Seeing Eye To Eye

Variety in the laser suite…

Written By: Jay Pepose | September 4, 2007

This week we saw a lot of variety in the laser suite, both in terms of patients of diverse background and types of surgery. I had two patients with extremely thin corneas, who were told elsewhere that there was no good option for them. On one of them, I performed flapless LASIK (sometimes called LASEK), which is a form a surface laser treatment. The other was given a phakic lens implant, similar to implanting a permanent contact lens in the eye, which requires no maintenance or cleaning.

Another patient with a cataract and a lot of astigmatism (where the eye is shaped like a football) had a LASIK flap created some weeks ago followed by cataract removal and implantation of a new FDA-approved “accommodating” lens implant, that produces both near and far vision in the same eye, similar to a bifocal. This week, after allowing adequate time for healing from the cataract surgery, I lifted the previously made flap and corrected the pre-existing astigmatism with laser, thereby fine tuning their vision. And, of course, LASIK was performed on a number of patients from all walks of life, including three doctors on the same day. With a pediatrician radiologist, and general surgeon, we could have probably started our own subspecialty group!

In some cases each eye of the same patient was treated on a separate laser system to optimize outcomes. It is nice to have such a full armamentarium of options to offer patients to truly customize their surgery to each person’s unique characteristics, producing lots of smiles on one day post-op!

If you would like to learn more, feel free to visit www.peposevision.com