TLC Confuses Facts with Fiction

Fiction: Complications should be expected after having laser vision correction. Night glare and dry eyes are frequent complications from the procedure.

Fact: As with any other surgery, there are risks associated with laser vision correction. However, the complication rate is low and not as high as many reports have indicated. Several clinical studies of laser vision correction have documented the risk of having a serious vision-reducing complication as less than 1%. Many complications can be treated if they are identified early on and attended to by a skilled doctor.

Medical Studies Prove TLC Wrong

Excerpts from One-third of laser eye patients experience night vision problems: study

COLUMBUS, OHIO - Nearly a third of patients undergoing laser eye surgery, using the LASIK method, reported problems seeing at night, according to a new study.

Scientists at Ohio State University analysed data from 605 patients who had the surgery six months earlier. One out of three reported vision problems including seeing halos, starbursts and glare surrounding lights — problems that can affect a person's night vision.

Excerpts from Most patients seem happy after LASIK but they still may be having vision problems, German Study Suggests

REGENSBURG - Although most patients who undergo myopic LASIK appear to quite happy with the vision they achieve after surgery, they may, in fact, have measurable and sometimes significant problems with glare, halos and contrast sensitivity, according to Chris Lohmann, MD, University Eye Clinic, Regensburg, Germany.
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To measure glare problems, the patients were examined with the stray light test by Lohmann and Fitzke, which measures glare caused by the light scattering effects of debris at the epithelial interface and irregularities of the corneal surface, almost all of the 50 patients were found to have some degree of glare. However, 53.8% had significant problems with this test, which could be considered serious enough reduced their vision to the extent that it would interfere with their ability to drive a car," he said, continuing: "In another computerised test designed to measure halos objectively, 60% were found to have some level of halos, although only 32% of the patients had subjective complaints of halos. For example, one patient who underwent LASIK for myopia of -7 D, was absolutely happy with his visual outcome, even though the test showed that huge halos were in fact occurring.

Therefore, even when our BCVA Snellen measurements tell us that the patient is seeing quite well, these objective measurements tell us that they may be having problems especially at night. What this suggests is that even though patients don't come back very often after they undergo LASIK and are apparently happy, they may be having problems.

But if they do come back and you question them carefully, you may find that they are no longer driving cars any more or their vision is somewhat disturbed in the evenings. For that reason, I think it would be useful to alert the patients that these kinds of phenomena can occur and that they should be aware of them.