2) Sterilized Instruments with Every Case
To decrease the risk of infection, your doctor should use completely separate sterilized equipment for each eye, even if you are having both eyes done on the same day.
One of the risks of refractive surgery is infection. Everything possible should be done to prevent this from occurring. Fortunately, this is a rare occurrence. We believe it is important to use completely separate sterilized equipment for each eye.
If it is a blade LASIK procedure, you should have a new flap-making blade for each eye. Centers that are trying to perform a lower cost refractive surgery may reuse blades. We feel this should not be done. If a patient chooses traditional blade LASIK we use a new blade for each LASIK eye.
The LASIK procedure is the right answer for most patients who are considering refractive surgery to improve their vision. However, in patients with higher degrees of nearsightedness or farsightedness, the cornea may be too thin to allow full refractive correction.
In these cases, surgical implants may be the best alternative. These special devices are placed in the eyes to improve their focusing ability.
