Laser eye surgery risks are not unheard of, but fortunately they are not common either. Excimer laser treatment is subject to complications, but the complication rate is very low. Patients often ask if one of these complications is likely to occur to them. It is impossible to predict whether any laser eye surgery risks will occur in any specific case.
Laser eye surgery risks are rare but will be more common in people with high amounts of nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism, because these people require larger amounts of treatment. Most complications can be partially or totally corrected through a repeat laser procedure.
Patients commonly ask if the laser eye surgery risks mean they can go blind from the excimer procedure. No person has ever gone blind in any of the extensive FDA studies, but it is remotely possible. A severe infection, severe haze formation that did not respond to treatment, or a severe problem with the flap formation could result in greatly decreased vision, though further excimer laser treatment or other surgery would restore vision in almost every one of these cases.
During the first few months of healing, it is common for patients to experience difficulty with vision, including blurred vision, double vision, halos, glare, and light sensitivity. A foreign-body sensation and excess tearing will also occur in many people during the first month of healing. These symptoms are generally temporary and are a normal part of the healing process. Some people will experience difficulties that persist longer than one month.
The most common laser eye surgery risks include undercorrection and overcorrection, optical aberrations, dry eyes, infection, flap problems, and decrease in best-corrected vision.
Undercorrection Or Overcorrection
By far the most common laser eye surgery risks or complication is under-correction or overcorrection. These complications occur because the patient experiences an abnormal healing response or because the laser energy removed slightly too much or too little tissue.
In the case of an undercorrection, the patient will be left with some degree of the initial focusing problem, though much less so than before. Further laser treatment, known as an “enhancement” or a “touch-up,” can then be used to further improve the vision.
An overcorrection will result in a reversal of the vision focusing error: an overcorrection of nearsightedness will result in farsightedness, and vice versa. In most cases, an enhancement laser treatment can be performed to improve the resulting focusing error.
Undercorrections and overcorrections are the main reason that all patients do not have perfect 20/20 vision after the excimer laser treatment. These laser eye surgery risks mean no patient can be guaranteed perfect vision after excimer laser treatment. If you will be satisfied only with 20/20 vision, then you should not have the procedure, because this result cannot be guaranteed.
