Carter Eye Lasik Vision Correction Blog

When you have your vision corrected with a LASIK surgery or one of its alternatives, the laser reshapes the cornea. That is the front clear covering over the iris and pupil. That reshaping changes the way the cornea bends light as it enters the eye, which in turn changes the way images focus on the eye’s “camera film”, the retina at the back of the eye.

That laser reshaping of the cornea’s curvature is permanent. It is done on the cornea’s middle layer, not on the top surface. The surface (epithelium) is an unstable layer. Part of its function is to protect the eye from dust and foreign bodies. The eye’s tears flow over it to wash such things away, and the cells in the surface layer replace themselves continually.

In that respect it resembles the skin, where the surface layer is also a protective one, and also continually replaces its old discarded cells with new ones that rise from a deeper layer.

When the cornea’s middle layer is reshaped to focus light clearly on to the retina, the eyes now have permanently clear vision – until mid-life. After the age of about 40, presbyopia begins to develop, and near vision starts to become blurry. This is an age-related condition that happens to everybody. The problem in not in the cornea’s curvature, but in the lens.

Causes of presbyopia are not fully understood, but the favored long-standing theory is that the lens becomes stiffer with age. It gradually loses its ability to steepen its curvature. Both the cornea and the lens are focusing structures. The LASIK-corrected cornea will continue to focus well but the lens becomes less able to “accommodate” to different distances. Accommodation is the ability to switch focus from near to far to intermediate and see everything in focus.

Presbyopia is most often and most easily corrected with reading glasses, but there are other possible treatments, such as an intraocular lens.

If you would like to learn more about LASIK and its likely results in your own case, please call or email LASIK surgeon Dr. Harvey Carter today for a free personal consultation. We look forward to working with you.

To have a LASIK surgery, you need to be an adult -- over the age of 18. There is a good medical reason for this. Our eyes and vision continue to develop through the adolescent years and do not stabilize enough for laser vision correction until approximately 18 years of age.

For a LASIK vision correction to be effective and long-lasting, the eyes need to have the same prescription for at least a year. If LASIK were to be done on eyes that were still changing or developing, the reshaping would not hold and vision would again become blurry.

On the other end of the age continuum, an older person might be a good LASIK candidate, or might not, depending on other eye conditions. Dr. Carter would do a thorough eye exam and vision test. If the lens is beginning to develop early cataracts, that would need to be addressed first. There would be little purpose in correcting the corneal shape for better vision if the lens was becoming cloudy and impairing vision.

Similarly, if an older person is developing glaucoma, that would need treatment. There is no cure for glaucoma, but it can be managed with eyedrops that lower the pressure inside the eye. Dr. Carter would determine whether laser vision correction would be appropriate. Other eye conditions that tend to occur during or after mid-life would be assessed and may disqualify you for LASIK.

To learn more about your LASIK candidacy and have your questions answered, please contact our vision correction office today for a free personal consultation.

IntraLase (also called IntraLASIK and blade-free LASIK) is one of the LASIK alternative procedures. It is often an excellent option for people who are not good candidates for LASIK because of their corneal thickness.

IntraLase uses a second laser to create the corneal flap before treatment begins. The LASIK flap requires a minimum corneal thickness but not everyone has that. But if you have thinner-than-average corneas, you can still have laser vision correction (other things being equal), and IntraLase is a choice we offer here at Carter Eye Center.

Two Lasers Used
The second laser is an extraordinarily fast-pulsed laser and highly programmable. According to your treatment plan, Dr. Carter will set this laser to penetrate only so far into the cornea, and only within the designated treatment area. Each pulse creates a microscopically tiny bubble beneath the corneal surface and the laser scans back and forth across the treatment area until it is entirely filled with these bubbles. It takes only seconds.

This has the effect of loosening surface tissue in a very precise way. Dr. Carter can then gently lift a thin layer of cells, move it to the side, and proceed safely with your vision correction plan. The IntraLase laser creates a custom-thin flap that will heal by itself with no stitches necessary. In LASIK, the flap is created with a microkeratome, a sophisticated and very precise blade. But it cannot create as thin a flap as the IntraLase laser can.

Vision improvement after IntraLase can be as dramatic as after LASIK. You can have the same Wavefront diagnosis that is done for Custom LASIK, and this gives a more precise treatment than was done in the early LASIK procedures before Wavefront technology was developed.

If you would like to know more about LASIK and IntraLase, please call or email our vision correction office today to schedule a free personal consultation.