Does laser eye surgery generate lifelong results?

The duration of the treatment for PRK and LASIK is short. The correction of the eye is executed in less than 10 minutes. When laser eye surgery is performed with the most recent ReLEx SMILE technique, the intervention can even be performed more rapidly. Obviously, a shorter treatment is more comfortable to go through. The faster, the better and the shorter the time for recovery. This is a general principle in medicine: the duration of a treatment is related to the duration of the recovery.

The main reason for the speed at which the current treatments are being performed is the speed of the lasers. The new generation lasers operate at such an extremely high frequency that the actual laser correction is executed in less than 30 seconds. So, a laser eye surgery passes real quickly. Therefore, you might rightfully wonder how long the effect of such a short treatment will last. A couple of years? A lifetime?

How laser eye surgery improves your eyesight

In the case of nearsightedness (myopia) as well as farsightedness (hyperopia) or astigmatism, the laser is programmed according to your individual measurements and the degree of deviation. During the treatment, the laser reshapes the cornea, improving your bad eyesight. 

After the eye laser surgery, the adjustment of the corneal shape, by removing part of the tissue, will not lead to another decline of the eyesight over time. The treated layer will keep its new shape because it is incapable to “regenerate”. The cornea heals, but the layer that was removed by laser doesn’t grow back. That is the reason why the cornea keeps its new shape for a lifetime.

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Lifefong effect

Obviously, it is very important to make a correct measurement of the deviation before the intervention. This is performed during the preliminary exam. During this exam, the light diffraction within the eye is mapped into detail and the actual strength is measured in 5 different ways.

It is also important to wait with the treatment until the eye is completely stabilized and no further variations occur in the deviation. To give you an idea, we consider the eye as stabilized when a difference of not more than half a dioptre was measured over the past 3 years. In practice, this means that most people need to wait until the age of 22 to 23 years before they can be treated. However, it is worth the wait. When these guidelines are respected, a lifelong effect of the treatment can be expected. 

If you would like to make an appointment or if you would like to know more about laser eye surgery, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Preliminary examination

Would you like to know whether you are eligible for laser treatment or eye surgery?

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