Surgeries and medical operations are making huge steps every year as new technology helps them become more precise. The same is true with LASIK surgery. Over the years it has changed, from computer mapping to bladeless surgeries. Despite these advances, there are still complications that can result in visual disturbances post-surgery.
To fully understand why these disturbances happen, you have to understand how the eye and LASIK works. The cornea is the part of the eye that focuses the light coming from all around onto the retina. The retina, through little pulses, sends this light to the brain, which reads the pulses as an image. The problem arises when the cornea can’t filter the light properly, causing abnormalities, like halos and glares. …show more content…
These typically happen at night, with the halo appearing around signs, traffic lights, or even the lights of other cars. Obviously, this can be extremely distracting and some patients have to give up driving completely due to the interference.
A glare is a flash of light that doesn’t really illuminate anything. It’s almost like looking at the sun, where there’s lots of light, but too much to be of any use. These tend to occur during the day. While a lot of times it’s just obnoxious and forces you to squint or close your eyes, sometimes the glares can be painful.
Halos and glares are common visual disturbances after LASIK surgery. In fact, most patients will experience some sort of halo or glare in the days following the procedure. This is more than likely caused by a slight swelling in the cornea from the surgery. Once the swelling goes down, there usually isn’t any more problems. Unfortunately, sometimes these abnormalities last longer or may even be permanent.
When halos and glares last longer than the typical two or three days, it could be a sign of a more serious problem. If the LASIK surgery didn’t remove all the parts of the cornea it was supposed to, the halos and glares might continue and even