Laser Eye Surgery UK

Over 160 million people are visually impaired. The least evasive method of vision correction uses spectacles, consisting of two lenses. Each lens in the pair of spectacles is designed to correct the associated eye for either near or long sightedness. For those who do not like the idea of wearing glasses, there is the option of contact lenses which stay hugged to the eyeball. However, this can lead to tired or sore eyes and they are not as easy to remove as glasses. A more recent, and more permanent, method used to correct long or short sightedness is laser eye surgery. Laser eye surgery UK patients are reported to be well over 100 thousand every year.

What is laser eye surgery?

Laser eye surgery is a type of refractive surgery that utilizes a laser in the procedure. Refractive surgery is any procedure that involves the surgical reshaping of the cornea to help reverse the effects of myopia (short sightedness), hyperopia (long sightedness) and astigmatism (irregular shaped eye). In laser eye surgery, a laser is used to ablate, or remove, corneal tissue until the cornea is the correct refractive shape.

Are there different types of laser eye surgery?

There are several types of laser eye surgery. PRK, Lasik, Lasek and Epi-Lasek are all laser eye surgery procedures carried out by most prominent eye surgery clinics through out the UK. All laser eye surgery procedures, apart from PRK or photorefractive keratectomy, remove the very thin outer layer of the cornea (epithelium) before surgery, then replace it afterwards and allow it to heal naturally. The PRK surgical procedure involves using a laser to reshape the surface of the cornea. The epithelium is not removed prior the the procedure. It is removed along with the tissue being ablated but will grow back over time. This is why the PRK procedure has a longer healing time and it was the first eye surgery procedure used.

Lasik eye surgery achieves the same results as PRK in that it reshapes the cornea, but it uses a blade or a laser to cut a flap form the surface of the eye, with a hinge, that is folded back to reveal the inner cornea. Alcohol is used to soften the cornea before cutting. After the surgical procedure, the flap is repositioned and allowed to heal. The Lasek procedure uses a finer blade to cut a thinner corneal flap and results in a quicker healing time. A further advancement to these procedures is the Epi Lasik method which does not use alcohol to soften before cutting as it uses a blunt oscillating blade to remove only the actual epithelium layer. This reduces the risk of any adverse reactions to the alcohol, such as killing epitherial cells.