Is Laser Eye Surgery Risky For You?

It is common to meet an old school friend after many years and suddenly realise that he or she has no specs. When you inquire where the specs disappeared, the answer is a laser eye surgery that corrects eye sight. The trouble is that people are using it more as a cosmetic surgery than a serious eye surgery these days.

Abhinav Bindra's recent failure in the London Olympics 2012 is a case in point. Dr. Ashley Thomas Jacob attributes his failure to the recent laser eye surgery that he underwent. Do the risks involved in a laser eye surgery really ruin people's lives? Here are some answers.

Is It Purely Cosmetic: A lot of hospitals these days advertise laser eye surgery as if it is a necessity. But you must know that it is not. Only when you are serious short-sight (power over minus 7) you are blind without your specs. If your power is anything less than minus 7, then this surgery is purely cosmetic for you. The proof of this is that no medical insurance company covers your cost for laser eye surgery if your power does not match the required margin.

Dry Eyes: You are passing a laser beam through your eyes and even a slight indiscretion can cause major damage to any of your tissues. Chronically dry eyes is one of the risks of laser eye surgery. It happens when your tear glands get affected by the laser beam and you are not able to moisten your eyes naturally.

Hand-Eye Coordination: When we grow up wearing spectacles, we get accustomed to look at the world through a glass. Suddenly, a 20:20 vision becomes tough to handle. You feel like you are looking at an unreal world; clear but unreal. While normal people can carry on with life and get used to this change, in case of athletes it can spell disaster. It spoils their most important tool which is hand-eye coordination. That is precisely what happened with Abhinav Bindra according to Dr. Ashley Thomas Jacob.

In-Growing Eye Lashes: Any damage to the inner rim of the eye or lash line means that you can have a painful post surgery condition. Eye lashes grow within the rim of the eye and have to be surgically plucked out. This means no eye makeup for the rest of your days!

Floaters: Laser surgery sometimes cause 'speckled vision' coupled with poor eyesight at night. This happens when the 'flap' technique of the cornea correction technique goes wrong. You feel like something is floating in your eyes and blurring your vision.

These are some of the risks involved in a laser eye surgery. So, take these points into account before you allow your desire to get rid of specs outwit your logic.