You’ve decided that you’re likely to get laser eye surgery. This is a good decision, as a life without having to wear corrective lenses will give you a new sense of freedom that you haven’t experienced since before you had to rely on glasses or contacts for optimal vision.
However, it matters what kind of laser eye surgery you get. ReLEx® SMILE is a new technique for performing these surgeries. It’s different from standard laser eye surgery because it is minimally invasive and doesn’t require cutting your eyes at all, which makes your recovery much simpler.
Read on as Dr. Randa Garrana of Advanced Lasik explains more about this revolutionary technique, and what you can expect from the procedure.
Standard laser eye surgery is performed by making a very tiny incision in the cornea of your eyes. In doing so, your corneas are reshaped to correct your vision. This is suitable for all types of vision problems, including myopia (short-sightedness) and astigmatism.
The procedure uses a Carl Zeiss VisuMax® laser, which places tiny pulses at the corner of your eye. These pulses form bubbles in the corner of your eye that are less than 1/100th the width of a strand of hair; these bubbles create the outline of the part of your cornea that needs to be reshaped. Then, the laser creates a tunnel through which the surgeon can remove the part of your cornea that causes imperfect vision.
You may wonder why ReLEx SMILE is different from regular laser eye surgery. The key difference is that your post-operative results are more dramatic and occur more quickly than with standard laser eye surgery.
Standard laser eye surgery can sometimes feel uncomfortable, especially in the short-term postoperative period. You may feel like you have dry eyes, or like a piece of grit is in your eyes, until the irritating sensation gradually goes away. With ReLEx SMILE, however, your postoperative period is much more comfortable.
Before getting the procedure done, you meet with Dr. Garrana for a thorough examination. She ensures that your eyes are likely to benefit from the procedure.
Dr. Garrana checks your level of nearsightedness to ensure that eye surgery can correct it. She also sees if you have any other vision errors that could be made worse by eye surgery.
Before the surgery, she measures your corneas to determine their thickness and maps out their surface.
Finally, she measures the size of your pupils, as this is an essential measurement before laser eye surgery. All of this information helps Dr. Garrana program the laser with the utmost accuracy for a meticulous procedure and perfect results.
You may feel surprised at how quick the ReLEx SMILE procedure is, especially as compared to other laser eye surgeries.
First, Dr. Garrana puts drops into your eyes to numb them, so you won’t feel any pain during the procedure. She uses a speculum to keep you from blinking.
The rest of the procedure includes the following three steps:
In total, the procedure only takes about 15 to 30 minutes per eye. The total time of laser use is only about 30 seconds.
Your vision will likely be a bit hazy after the ReLEx SMILE procedure. Most people can drive the next day, although this is best determined on an individual basis.
Possibly the most difficult thing is that we’ll ask you to refrain from using certain devices for up to three days because they will irritate your eyes. These include the following:
Your vision will be about 80% better after the procedure, but you can expect it to return to 100% within a few weeks at most. Like other forms of LASIK, the most common side effect is dry eye. During the healing process, it’s also common to see “halos” around objects, but this effect goes away within a few weeks.
If you’ve thought about having LASIK eye surgery, you may want to consider ReLEx SMILE as your first option. Many people find it to be a much better approach.
To find out if you’re a candidate, call your nearest Advanced Lasik office today, or request an appointment online with Dr. Garrana any time. We have three offices: one in Manhattan, New York, and two more in Pasadena and Long Beach, California.
