Do You Go Blind After Laser Eye Surgery

Cataracts are the most common eye surgery and vitrectomy eye surgery is usually performed by a retina specialist for various problems of the retina and vitreous.

Do you go blind after laser eye surgery.

It s estimated that the chances of going blind as a result of laser eye surgery are around 1 in 5 million. Eye surgery can blind there are risks to eye surgery especially intraocular operations such as cataract removal or vitrectomy. Your functional vision should be improved by this point the vision you need to do everyday tasks like drive or use the computer. To those who worry they could go blind from laser eye surgery joel hunter md refractive surgeon hunter vision updated 10 31 18 10 46 am i m always surprised that the most common fear about laser vision correction i hear in clinic is my eyes work now they just need contacts or glasses.

After your surgery the doctor will want to see you in the first 24 48 hours to examine your eyes test your vision and hear about any concerns you have. That said it s important to remember that lasik is surgery. Don t take a shower or wash your hair until the day after. Avoid getting non sterile water from shower hair.

It would be extremely unusual for anyone to go blind from lasik especially if you follow your surgeon s instructions and attend all follow up visits as directed. After laser eye surgery take these precautions to prevent injury or infection. And like with any surgical procedure unexpected complications can occur. To put that in perspective you are more than twice as likely to get 5 numbers plus the bonus ball in the national lottery calculated at a 1 in 2 330 636 chance than you are to go blind because of a laser eye procedure.

Technically there is an exceedingly small risk of blindness with laser eye surgery but it is lower than the risk of wearing monthly contact lenses for one year so a risk that everyone seems to accept as perfectly reasonable. The american refractive surgery council reports that there are no actual cases of blindness resulting directly from lasik surgery and the success rate is as high as 96 percent. You ll probably wish you d had it done. Lasik surgery is considered to be a fairly low risk and highly successful elective surgery.