Refractive eye surgery

Many people suffer from sight related problems and certain refractive disorder is the most common cause of deteriorated vision. Nowadays, there are many ways of correcting such disorders. Today, wearing eyeglasses or contact lenses is very common. But try to imagine that you take part in some more active and more contact involving sport and suddenly wearing eyeglasses is not an option anymore.

Not only they would limit you considerably but if you received a blow then eyeglasses could break and you could hurt yourself plus it would cost you some money. New eyeglasses are certainly not cheap. Contact lenses could be other option but not everyone can wear them and they can be unpleasantly irritating. In case you cannot wear eyeglasses or contact lenses you have one other option which is refractive eye surgery.

Thanks to new microsurgical methods and the most modern technical comforts we are experiencing substantial changes as far as the approach to treatment of some eye disorders and refractive disorders is concerned. Recently a new solution concerning refractive disorders has come into focus in the form of refractive eye surgery and more and more people who have been having problems with some sort of refractive disorder make use of it.

Refractive eye surgery is the fastest growing subdiscipline of ophthalmology. The center of focus of refractive eye surgery is the elimination of refractive disorders such as shortsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, presbyopia and higher-order aberrations. Also it is possible to eliminate other problems which lead to deterioration of vision.  The most common case is a cataract which obstructs vision and the world does not look like it used to. Even in this case it is possible to undergo a surgical procedure and improve vision.

Refractive correction is in its substance a surgical procedure which can solve various problems related to vision.

From a broad range of surgical procedures whose goal is to correct refractive disorders the most commonly used in Europe and in the US are the methods of laser refractive eye surgery (CustomCornea, Lasik, PRK, Lasek, DTK), intraocular surgical procedures (RLE, implantable intraocular lenses), combination of laser and intraocular surgery (Bioptics) and methods of insition surgery (AK).

Laser eye surgery is the most common type of refractive correction procedures. It is a surgery that uses laser which is capable of adjusting refractiveness of the cornea and thereby elimi-nate the eye disorder. The cornea is a thin and transparent membrane on the eye surface which is a component of the optical system of the eye and its function is to direct the light from the outside environment to a precisely determined spot on the retina. If something is wrong with this part of the eye then vision is blurry. There are many types of laser surgery and it depends on a particular surgeon which type he opts for. These procedures include already mentioned Lasik, Lasek, PRK and the most recent procedure Epi Lase and many others. Every method can work well but it is not always possible to use the same procedure for every individual.

Based on the type and size of the diopter disorder, the size of higher-order aberration, age, thickness of the cornea, width of the pupil, condition of the lens and the retina, requirements and needs it is necessary to choose the most suitable method of the procedure on individual basis.

However, there are also some patients for whom such types of procedures are not suitable at all.

There are many reasons why you might want to undergo this type of a surgical procedure. If you began to think about undergoing such a procedure you should talk to your ophthalmologist and get all the information, consider possible complications and outcomes and of course undergo an examination which will confirm whether you are a suitable candidate or not. It is important to realize that after surgical procedure it is not possible to turn the clock back and every surgery carries with it certain risks.

There are not many disciplines in the medicine where such changes have occurred in last twenty years as they did in ophthalmology and mostly in the field of refractive eye surgery. During last couple of years tens of thousands of patients in Slovakia underwent a laser or other surgical procedure with the goal to eliminate diopter or any other visual disorder. Surgical correction enabled to improve eyesight of many tens of millions of people worldwide.