When it comes to eye problems, refractive errors have been here since the beginning of time and are something a large chunk of the population deals with. A refractive error like nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism can affect anyone from the elderly to even a toddler. These being the facts; consequently, there have been steady and substantial advancements in the branch of corrective surgeries over the last few years. With each new type, corrective surgeries have been getting easier to perform and even quicker to recover from- owing to many people opting for them to get rid of their specs or lenses.
Here are seven different types of corrective eye surgery that are in practice today:
- LASIK
The most commonly performed corrective surgery with a high success rate, laser-assisted in situ keratomileuses or LASIK, makes a corneal flap. The flap is then opened, the tissue is exposed to an excimer laser that corrects the cornea’s curvature by reshaping it. Complete recovery from LASIK may take somewhere between one week to ten days, depending on how well it took postoperative care. The contoura vision cost is much lesser than a lasik treatment.
- Contoura vision
Contoura Vision is a bladeless type of corrective surgery which too involves flap-making. It is a topo-guided procedure that removes corneal irregularities by using a digital map of your cornea. And, it is said to give better than 20/20 eyesight. However, due to high technology and its ‘customized’ nature, the cost of contoura vision can be on the more expensive side. Depending on the complexity, the contoura vision cost may range between 95,000 INR to 1,20,000 INR in India.
- SMILE
Small Incision Lenticule Extraction is a recently developed and approved but widely preferred bladeless, flapless, non-invasive procedure. In this, a lenticule(a disc-shaped piece of tissue) is created in the cornea using a femtosecond laser, which is then gently extracted by the surgeon, thereby correcting the error. Recovery takes about 3-4 days.
- PRK
Photorefractive keratectomy or PRK is a relatively older and now less popular but just as effective procedure. The first step of the operation involves the doctor manually removing the surface cells of the cornea. To correct the refractive error, this step is followed by treatment from a pre-programmed laser that has the measurements of your eye. Recovery can take upto 1-3 months, and extreme hygiene needs to be maintained post-surgery to avoid infection.
- LASEK
Laser-assisted subepithelial keratectomy or LASEK is a procedure that is carried out under topical general anaesthesia. The solution softens the epithelial layer on our eyes then moves aside by creating an incision to give laser treatment to the exposed cornea. Complete recovery may vary from person to person but approximately 3 to 6 months.
So, if you’re in a situation where you have to choose from these options, make sure to take your age, prescription number, budget, LASIK, SMILE, contoura vision cost, and some other vital factors in mind before settling on one.
on one.