Lasik is a laser eye surgery considered as highly successful and fairly low-risk elective surgery. Complications are often possible, but blindness is not. Success and failure of the surgery have many factors involved and enough care should taken in each and every step, before, during and even after the Lasik surgery. Millions of Lasik patients undergo this surgery and there are no cases of going blind recorded.
Technical Factors to Go Blind
Lasik laser eye surgery is like any other surgery and so complications are also more likely. However, these complications are very less compared to other surgeries because this surgery can be conducted with laser, by eliminating the need for microkeratome or blade. So, going blind is hardly possible after this surgery.
Technically, there is a possibility of going blind, though it is extremely rare and no reports are found to be recorded. According to the medical eye expertise, the only possible cause to go blind after Lasik surgery is highly intense and tremendous infection. This infection is usually developed in a period of time and it is important to identify at the earlier stages to get it treated earliest.
Reports About Going Blind and Success Rate After Lasik
There are many reports published about the success of Lasik surgery, in multiple dimensions, like customer satisfaction, achieving perfect vision, recovering from refractive errors, avoiding dependency on eyeglasses and contact lens. Not even a single report has reported that a Lasik patient has gone blind after the surgery.
- According to the reports of the American Refractive Surgery Council, no cases of blindness have been reported from Lasik surgery and success rate of the surgery is more than 96%. The same council has reported that the more than 90% of Lasik patients have been satisfied with the vision rate of 20/20.
- The American Foundation for the Blind has reported that blindness occurs when the vision becomes 20/200 or worse, legally. And most of the Lasik patients achieve better vision than 20/20.
- According to the reports of the US Food and Drug Administration, blindness can be occurred and possible after Lasik surgery and in case occurred, it cannot be reversed or corrected with glasses, contact lens or additional surgery. The same reports that despite small level risks possible, Lasik has very higher success rate and rare complication are possible.
- The American Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery provided reports from its studies that Lasik laser eye surgery stands as one most successful procedures of surgery. It reports that Lasik does not cause legal blindness, though with rare complications, a few lines of vision can be lost on the vision chart.
- Consumer Reports report that vision loss disabling is a very rare occurrence after Lasik that can even occur even lesser than 1%. However, temporary visual disturbances are possible, because of many factors, like incomplete surgery procedure performed or inconsistent post operative care.
So, there is nothing to worry about going blind after Lasik as enough care is obviously taken by the medical professionals during the surgery and enough post surgery care by the patient, because, after all, eyes are the most sensitive organs of the human body and demands utmost care.