LASIK and Eye Surgery Blog - Clearview Eye and Laser Medical Center

The first step in a LASIK surgery is creation of a corneal flap. The cornea is the clear front part of the eye, and has several layers. Vision correction is done on the stromal layer, which means that the top layer, the epithelium, must be somehow moved out of the way to give access to the stroma beneath it. This is accomplished by creating a hinged flap, folding it aside for the treatment, then folding it back in place. It then heals by itself, and in the process provides a protective cover for the treated area beneath it.

Not everybody can have LASIK. The cornea must be thick enough, and not too steep.

• If you are extremely nearsighted, your corneas are very steep, and could be too steep for safe flap creation
• If you happen to have corneas which are too thin, there’s a risk that the microkeratome could create a flap that’s too thick for your eyes.

In both cases, you could be a good candidate for Intralase, also called Bladeless LASIK. IntraLase uses no microkeratome or any type of blade at all. Instead, it uses a second laser to create the flap. It's a very fast pulsed laser, called a femtosecond laser because its pulses last a femtosecond – a quadrillionth of a second.

Because it's bladeless and uses this laser instead, Bladeless LASIK can be offered to many more people than traditional LASIK can. With each of its femtosecond pulses, the laser creates a microscopic bubble beneath the corneal surface, at a predetermined depth. As it moves back and forth over the planned treatment area, it creates a continuous area of these bubbles, where it has vaporized microscopic fragments of corneal tissue.

Now the surface flap can be easily lifted, since the bubbles have broken the cell connections. Precise planning is key here. That's why the WaveScan wavefront system is so valuable to us. If you have been told that you're not a good candidate for LASIK, please contact us for a free consultation.

• LASIK
• PRK
• IntraLase
• Presbyopia
• Implantable Contact Lenses
• Intacs
• Cataracts
• BOTOX®

Previous Posts

• What is the Cornea?
• Cataract Symptoms
• Farsightedness vs. Presbyopia
• Farsightedness
• The San Diego Fires and Providing Eye Care
• Lasers Used for Vision Correction
• The Safety of IntraLase
• Toss Those Reading Glasses
• Welcome