The Original LASIK Surgery

The original laser eye surgery or PRK is one of the most common surgical vision corrections.  Photorefractive Keratectomy has been grouped under the umbrella term “laser eye surgery.”  Each surgery is a little different from the other and improvements have been made to all techniques to allow a patient to show improvement in a few days.  LASIK patients have a quicker recovery time and a more rapid improvement in their vision.  Many surgeons will still perform PRK if the patient has thin corneas or large pupils.

PRK has been around since the early 1980’s but was not approved by the Federal Drug Administration until 1995.  This procedure was widely used in Europe and Americans often traveled to Canada to have this surgery done.  This surgical procedure has been improved and enhanced since its early days.  Early surgeries were successful but over a period of time the procedure had to be repeated.

Laser eye surgery uses ultraviolet light beams to remove tissue from the cornea to reshape it.  When the cornea is reshaped it improves the light focus in the eye and provides clearer vision.  PRK is performed with an excimer laser device that uses a cool ultraviolet light beam.

Nearsighted and farsighted patients will benefit from having a PRK procedure.  Nearsighted patients will have their cornea flattened because it is too steep.  Farsighted patients need a steeper cornea created, and smoothing the cornea can help some astigmatism patients. 

If you are considering having PRK surgery, your first step is to find a surgeon.  You may want to get recommendations from friends, look into any potential surgeon through your state medical group, and researching on the Internet.  Your surgeon will examine your eyes to decide what needs to be done to correct your vision problem.  A topographer machine will be used to make a map of your cornea and point out what areas of your cornea that needs to be reshaped.

Surgery is a completed on an outpatient basis, the actual surgery takes less than a minute for each eye and you will only need a mild oral sedative before you have the procedure.  A few drops of an anesthetic are placed in the eyes before surgery.  A surgeon may not even do that because of the short duration of the procedure.  You will not normally feel pain and the doctor will ask you to lie down with your eye directly under the laser beam.  A pressure suction ring called a retainer is used to keep your eye open while one eye is done at a time. 

You may be a good candidate for PRK surgery if you have either a nearsighted or farsighted problem with your vision.  Astigmatisms may be correctable if it is not too severe.  So patients with severe astigmatisms cannot be helped with PRK surgery.  If you would like to be free of your glasses or contacts, call and make an eye exam appointment to talk to your doctor about the choices you may have.  You could be a phone call away from never wearing glasses or contacts again!