LASIK: Benefits, risks and side-effects you should know before opting for this eye surgery

LASIK might work for you if you are over 20 years old, haven't had cornea diseases, and your glasses' prescription has stayed the same for a year

Do you find it difficult to see objects that are at a distance? Have you been relying on spectacles for years and want to live a glass-free life? Here's your door to clear, glasses-free vision.

Myopia, also known as short-sightedness, is a fairly common condition where the person is unable to see distant objects. It is a refractive error where the light rays, instead of focussing on the retina (the innermost layer of the eye), are focussed in front of it. When the light inside your eye doesn't focus properly, it makes things blurry. This can happen because your eye changes shape and becomes longer. It may develop for various reasons, including family history, eye development issues, diseases, or trauma to the eye. In simpler terms, the eyeball changes shape and becomes elongated, thus resulting in unclear vision.

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Most people who suffer from myopia wear glasses or contact lenses, depending on their convenience. If you are someone who wishes to rid themselves of the daily struggle of inserting contacts or finds wearing glasses uncomfortable and having very high power, you can consider several surgical interventions, of which the popular one is LASIK, or Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis.

A surgical intervention that changes the cornea's shape, the eye's outermost transparent layer, LASIK might work for you if you are over 20 years old, haven't had cornea diseases, and your glasses' prescription has stayed the same for a year. However, if your cornea is less than 450 micrometres thick, LASIK isn't an option for you.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages you must consider before opting for LASIK surgery.

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Advantages:

Pain: The fear of pain is one of the scariest parts of any surgical intervention. However, LASIK surgery results in minimal or no pain post-operatively, and the person can often go home directly without hospital admission.

Recovery period: Recovery of vision is faster as opposed to other techniques, and you can quickly adapt to living without visual aids.

Haze: No residual haziness is present after the operation, unlike certain other surgeries like photo refractive keratometry, commonly called PRK.

Correction of high power: LASIK can effectively correct eye power up to -12.00 diopters, making the world more evident to the myopic eye.

Disadvantages:

Cost: It is more expensive than conventional methods of correcting eye power.

Astigmatism: LASIK may be accompanied by blurred and/or distorted vision due to a deflection in the curvature of the eye, causing a defect. Nevertheless, this is usually well tolerated and is often mild.

Dry eye: If a nerve is damaged during surgery, lubrication of the eye may decrease, leading to dryness in the eye. This causes a foreign body sensation and requires proper treatment.

Glare: Temporarily, you may experience halos or glare after the surgery. As you heal and adjust to the changes in your eye, these go away and are not life-threatening in the least.

Options galore:

You can also consider other surgeries to rid yourself of the glasses, like SMILE, or small incision lenticular extraction, that can correct a power of up to 10 diopters without causing astigmatism. Orthokeratology can also be considered if you are below 18 years of age, as it uses a rigid (gas-permeable) contact lens for correcting powers up to 5 diopters. You can opt for orthokeratology if you're under 18 and need vision correction up to 5 diopters. It uses a firm contact lens to reshape your cornea while you sleep.