Dr.Lucio Buratto was the first surgeon in the world to use the Excimer Laser in the Keratomileusis procedure and was also the first to perform the down up LASIK eye surgery.
Dr.Lucio Buratto was the first surgeon in the world to use the Excimer Laser in the Keratomileusis procedure and was also the first to perform the down up LASIK eye surgery.
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LASIK eye surgery known as refractive eye surgery by many doctors is a procedure but first of all is an acronym for Laser-Assisted In Situ keratomileusis.
LASIK is a surgical procedure that corrects refractive errors and improves vision. An Excimer Laser points directly into the eye, removed corneal tissue located under the flap, changing the shape of the cornea. The procedure normally corrects Nearsightedness, Farsightedness, Astigmatism and "Presbyopia". LASIK eye surgery was intended to reduce a person's dependency on glasses or contact lenses, and has become the most popular procedure among the refractive procedures because it is simple to perform, predictable, stable and provides early recovery with minimal postoperative care. More than seven hundred thousand people undergo the procedure every year. The good news is that more than 55% of surgeries recipients achieve vision correction of 20/20 or better. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that complication occurs in no more than 5 percent of the procedures.
Imagine being able to work, drive and play sports without having to depend on glasses or contact lenses. Chances are that LASIK may make this a reality for you, because this laser eye surgery can treat many common vision problems or refractive errors such as Myopia, Hyperopia, Astigmatism and even "Presbyopia". But be aware... that Presbyopia treatments can only be done out of the United States because it is not approved by the FDA.
LASIK (pronounced "LAY-sik") can improve your vision, helping to more clearly focus what you see. Advanced Laser Technology (Excimer Laser) makes the procedure fast and often painless and vision begins to improve soon after the surgical procedure.
Your LASIK consultation begins the day you make the phone call to find out more details of LASIK surgery. You should not expect to speak with the doctor immediately, because there is a preliminary talk with the coordinator or the person in charge of previous examinations. The day of your appointment you should expect discuss about your medical history, about what are your expectations, among others. The main reason of this is due to give a better understanding and reinforce the knowledge you already have about the procedure, because eventually and after the measures taken by certain machines you will spend a few minutes with the doctor in order to discuss not only if you are a good candidate for the procedure but also to answer all your questions.
Your LASIK eye screening is a group of tests to determine corneal thickness, refraction and keratometry (corneal curvature). All these tests, supplemented with a cycloplegic refraction (the dilation of your eye) will provide adequate information to determine whether or not you are a good candidate for the procedure. Contact lens patients, interested on LASIK eye surgery, should stop wearing the contacts 2 weeks previous to the screening in order to have accurate measures, and reducing risks of over correction or under correction.
Many patients show nervousness, as soon as they walk into the facility the day of their surgery, which is obviously a natural state in a human being to something that has never experienced before. That is why many doctors will give a medication in order to relax the patient under these circumstances. After this, probably you will be dressed for the occasion (as a patient) and you may receive a cleansing with povidone around the surgical area to reduce risk of infection. Do not use any kind of makeup the day of surgery not even perfume as a recommendation.
Next step is in the surgical room where you'll receive instructions immediately to take a seat in a surgical very comfortable chair. You will receive instruction from the doctor while he/she performs the procedure as well. You eye will have drops of anesthesia as soon as the surgery started, then your doctor will open your eyes with an instrument called speculum thus preventing blink, at this point the doctor mark the cornea in order to proceed with the flap. The flap could be created by two different devices (microkeratome) which is mechanical or with a (femtosecond laser), Let's say for instances your flap will be created with a microkeratome, so after he/she positioned the device on the surface of the cornea and just before cutting the flap, you will feel some pressure in your eye while the suction occurs, for that period of time you will feel discomfort but not pain, in this part of the process is very likely that you will lose your vision for the time that takes this part of the surgery which is less than 10 sec, next the surgeon will lift the flap in order to point the laser into your eye, (watch the video for better understanding). After the laser treatment, your surgeon will reposition the flap back on place and finally will put some eye drops medication in order to prevent infection. After all these irrigation that received your eye doing the procedure and also on the end of it, is very likely that after your surgery is done you vision will be like seeing through water which is something expected, but you will notice a vision improvement immediately. As soon as your procedure is done, your doctor will give you some advices in term of what to do in the next 24 hrs before your post-operative care begins. These advices could include (do not scrub your eyes and take a nap for a couple hrs), something very easy to do, especially if you received medication to help you relax before surgery.
In an effort to be as didactic as possible about LASIK eye surgery, we provide these videos in order to show the two sides of the coin to the final consumer, as an example of what the surgeon and patient would experience under this surgical environment and how does it look in each of these circumstances of the procedure (please make you comments in our blog).
The first video from left to right basically shows how the surgeon sees when he/she is performing the surgery; this is possible due to the integration and connectivity of a camera in the microscope.
The second video shows what the patient would experience while he/she is leaning back on the surgical chair and under the Excimer laser treatment.
In this video there is two things that we have to clarify; and no matter how silly it sounds but this is a emulation video in order to improve LASIK eye surgery information and so; (you have to realize that you wont see as clear as the video is, in fact if you are under the same circumstances with your current refractive errors, is very likely that you will see all this image blurry, besides the flap of your cornea will be lifted, means there is less thickness in your cornea, however you will be able to distinguish the spotlight that the surgeon refers, previous to applied the pulses of the laser in your cornea) The second important point is that while the Excimer laser pulses are acting on the stroma, in other words "corneal tissue exposed under the flap", instead of seeing more blur as the video shows, you will probably perceive an slight improvement in your vision, especially notice it by patients with high diopters, and as soon as the flap is back on place is very likely that you will see much better, but not as good as the expectations of your surgeon, after all, your eyes were exposed to an excess of lubrication right before the treatment was completed, and so you vision most likely will be like when you see under water..
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Your LASIK procedure is done and now the healing process begins. At this point, you will notice improvement in your vision as time passes. Your follow-up appointment is most of the time the very next day, where you will have a post-operative screening in order to determinate what is your vision acuity, make sure that the cornea is well positioned and discuss with your doctor potential experiences such as: some pain or sand sensation that will gradually reduce in your eyes.
Your post-operative care varies according to the surgeon, but most of the time you should expect to have or be seen for your surgeon four times after your laser eye surgery: 24 hrs after the procedure, one week after, one month and finally one year.
Starting with Dr Jose Barraquer
The technique was made possible by the Colombian ophthalmologist Jose Barraquer, who, around 1950 in his medical practice, developed the first microkeratome, and also developed the technique used to cut thin flaps in the cornea and alter its shape, in a procedure he called keratomileusis. Doctor Barraquer also researched the question of how much of the cornea had to be left unaltered to provide stable long-term results. Undoubtedly those researches opened a all new concept about eye surgery and to the science of medicine in the world.
Evidently many others medical events happen in the course of the years in order to have the information and the knowledge that we have today. However if the history of this procedure is what you are looking for, we are glad to refer you to Wikipedia for additional information.
In 1993, Dr. Tayfour became the first surgeon in North America to perform LASIK on patients with nearsighted vision and two years later was first again to perform the advanced procedure on farsighted patients.
Today, faster lasers, large ablation areas, bladeless flap incisions, and wavefront-optimized and guided techniques have significantly improved the reliability of LASIK procedures compared to that of 1992, which allows the patients experience less discomfort and pain after the procedure, for better outcome. However there is a contradiction today about how safe LASIK treatments could be and our suggestion will be for all consumers that are looking for this procedure, to learn more about it, in order to ask the right questions to your doctor and avoid misunderstanding.
Beginnings
LASIK eye surgery was officially approved in the United States by the FDA, in July 06, 1995 but the decision date was made to Mar 10, 1995 with the first Excimer Laser system, model (UV200LA). However the FDA received it Nov 20 1991 by the company Summit Technology INC. A few months later the second machine (VISX MODEL B and C) from AMO MANUFACTURING, USA LLC, was approved by the FDA, and (SVS APEX) from ALCON LABORATORIES INC was also approved a few days later.
Since the first EXCIMER Laser appeared to correct refractive errors, only five companies tried to lead the market with their EXCIMER Laser, in order to improve health care in the U.S. But it seemed to be the pioneers are always on top of the Tech. They now cover most of the refractive market in the world.
We invite you to take a look each one of the latest EXCIMER Laser for LASIK surgery, with a brief description and explanation of what are they approved for, (by the FDA), because, not all of the Excimer lasers are approved by the FDA to treat certain refractive errors. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the Laser can not do it. Doctors could treat certain refractive errors with an Excimer Laser that is not FDA approved to treat that particular refractive error. That simply means that the FDA does not monitor what doctors are doing in their practice.
Now we have to clarify that doesn't mean that Doctors are doing something wrong or clandestine, because they are not, what they are doing is demonstrating with results, that is safe and it works properly.
Page updated August 09, 2010
LASIK, LASEK, EPI-LASIK, PRK, Wavefront, Monovision are you confused? don't be, we want you to learn about LASIK or in other words about (Refractive eye surgery).
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