tissue, a thin membrane that covers the cornea, is completely removed; thus, the laser has access to the cornea.

The laser used in both types of surgery is the same. Before the beginning of both procedures, local anesthesia is applied with an eye drop. However, there may be cases in which the patient is lightly sedated. In the end, a contact lens is applied to protect each operated eye. The surgical process is painless and does not take long, lasting about 20 minutes in both eyes.