Contacts After Laser Eye Surgery, LASIK, RK, or Post-Surgery
If you had LASIK, RK, or another type of laser eye surgery to correct your vision, you probably expected to see clearly when it was done. Unfortunately, not everyone has that perfect result. The good news is that even if you had one of these procedures, you may be able to wear contacts after laser eye surgery to help fix your vision.
When Laser Surgery Goes Wrong
The cornea is the clear portion of the front of the eye. It is the first part of the eye to receive light and it plays an important role in focusing an image clearly on the retina. Laser eye surgery uses a laser beam to reshape the cornea of the eye to help correct any problems the eye has focusing light precisely where it needs to be focused for clear vision.
Depending on how the eye reacts to the laser beam and how the eye heals, any laser eye surgery can result in less than perfect vision. If the cornea ends up with an irregular shape, or with tiny irregularities on the surface of the cornea, your vision can actually be worse after surgery than it was before.
If the surface of your cornea has small irregularities such as bumps or ridges after surgery, you may not be able to see clearly, even with glasses. A second surgery, called an enhancement, may be possible if your cornea is thick enough. Or, you may want to consider wearing gas permeable contact lenses after surgery to solve the problem.
Wearing Contacts after Laser Surgery
Gas permeable contacts are made of rigid plastic, which holds its shape rather than conforming to the shape of the eye like a soft lens. This is important after laser eye surgery because the gas permeable lens actually “floats” on a bed of tears. These tears fill in the space between the lens and the surface of the cornea. If your eye has tiny irregularities, the tears help fill in the gaps. Since the front surface of the contact lens is smooth, the eye is able to focus clearly through the contact without the distortion or blurriness caused by the irregularities on the cornea.
Soft contact lenses typically are not recommended following laser eye surgery because the lenses do not hold their shape.
We value and respect the experiences of all of our HERWriters, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.
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October 4, 2011 - 1:58amhttp://www.eyesurgerydoc.com/
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