The Different Types of Corrective Eye Surgery

If you are looking for the best way to correct your vision, it’s helpful to be very familiar with the various treatment options that are available to you. Here are five of the most common and effective types of corrective eye surgery, all of which are provided by the expert ophthalmologists at Pacific Vision.

1. All-Laser LASIK

LASIK is the most popular and effective vision correction surgery available today. It corrects one’s vision and reduces their need for eyeglasses or contact lenses. During the procedure, a computer-controlled laser is used to safely reshape the cornea—the clear round dome at the very front of the eye. LASIK reshapes that clear dome in order to change the way that incoming light is focused by the eye, thus correcting refractive errors such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism.

Prior to the procedure, your eyes are numbed so you feel no pain. A laser is then used to create a “corneal flap” that allows access to the inside layers of your cornea and a second laser is used to carefully remove a precise amount of the corneal tissue, thus correcting the refractive errors it was causing. The corneal flap is then reset and rapidly heals. Many patients achieve 20/20 vision or better after the procedure. LASIK is an outpatient procedure so no hospital stay is required and patients can return home shortly after the procedure.

2. PRK / Epi-Lasik

For patients that aren’t candidates for LASIK, PRK is often a first-choice alternative. The results of the procedure and the theory and science behind it are similar to LASIK, but PRK affects less corneal tissue than LASIK does. For instance, where LASIK creates a corneal flap to access the inner cornea tissue, PRK creates no such flap but instead applies LASER to the surface of the cornea to reshape it.

3. Intacs

Patients who experience myopia or nearsightedness are often eligible for a less invasive procedure called Intacs. During the procedure, very fine half-circle strips are applied to the outer edges of the cornea in order to reshape it. Depending on the degree of correction required, thinner or thicker strips may be used, making the procedure available to patients of varying levels of myopia. Intacs will not be an option for all patients as even where thicker strips are applied to the cornea, the net improvement in vision is less than that made possible by LASIK.

4. PTK

Patients unable to have LASIK due to certain eye conditions can benefit from PRK or phototherapeutic keratectomy. PTK is ideally suited for patients with corneal scarring, erosions, irregular corneal surfaces, and other relatively unique eye conditions. PRK likewise uses a computer-controlled laser to remove a very fine outer layer of diseased tissue from the corneas. An important difference between PRK and PTK is that PTK is done to treat corneal diseases and not primarily to correct vision problems, while PRK (covered above) is a vision correction procedure.

5. Corneal Cross-linking

Many patients with an eye disease called keratoconus will benefit from a unique procedure called corneal cross-linking. Patients afflicted with the disease will have thin, weak, or irregularly shaped corneas, resulting in poor and blurry vision. During this unique outpatient procedure, access to the cornea is carefully gained, allowing your surgeon to use vitamins and blue light to make the corneas more stable and better able to hold their shape, thus allowing them to properly focus incoming light and helping you to see better. Dr. Ella Faktorovich at Pacific Vision is the only surgeon in private practice within San Francisco who provides corneal cross-linking, using the first and only FDA-approved technology for this purpose.