Preparation
One week prior to the operation you will start taking antibiotic eye drops in preparation for surgery. Once again, you should not wear contact lenses for two weeks prior to the surgery. Please do not wear any perfume, make-up or oily eyelid cream on the day of surgery. We recommend that you come to the clinic with an accompanying person who will drive you home afterwards. You should plan on a full two hours at the eye laser centre. As the eye is only anaesthetized locally with drops, you can eat a normal breakfast prior to laser surgery. In the case of a lens implant, the preparations discussed with the anaesthetist apply.
Procedure
You will be given a cap before you enter the operating theatre. Then the eye will be anaesthetized with eye drops and the area around the eye disinfected. You will then lie down on the operating couch.
Before the operation you will focus briefly on a red, flashing lamp. This activates what is known as the eyetracker. It ensures that the correct point is lasered even when the eye moves during surgery. A so-called lid-speculum will be applied to prevent you from closing your eye during surgery.
You will feel a slight pressure in your eye when the suction ring for the microkeratome is applied. You will not notice much of the actual operation. Preparation of the corneal flap and treatment with the excimer laser are both painless. The laser correction itself takes about five minutes, the entire operation approximately 20 minutes per eye.
After surgery you will sit with closed eyes in the waiting room. About half an hour later the slit lamp will be used to examine the operated eye again.
You will be given antibiotic eye drops and a date will be set for the next follow-up examination. Back home again after LASIK/LASEK surgery, you should try to keep your eyes closed for at least several hours. The eyelid is the best dressing and can protect the flap from being displaced. You may keep your eyes open after PRK, but you should wear dark glasses for the next several days. In the case of lens implants, the eye is bandaged. With this procedure, only one eye is operated on at a time so, normally, you can see with the other eye.
