LASEK vs LASIK

For people like me who have been wearing glasses or contact lenses for more than 10 years, I am pretty sure we all have experienced dry eyes, headaches, tiredness, red or teary eyes, and others due to long hours of wearing glasses or contact lenses.  Wearing contact lenses for a long time is also not good for the eyes as you would find a lot of protein deposits beneath your eyelids especially for those who are using yearly disposable contact lenses rather than weekly or daily disposable contact lenses and the deposits will irritate the eyes and might cause cloudy lenses, which interfere with our vision in the future.

With all these reasons, I have been thinking about going for the vision correction surgery especially after knowing that my friends and cousins had their eyes corrected recently. At the moment, LASEK and LASIK are the two most common vision correction methods for people who have low to mid myopia and astigmatism and ASA LASEK & Intraocular Lens Insertion are used for people with high myopia and astigmatism.  Usually the consultants and doctors will discuss the suitable method and cost depending on your eye condition and you could make the decision depending on your budget. 

So what are LASEK and LASIK? Basically in LASEK, the surgeon will scrap the top corneal layer and laser is used to correct your vision whereas in LASIK, a thicker corneal flap is created, flipped open and then, laser is used to correct the vision. In traditional LASIK, a metal blade (M-LASIK) is used to create the corneal flap and until recently, laser (i-LASIK) is introduced to create the corneal flap by creating closely-arranged bubbles within the cornea.  Nowadays, M-LASIK is usually cheaper than LASEK and i-LASIK is the most expensive one since laser is used twice during the surgery. People with thin corneas might not be suitable candidates for LASIK as thicker corneal flap is created and too little is remained after creation. There will be a thorough eye examination including pachy test to determine corneal thickness and a topographer to measure surface contour. Using this information, the surgeon will calculate the amount and location to remove corneal tissue during the operation.

Apart from LASEK and LASIK, each clinic labels the method differently depending on the excimer laser machine available in the clinic like Da Vinci, Epi-LASIK, IntraLASIK, CustomVue and MEL-80.  I would recommend reviewing the differences online and have a rough idea before going to the consultation. Not only that, I would also recommend checking the doctor’s qualifications and online reviews as excellent surgical skill is as important as using a high-quality excimer laser machine. 

After deciding on the clinic, you would have to make considerations for the recovery time as it takes about 3 days to recover for LASEK and 4 hours to a day for LASIK.  If you are working and do not have enough vacation, you might want to opt for LASIK as the cornea is healed naturally and it remains in position almost immediately after the surgery. Regarding LASEK, you would expect constant tearing and some pain for up to 3 days as the cornea is still growing to replace the lost tissue. On top of that, you might have difficulty looking at nearer objects for the first month but you would not have problem looking at further objects.

The common complications for both methods include: dry eyes, glare or halos, under or over correction, corneal haze, scarring and increased sensitivity. These could be temporary or permanent depending on individuals. If you are unhappy with the outcome, you could choose to have a re-correction unless your cornea is too thin and it should be free of charge for the first year.

Ultimately, you should feel safe and comfortable with the clinic and the doctor before making the decision and have suspicions if it is too cheap or expensive as your decision will affect your eyes for the rest of your life.