The most popular form of laser eye surgery - Lasik surgery has become the most common vision correction procedure in the world, with over 30 million eyes having been treated already. Lasik eye surgery has become extremely popular as it reduces and can even eliminate the need for glasses. The procedures themselves are also extremely quick and safe, two words that usually do not mingle in the medical world; however, laser devices used for eye treatments need to be very fast and precise at the same in order to generate the best results.
The process explained – The usual cause of eyesight deterioration that calls for laser eye surgery is a transformation in the shape of the cornea that can make you long-sighted, short-sighted, astigmatic… Your Laser eye surgeon therefore needs to correct the shape of your cornea, and he does this very fast: the first process is to use Wavelight Excimer Laser to remove a microscopic layer of corneal tissue, called a ‘flap’. Then, in less than 20 seconds, your laser surgeon can alter the shape of your cornea to bring it back to normal thus treating your eye condition. The ‘flap’ is then lowered back down to its original position, and the treatment is complete! In this procedure, speed is accuracy as the procedure must be undertaken in a minimal amount of time so the cornea does not dry.
Advantages of Lasik – Lasik surgery has been proven to be very successful as patient’s vision usually restores within a few days, although this varies as cornea is a living tissue, just like skin. Furthermore, if there is residual near-sightedness or long-sightedness after the procedure, the flap can be easily lifted again to treat again; this procedure is called enhancement.
Lasik or Lasek? – Lasik and Lasek Laser surgery are often mixed up. They are similar processes, but that are operated in different ways to suit the exact needs of a patient. For example, many patients who take part in contact sports are advised to undertake Lasek Surgery instead of Lasik as the procedure does not involve lifting a ‘flap’ of corneal tissue.
Lasik Laser Surgery Advice – In order to secure the best possible treatment, it is important to remember that the safest laser eye surgery is usually the fastest. This speed does not involve the skill of the surgeon (which is still very important!) but the quality of the laser device used to treat your eyes. The best machine out there at the moment is the ‘Allegretto Eye-Q’, which treats in 12 seconds compared to other devices that range from 36 seconds to 1 minute 6 seconds.
Matt Albie writes for Focus Eye a leading Harley Street clinic offering Laser Eye Surgery from expert surgeons with thousands of satisfied patients.
If you suffer eye conditions, Lasik laser eye surgery from the Focus Clinics may solve your problem.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Undertanding Lasik Surgery
Eye Braces Instead of Laser Eye Surgery?
Are you nearsighted, farsighted? Before your give up your glasses for contact lenses or laser eye surgery, check out the promises of eye braces. They promise to correct your vision without surgery - while you sleep.
A long time ago, back in the 1960's, two California doctors when getting feedback from their patients who wore contact lenses, kept hearing the same type of story over and over again. Many times their patients would leave their home, drive to work and then halfway through the day notice that they were not wearing their contact lenses. And they were seeing perfectly well. It appeared that the constant wearing of the contact caused a gradual reshaping of their cornea, improving their ability to see. This chance discovery eventually led to experimentations and studies on shaping the eyes using contact lenses.
Corrective eye braces or CRT (Corneal Refractive Therapy) lenses as they are formally known, are hard contact lenses that act much like a retainer or braces do on your teeth. You put them on at night just before you go to bed. During the night, while you sleep, they reshape the cornea of your eye. When you wake up in the morning, your blurred vision is gone. You can see the pictures on your wall, the buttons on your clothes, and the alarm clock on your dresser. You have 20/20 vision.
Unlike laser eye surgery, the changes are not permanent. The changes to the cornea will last only a day on some people. On others, it has lasted up to a week.
So who are the most likely candidates for these eye braces?
Young teenagers for one. Many good eye surgeons will not operate on a teenager or a person under 18 or 21 because the body, including the eyes. may still be growing and changing. At those ages, they doctor may legitimately determine that the risk is not worth it and rule out corrective eye surgery altogether. In this case, eye braces, may be a good alternative.
The eyes are one of our most important senses and many people are leery of making any type of permanent change to them. Add to that the growing number of malpractice lawsuits involving refractive surgery, and some people, especially those already wary of surgical operations, begin to look for alternative ways of improving their vision. For them, they are a good compromise between permanent contact lenses and laser eye surgery.
Those looking for a bargain will also like eye braces. The cost of CRT lenses is much less than the cost of laser eye surgery. The news is not all good, however. The braces have to be hard, in order to reshape the cornea. This can make them uncomfortable to wear. And although most people will get used to them, some find they can't adjust.
Also, although relatively infrequent, the wearing of contact lenses, does increase the risk of microbial infections of the eye.
And thirdly, there have been no long term studies of the effect of wearing them on a nightly basis for an extended period of time.
So if you want CRT lenses how do you get them? You can't just go into an eye doctor's office and order them. A CRT lens has to be prescribed by a doctor who has been certified in CRT lenses.
Dana Siconolfi is a freelance writer who writes articles relating to customized eye laser surgery as well as other health related topics.
Visit her site at http://www.lasereyesurgeryupdate.com/
Lakik Doctors - Find Out What Lasik Eye Surgery Is All About
The one thing that people who have sight never really consider is how precious that sight is to them. It's just one of those things that we take for granted, simply because we don't have to think to see, we just see. It's like breathing, or your heartbeat. It just happens.
It doesn't take much though to make you aware of such things. Perhaps with your heart it's a minor little palpitation or flutter that you feel. Very quickly you realize just how important your vital organs are, and that you're lucky to have them.
One of the scariest tragedies to most humans (besides speaking in public) is to lose their eyesight. I've heard many people say that they could handle anything but that.
It is a scary thought indeed. One thing's for sure though, even the smallest of change in your eyesight can lead to not only fear, but also become a very uncomfortable and annoying aspect of your life.
Your eyes are your windows to the world, and every now and then, people's eyes tend to get a little fogged up. This has to do with such things as nearsightedness a.k.a. myopia, where you actually can't see objects far away. The other common problem that people have is farsightedness, and you can probably guess then that with this condition, actually called hyperopia, that you can't see objects that are close to you. And the other most common condition that happens with people's eyes is called astigmatism. Astigmatism is where sight becomes a bit blurred and not as detailed. This has to do with the way the light enters the eyes.
The usual remedy for these conditions has been for century's eye glasses. We often see pictures of the great genius Benjamin Franklin wearing glasses, and there's a very good reason for that. He actually invented them. Back then they were called bifocals and for people with farsightedness or nearsightedness they were a great help. Well, at least to those who could afford them!
Thankfully we live in a technologically advanced time, where technology has come very far, and we can now help people with these aforementioned conditions gain their site back, and without having to even wear glasses or the later invented contact lens.
The procedure is called lasik surgery which was invented in about 1991 by a Greek gentleman by the name of Ioannis Pallikaris (say that five times fast). Since then the procedure has been much more perfected and has grown hugely in popularity. In the United States alone, millions of patients receive the treatment each year. Not to mention that the surgery has been performed in over 87 different countries thus far. That's a lot of fixed eyeballs.
The greatest part about this awesome new technology however is that the surgery is pretty non-invasive, is actually performed quite quickly, and gives the patient a rapid recovery. The patient stays awake for the surgery as well, and it's a same day in-and-out procedure.
Before the surgery, an eye drop of local anesthesia is placed into the eye in order to numb the area in which the surgeon will be working.
During the surgery the surgeon will actually be performing a two step procedure which involves first peeling back a portion of the cornea - basically as a flap in the patients eye - and then goes to work with the laser inside to reshape or manipulate certain parts of the cornea (or another fibrous section called the stroma) and this changes the way that light is reflected in the eye. The flap is then refolded down and the eye is left to heal.
Healing time is relatively fast, and a patient can expect to feel a little bit of soreness as well as scratchiness in the eye, but for the most part that's about all. All in all, the surgery takes about 15 minutes per eye. Although lasik eye surgery is a fairly quick procedure, it's certainly a rather complicated, and non simplistic one, and not to be taken too lightheartedly. Especially if you consider the fact of how many lives this surgery has changed for the better.
Bruce Hunter is the CEO of CORE Magazine in Denver Colorado. Visit our cosmetic surgery clinic section now to get free access to information on lasik doctors.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Cost of Laser Eye Surgery
Corrective laser eye surgery costs vary widely depending upon the procedure. There's also a wide variation in the cost of equipment used for testing and surgery. Technologies such as eye tracking tear film analysis and measurement of corneal thickness and the laser itself are available at different prices. The Purchasing or leasing of other equipment is also reflected in the procedure fee. There is a royalty fee of $100 to $250 per eye to the excimer laser manufacturer, depending upon the type of equipment used. Procedure fees also include expenses such as operation equipments, surgical staff fees and postoperative and preoperative care.
LASIK prices differ widely from one provider to another and depend on many factors. The only universal standard is that LASIK and other refractive surgery prices are quoted per eye.
Traditional LASIK surgery costs range from $1,400 to $2,000 per eye. LASIK with IntraLase, a procedure in which the epithelium flap is made with a laser rather than a microkeratome, costs more than traditional LASIK. The increase ranges from $250 to $500 per eye, averaging $344. Thus, the cost of LASIK with Intra Lase ranges is $1,600 to 2,500. The price is higher because of the high costs of the system used in surgery. Using Wavefront technology combined with a traditional LASIK procedure increases the price by at least $100.
To help lower the price or make surgery more affordable, there are a number of options available without compromising technology or surgical experience. These include medical insurance, financing options, payment plans, flexible spending plans and tax deductibles.
LASEK, an advanced form of PRK, costs the same as a LASIK procedure. The same increase in price range is present when including Wavefront technology or Intra Lase.
PRK or Photo Refractive Keratectomy is comparatively cheaper and may be performed for a cost of about $1,000 to $1,800.
Laser Surgery provides detailed information on Laser Surgery, Laser Eye Surgery, Cosmetic Laser Surgery, Laser Surgery For Stretch Marks and more. Laser Surgery is affiliated with Corrective Laser Eye Surgeries.
Lasik In New York
New York City is the one of the best places to be if you want to have Lasik surgery. There are a variety of laser vision correction surgeries from which to choose from in New York, including LASIK, LTK and PRK. These safe and effective procedures can reduce or eliminate your dependency on glasses and contact lenses.
Through the precise accuracy of laser light, the cornea is gently reshaped to correct nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism. These medical procedures are all done on an outpatient basis that uses a cool beam of light to gently reshape the surface of the eye's cornea and this help improve your vision. These procedures are designed to be a one time treatment to help normalize your vision, while also reducing or eliminating your dependence on glasses and contact lenses.
Laser vision correction is approved by the FDA as a safe, proven and effective procedure for myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), and astigmatism. The treatments are painless because of the drops put into the eyes. Some patients may experience discomfort for one to three days after treatment, often described as the feeling of sand or soot in the eye. This passes quickly and your doctor can prescribe medication to alleviate any discomfort during your recovery.
When having lasik in New York, a cool beam of laser light is used to gently reshape the cornea. Lasik is generally the procedure of choice because it is performed under a protective layer of corneal tissue. There is less surface area to heal and there is minimal or no discomfort. The whole procedure is over in a matter of minutes, and corrects several difference eye conditions.
To improve your vision, a cool beam of light gently reshapes the surface of the cornea to make it more like a normal eye, allowing light to come into focus on the wall of the retina and thus improving your eyesight.
There are many Lasik New York specialists studying the use of lasers to reshape the cornea for the purpose of decreasing or eliminating dependency on glasses and contact lenses. In its infancy, this surgery involved the application of incisions to reshape the cornea, but today, thanks to their work, the laser has become the most efficient and least invasive means of performing this type of surgery.
If you think you want to have lasik performed on your eyes in New York, you should check into the procedure. It is not for everyone and there are risks involved. You might want to read books, magazine articles, and newspapers to see what is happening in this field. Medical procedures are constantly changing and being improved. Maybe you were not a good candidate back in the mid-1990's when you first thought about having this done. But, with the advancements in technology, you may now be a good candidate.
Your Lasik New York eye surgeons and their staff can provide you with details and answer your many questions. Do not hesitate to talk to them as they are the best sources of information. Now, relax, have your surgery and start seeing better in a few days.
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