LASIK Second Sight

When you wear glasses or contacts, it's the little things that get to you.

Accidentally leaving a pair of glasses at a restaurant can turn into a week-long hassle of phone calls, doctor visits and rummaging for old pairs in the dresser. Loose frames let glasses slide down the bridge of your nose, giving you the look of a disapproving librarian.

If you wear contacts, tiny bits of dust and grit can seem magnetically attracted to them, causing eye-watering discomfort and emergency bathroom visits at a moment's notice. When they're not collecting airborne garbage, contacts have the propensity to simply fly out of an eye at a moment's notice. And let us not forget the delightful ritual of sticking your finger in your eye at least twice a day.

Enter laser in situ keratomileusis, or LASIK, in a superhero cape.

The laser-assisted procedure began clinical trials in the U.S. about ten years ago, and since then it's become the most common type of refractive eye surgery -- an operation that reshapes the transparent covering of the eye, the cornea, to correct the way light focuses on the retina. Other popular refractive eye surgeries are LASEK and PRK, which are indicated for different types and degrees of vision correction.

Brian Scott, morning host on Casper's KTWO radio, had LASIK about a year ago after more than thirty years of glasses and contacts.

"I had glasses since I was 8 years old," he said. "I'm 40 now, so the idea of not having glasses was very cool."

Scott said he did his research before signing on for the surgery and talked to others who'd already had it done.

"I talked to some folks in town who did not have a good result (from the surgery), almost to the point they convinced me that I didn't want to mess with this," said Scott.

The dream of a glasses-free future prevailed, though, and Scott had LASIK performed in Casper by a doctor from Denver. There aren't currently any Casper-based doctors who perform the surgery, but doctors here will refer patients to the appropriate physician.

In LASIK surgery, the doctor uses a small scalpel or cutting laser to cut a small, hinged, contact-lens-sized flap in the cornea. A laser then reshapes the corneal tissue, flattening or steepening it depending on the "map" the doctor created of the patient's cornea. The flap is then replaced. The eyes are numbed and clamped open during the procedure, which can last only a few minutes.

Scott said he felt no pain during the surgery, but it was "a bit disconcerting."

"They offer you Valium," he said. "I suggest that anybody who goes through the surgery take it. There are hands and things coming at your eyes without being able to blink."

"It was weird because you could see the thing coming and lasering your eye," said Boys and Girls Club area director Kim Sharpe, who had LASIK performed a month ago and now has 20/15 vision. "(But) you can't feel anything."

Sharpe said she immediately went home after the surgery and took a long nap; when she woke up, she could see the TV.

"It was amazing," she said.

Scott wasn't so lucky -- he said he had to run errands for a few painful hours after the surgery.

"It felt like sand in my eyes," he said. "By late in the afternoon, I had an opportunity to go home and lay down. ... By literally the next morning, there wasn't a problem."

Dr. Paul Gustafson of the Casper Vision Center said dry eyes are the most common side effect of the surgery. Other complications can include inflammation of the cornea or ingrown cells underneath the flap created by the surgery. Special eye drops prescribed after the surgery help prevent such problems, though.

Gustafson estimated less than 1 percent of his patients who've had LASIK develop complications.

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