Medical Tourism: Corrective Laser Eye Surgery

More and more people are turning to medical tourism to meet their health care needs. And who can blame them? With skyrocketing costs and seemingly endless waiting lists, medical travel is a worthy option to consider. World-class facilities, highly qualified doctors, and state-of-the-art technology are common among many medical destinations.

With the amazing advances in lasers, combined with the creation of new and safer refractive surgical techniques within the past ten years, there are more people heading to their friendly eye doctors to have their vision improved.

Corrective laser eye surgery is a great procedure to couple with medical tourism. It is relatively safe, quick, and the recovery time is short. There is minimal post-operative pain involved.

Let?s take a look at the four most popular corrective laser eye surgery procedures:

- Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) is for nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism eye conditions. This is the most common corrective laser eye surgery. In this procedure, a surgical incision is made to the cornea, creating a flap that is folded out of the way, allowing the surgeon to use the laser for correction. Since a flap is created on the cornea, healing is faster because the flap is replaced and allowed to reattach to the cornea. The entire procedure only takes about 15 minutes, with only 30 to 60 seconds of actual lasering. Many patients experience better vision as early as the day after surgery.

- Laser Epithelial Keratomileusis (LASEK) is similar to LASIK, except that the flap is created in the epithelium, rather than in the cornea.

- Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK) is for persons who are nearsighted, who have mild to moderate farsightedness, and astigmatism. The surgeon uses the laser to remove tiny tissue on the surface of the cornea.

- Conductive Keratoplasty (CK) uses a probe as thin as a strand of human hair, utilizing radio frequency (RF) energy. The surgeon uses the probe to reshape the cornea by shrinking small areas of the tissue.

How do these corrective laser eye surgery procedures improve one?s quality of life? Patients who had these procedures were surveyed and noted the following:

- Ability to see on waking

- Freedom from glasses and contact lenses

- Improvement in personal safety

- Better participation in sports and fitness activities

As with any surgery, there are risks involved, and the wise patient will do well to be aware of any and all possible side effects and complications. Some of the most common risks involved in corrective laser eye surgery are:

- Loss of vision

- Dry eyes

- Eye discomfort (usually during the first 24 hours after the surgery) - Irregular astigmatism

- Corneal haze or glaring

- Overcorrected or undercorrected vision

- Inability to wear contact lenses in the future

- Loss of corneal flap, requiring a corneal graft

- Scarring

- Infection

- Glare around lights, including difficulties with night vision and night driving

Some people who may not be good candidates for corrective laser eye surgery includes those suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, glaucoma, diabetes, cataracts, and herpes infections of the eye.

It?s important to remember to have a companion in your medical travel to drive and/or accompany you to and from your procedure.

After weighing pros and cons, it?s good to know that there are world-class eye care facilities, offering inexpensive, modern treatment in many medical destinations, such as India, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. When costs may be reduced by half and a nice vacation in a desirable destination gets thrown into the deal, why not consider medical tourism for corrective laser eye surgery?

http://www.medical-travel-asia.com is dedicated in telling the world that Asia is THE place for medical tourism and the right place to come and seek medical help. Asia has so many things to offer to the world, we simply want to tell people WHY.

On top of that, we also happen to know where are the best beaches here in Asia to recuperate after a surgery. Come to Asia if you are seeking medical treatment, get well, and take back some beautiful holiday memories at the same time.

However, http://www.medical-travel-asia.com is NOT engaged in rendering medical service or advice and the information provided on this website is not a substitute for a professional medical opinion. Our website is purely for educational and informational purposes. If you have a medical problem, please contact a qualified health professional.

Laser Eye Surgery: What Are The Potential Side Effects?

With the ever-growing popularity of laser eye surgery and the continual advancements in the procedures and technology, the primary concern of many people considering the surgery is this: what are the potential side effects?

The good news is that both PRK (photorefractive keratectomy laser eye surgery designed to correct mild myopia and astigmatism) and Lasik procedures involve few risks. In fact, serious vision-threatening complications are minimal. However, as with any form of surgery, there can be potential side effects. Here are the most common side effects that can result from laser eye surgery:

Infection And Delayed Healing

Approximately one-tenth of one percent of all patients suffer from a corneal infection after undergoing PRK. Slightly fewer face an infection after Lasik. A cornea infection will not result in any long-term effects, however there generally is some additional discomfort and the healing process is slower.

Under Correction/Overcorrection

Even though tremendous advances have been made in laser eye surgery, a surgeon cannot predict precisely how your eyes will respond to the procedure. In some cases, you might need to continue to wear corrective lenses after surgery. If the results are particularly unsatisfactory, you do have the option to undergo a second surgical procedure to improve your vision.

Decrease In Best-Corrected Vision

After laser eye surgery, a few patients find that their best-corrected vision with contact lenses is actually worse than it was before the surgery. This is a rare occurrence, but can occur if there's been irregular tissue removal or if a corneal haze has developed.

Excessive Corneal Haze

Corneal haze is not unusual. In fact, it's part of the normal recovery process after refractive surgery. Generally, it won't affect your final vision, and will only be evident to an ophthalmologist using a microscope. However, in some cases, excessive corneal haze does interfere with your final vision. In such a case, it can often be corrected with a second surgery. Also worth noting, the risk of encountering excessive corneal haze is much lower with Lasik eye surgery than with PRK.

Regression

Regression is exactly as it sounds: for some patients, after a period of several they find their vision returning to its pre-surgery state. In other words, they find the surgery to be ineffective. A second surgical procedure is usually possible in such cases.

Halo Effect

The halo effect will generally go unnoticed except in situations where the light is dim. As the name implies, a second faded image is seen as the pupil enlarges. This image is produced by the untreated peripheral cornea. The danger here is that the halo effect can often interfere with your night driving.

Flap Damage or Loss

In some Lasik cases, instead of creating a hinged flap on the center of the cornea, the entire flap comes off. This can usually be replaced after the laser treatment. However, in some cases, the flap may be damaged or lost.

Distorted Flap

Also in reference to the Lasik procedure, if the healing of the corneal flap is irregular, then the shape of the cornea can become distorted. This will often result in your best-corrected vision being disappointing.

Other Side Effects of Laser Eye Surgery

Even when both the procedure and the healing process seem to go perfectly, there are some side effects that may still cause dissatisfaction. Older patients, for example, cannot have both distance and near vision in the same eye without wearing glasses or contact lenses. Patients suffering from myopia but who could still read without glasses may no longer be able to read without glasses after surgery. And finally, if both eyes are not treated at the same time, the eyes might work awkwardly together between the time of the first surgery and the second surgery.

David Silva is the webmaster for Eye Surgery Insights, a website dedicated to delivering information on eye surgery, including PRK surgery, Lasik eye surgery, their benefits and potential problems.

How To Wash Your Eyes After LASIK Surgery

LASIK is an efficient and fairly innocuous procedure. It is capable of treating several refractive errors, such as myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. The procedure itself entails virtually no pain and provides rapid recovery. Though the vision will be blurry immediately after surgery, visual acuity will be restored within a few days. However, it takes about 3 to 6 months for the refraction to stabilize. It is imperative that you carry out a scrupulous postoperative regime in order to boost the recovery process and avoid unnecessary complications.

Avoid rubbing your eyes for at least the first week after LASIK surgery. The corneal flap cut out during the surgery requires substantial time to heal. Unnecessary rubbing may inadvertently aggravate the wound. You should also take extreme caution to avoid soap, hair spray or shaving lotion from entering your eyes. The eye surgeon will typically provide you with a postoperative kit, which may include a set of eye shields/goggles. Wear them while you are sleeping, at least for the first three nights after surgery.

For at least a week after LASIK, prevent water from entering your eyes, since water hinders the natural clotting mechanism, and therefore might delay the healing process of the cornea. You must also cancel any swimming plans for a minimum of 10 days following LASIK. You must not wear eye makeup for at least one week after LASIK.

Contact sports are to be avoided for at least a week or so following surgery. Furthermore, it is advised that you wear some kind of protection gear for your eyes for a period of a month, even after resuming exercise and other sporting activities. Bright sunlight may lead to scarring, and therefore, sunglasses are recommended on bright days until the cornea heals.

To summarize, though you will able to resume your usual lifestyle within a week or so after LASIK surgery, it is crucial that you protect your eyes to prevent injury or infection. And since the corneal flap does not heal instantly after surgery, you must prevent washing your eyes for at least a few days after surgery.

If you find a LASIK surgery that you are confident with, you will be able to get more information about post LASIK complications.

The LASIK Surgeons Directory - find a LASIK surgery. Nicola Kennedy provides news and views and answers the question How Do I Wash My Eyes After LASIK? at Your Lasik Information.

This article may be reprinted in full so long as the resource box and the live links are included intact. All rights reserved. Copyright Your-LASIK.info

Laser eye surgery? It is risky my brother says.

I wear eyeglasses because when I was small I used to love reading books, still do but as a result, as my mum says, my eyesight is weak. My family members are lucky because they don't need any aid for vision. I have been called many names for wearing eyeglasses, including "4 eyes" and "scientist".

I have tried wearing contact lenses; they are one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century but unfortunately they didn't work out for me. This is because I have a habit of washing my face and splashing my eyes, during washing 2 or 3 times a day with cold water. I lost quite a few contact lenses as a result. I stopped splashing my eyes with cold water when my mum threatened me that she would put cello tap on my eyes. Still those were not a good choice for me because I suffer from hay fever, and I constantly have to rub my eyes and put eye drops, especially in summer when the pollen count is higher.

Some people are lucky, doesn't matter whichever eyeglasses they wear they look cool and intelligent. I am not one of those lucky ones I suppose and which my brother reminds me almost everyday. When I first heard about laser eye surgery I thought that my prayers have been answered. Finally a way for me to get rid of my glasses and contact lenses, I thought. Is it?

While laser eye surgery could be the best solution for someone like myself but this is not without certain risks. The word surgery itself is quite scary, but the good news it, it takes less then a minute for the laser procedure. The problem is you have to be the right candidate for it. Which means if you decide to have eye surgery and contact the laser eye clinic, the eye professional will ask you or give you a list of questions to answer. Based upon your answers and medical history, the eye professional will decide the best option for you. In some cases eye professional might show you the door, because it might be better for you not to have the eye surgery.

The procedure actually involves removing a hair thin part of your cornea for the best vision to be achieved. The good thing is it can cure imperfections in the eyes, nearsightedness, farsightedness or even astigmatism. It takes few days for recovery but after that your eyes are cured and you won't need any aid for vision. The risk is low with laser eye surgery because the decision is not in your hand. You can decide to get the eye surgery but if you are not the best candidate your surgeon will refuse to carry out because of the risks involved.

Even if you are the best candidate the eye professional will still inform you about the risks involved after the surgery. Since computer is used for controlling laser to remove tissue, you can be assured that the procedure or surgery will be almost perfect. As with any other surgery, you must remember that no surgeon in his right mind would give you any sort of guarantee. Some people have complained about night vision problem and light sensitivity after the surgery but the numbers are very small. Some statistic shows problems of about 3 to 4 in 5000 so realistically numbers are very small.

Other risks of laser eye surgery, which have been noted in some people, include double vision, dry eye syndrome, I have mentioned already about light sensitivity and night vision problems. Some people would still need eyeglasses even after the surgery. These are the risks your eye professional or surgeon will inform you as well. You must remember to inform eye surgeon your medical history, any eye diseases you might have, even if you suffer from hay fever you must inform your eye surgeon.

So far the statistic shows that there is improvement in vision but not all of them who have got it done achieved a perfect vision. As the time progresses we would be able to find more about it in few years time. One thing is for sure laser eye surgery is here to stay, because the eye surgeons are much more careful and the success rate is higher and is ever increasing day by day. Another good news is the prices are also going down day by day as the people are queuing up to get it done.

A word of warning, if you have family members like mine then it would be best if you let them know about it after you have gone through the eye surgery. My brother did a very through research on the risks and negative side of laser eye surgery. Even he discovered few eye surgeons who wear eyeglasses themselves. I truly confess that it is impossible for me to win an argument with my brother. But this time I am sure that I am on the winning side. You can find more information on the following website address and I hope this would be helpful to you.

Saad Saleem writes on a variety of subjects including eye care and laser eye surgery. All his articles may be reproduced provided that an active link is included to http://www.eyecarepoint.com/