WILL MY PROCEDURE BE PAINFUL?
Patients experience virtually no discomfort during the LASIK Vision Correction procedure. Eye drop anesthesia is used to numb the eye prior to the procedure, so no injections are necessary. Immediately after treatment, some patients have reported minor discomfort, like having an eyelash or a dry contact lens in their eye.(13 May 2007 - Online blog Boothe Laser Center )
What the FDA regulates
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the sale of medical devices such as the lasers used for LASIK. Before a medical device can be legally sold in the U.S., the person or company that wants to sell the device must seek approval from the FDA. To gain approval, they must present evidence that the device is reasonably safe and effective for a particular use, the "indication." Once the FDA has approved a medical device, a doctor may decide to use that device for other indications if the doctor feels it is in the best interest of a patient. The use of an approved device for other than its FDA-approved indication is called "off-label use." The FDA does not regulate off-label use or the practice of medicine.
Ophthalmologist- An opthalmologist is a medical doctor whose specialization is vision. An opthalmologist can diagnose vision concerns, treat vision concerns, manage vision concerns, perform eye surgery, prescribe medicine, and ophthalmologists can perform laser eye surgery.
LASIK- LASIK is an acronym that allows us to quickly say, "laser assisted in situ keratomileusis." This is more simply said as "reshaping the cornea using a laser."
Precision Surgery
PRK is an outpatient procedure generally performed with local anesthetic eye drops. This type of refractive surgery gently reshapes the cornea by removing microscopic amounts of tissue from the outer surface with a cool, computer-controlled ultraviolet beam of light. The beam is so precise it can cut notches in a strand of human hair without breaking it, and each pulse can remove 39 millionths of an inch of tissue in 12 billionths of a second. The procedure itself takes only a few minutes, and patients are typically back to daily routines in one to three days.
Before the procedure begins, the patient's eye is measured to determine the degree of visual problem, and a map of the eye's surface is constructed. The required corneal change is calculated based on this information, and then entered into the laser's computer.
Since 1995, a limited number of laser systems has been approved by FDA to treat various refractive errors, both with PRK and LASIK.
According to FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, clinical studies showed that about 5 percent of patients continued to always need glasses following PRK for distance, and up to 15 percent needed glasses occasionally, such as when driving. In addition, many patients experienced mild corneal haze following surgery, which is part of the normal healing process. The haze appeared to have little or no effect on final vision, and could only be seen by a doctor with a microscope. Some patients experienced glare and halos around lights. These conditions, however, diminished or disappeared in most patients in six months. For about 5 percent of patients, however, best-corrected vision without corrective lenses was slightly worse after surgery than before. In view of these findings, FDA and the Federal Trade Commission (which oversees advertising) issued a letter to the eye-care community in May 1996 warning that unrealistic advertising claims, such as "throw away your eyeglasses," and unsubstantiated claims about success rates could be misleading to consumers.Boothe Eye Care
Hyperopia or Hypermetropia- Many Hyperopic patients have difficulty seeing things up close, and often have crisp-acute distance vision.
Conductive Keratoplasty- CK is performed using a probe about the size of a human strand of hair, which release radiofrequency (RF) energy, shrinking the tissue to increase the curvature of the cornea. LasikPlus will not perform CK. (09 May 2009 Dr. Boothe )
Dr. William Boothe article
LASIK
LASIK is a more complex procedure than PRK. It is performed for all degrees of nearsightedness. The surgeon uses a knife called a microkeratome to cut a flap of corneal tissue, removes the targeted tissue beneath it with the laser, and then replaces the flap.
"With LASIK, the skill of the surgeon is important because he'll be making an incision," says Stephen Crawford, O.D., an optometrist practicing in Virginia, "compared to the PRK method where the machine does more of the work." Crawford urges people to find qualified, experienced doctors to perform this surgery. "You'll want someone who's done a number of LASIK procedures since this is a surgeon-dependent operation," he said.
According to Ken Taylor, O.D., vice president of Arthur D. Little, Inc., a technology and management consultant firm in Cambridge, Mass., "Last year, across the country, 40 to 45 percent of refractive surgeries performed by physicians were LASIK, which equates to approximately 80,000 procedures." Doctors not participating in clinical trials may choose to use the approved laser to perform LASIK procedures at their discretion, says Morris Waxler, Ph.D., chief of FDA's diagnostic and surgical devices section. But most uses are considered "off label" and are not regulated by FDA.
Lens- The lens of the eye is the body between the iris and the vitreous humor that focuses light rays entering through the pupil to form an image on the retina. You may also want to research presbyopia.( 10 March 2008 Blog article Dr. Boothe Laser Center )
