Your surgeon can use this information to correct any imperfections on the surface of your eye and improve your vision even more than standard LASIK.įinally, bladeless LASIK also includes wavefront-guided surgery. This technique is a lot like topography-guided LASIK, but the imaging laser maps your entire eye instead of just the surface. This technique uses a laser equipped with mapping technology to create a digital map of the surface of your eye. Topography-guided LASIK is another type of bladeless LASIK surgery. This procedure may also be called Intra-LASIK when only lasers are used to perform it. Bladelessīladeless techniques can also be used for standard LASIK surgeries. This procedure is safe and effective, and you can expect results that are about as good as what you would get from standard bladeless surgery. The only type of bladed LASIK surgery you can get is standard LASIK surgery. Types of Bladed and Bladeless LASIK Surgery Bladed The patient undergoes a short post-operative examination and then can go home. It is possible to experience some itching or burning, but this is temporary. There are no stitches or bandages necessary for LASIK.Īfter the surgery, the patient is allowed to rest for a short while. The cornea is able to heal naturally on its own. After the reshaping of the cornea is complete, the flap is put back into place. This is accomplished by smoothing the abnormal aspects of the shape. When performing LASIK for astigmatism, the surgeon aims to create a more normal shape for the cornea.

They make the cornea steeper when they are working to correct the vision of someone with farsightedness. When the surgery is performed for nearsightedness, the surgeon works to flatten the cornea. This allows the surgeon to precisely reshape the cornea. This type of laser is highly specialized, and it can remove tissue in microscopic amounts using a cool ultraviolet light beam. Using an excimer laser, the surgeon removes some of the corneal tissue. The surgeon moves the hinged flap back so they can access the cornea. With both approaches, the corneal flap is very thin. Then, the surgeon creates a flap in the cornea using a femtosecond laser or a microkeratome. In some cases, a medication to help the person relax is administered. The procedure is largely the same for LASIK with a blade and without a blade.Īfter getting the person into position, the surgeon administers anesthetic eye drops to promote comfort during the procedure. People can start to notice a difference in their vision without contact lenses or eyeglasses within as little as 24 hours after the procedure. On average, it takes about 15 minutes to perform LASIK on both eyes. This surgery works to reshape the cornea, so when light enters the eye, it focuses on the retina properly. It is the most common laser eye surgery performed for farsightedness, nearsightedness, and astigmatism.

Colorado blade size comparison