Thursday, January 7, 2010

Newsblurb: Well at least they admit it now

Times sure have changed. When I was living in England (2002-5) I never thought I'd live to see the day when Julian Stevens of Moorfields would tell the Times that the early years of doing LASIK were "burn and learn". Gosh. So glad I could be of service in the learning process. What's one pair of corneas more or less after all.

Laser Eye Surgery news
contactlenses.co.uk

`Potential complications` can arise from laser eye surgery

People must take potential complications into consideration and make an informed decision about whether to get laser eye surgery, according to lifestyle website carrieanddanielle.com.

Laser eye surgery has come a long way from the early days of the treatment. But despite a great deal of care being taken by surgeries to make it a safe procedure, complications can still arise.

The most common type of laser eye surgery is LASIK, but all forms are carried out by a laser which reshapes the cornea and removes some corneal tissue to change the focussing power of the eye.

Some patients can lose parts of their vision or suffer from conditions such as glare which cannot be corrected. Some may also develop severe dry eye.

In general, most treatments are not completely satisfying in patients who have large refractive errors, the website says, and the treatment is not always thorough enough to completely remove the need for glasses or contact lenses.

Julian Stevens, a surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital, told the Times on the 20th anniversary of the treatment, that "to some extent it was burn and learn” in the initial period of laser surgery.

2 comments:

Leah (Older) Andie (Younger:) said...

Lovely. I was one of those burn and learn patients too. Lesson learned, but a little too late.

Anonymous said...

yes, me too. Now, because of severe dryness (and also the occasional spiral type growth that nobody has ever seen before, right in the middle of my cornea), I have so much scar tissue that I can't see clearly out of that eye (unfortunately, my reading eye) at all. I'm a jewelry artist. It has played havoc with my ability to earn a living.