LASIK Surgery - Risks
What to Expect Are You a Candidate? Risks Consent Form
While LASIK may be associated with a number of intraoperative and postoperative complications (see tables below), it's important to note that, according to many sources, the incidence of severe, vision-threatening complications is less than 1%. Other less serious complications can occur in up to 5% of people who undergo LASIK. LASIK can cause permanent problems, although this is rare.
View movie: Complications (requires Flash player)
Complications |
Symptoms |
Treatments |
|---|---|---|
Incomplete corrections (under correction, overcorrection, residual astigmatism) or regression of effect |
Blurry, less-than-perfect vision |
Glasses or contact lenses; re-treatment with laser |
Large pupils (pupils wider than treatment zone) |
Visual aberrations* |
Eye drops; re-treatment with laser |
Haze |
Visual aberrations* |
Eye drops; glasses, re-treatment with laser |
Irregular flap (folds, wrinkles, striae) |
Visual aberrations* |
Surgical correction of flap |
Dry eye |
Dry, itchy or scratchy eyes, often with redness and sense of foreign object in eye, and sometimes pain |
Artificial tears; punctal occlusion (blockage of tear ducts in order to retain tear film on eye) |
Diffuse lamellar keratitis |
Visual aberrations* |
Eye drops; re-treatment with laser; surgical correction |
Epithelial ingrowth |
Visual aberrations* |
Eye drops; re-treatment with laser; surgical correction |
Infection |
Redness, oozing of eyes, sometimes pain |
Eye drops; oral medications |
*Visual aberrations include symptoms such as glare, double vision, ghosting, halos, starbursts, loss of contrast sensitivity, and problems with low-light or night vision. Not all patients experience all symptoms, and some patients with these complications experience no symptoms and require no treatment.