You shouldn't get laser eye surgery if you have certain health conditions (autoimmune diseases, severe dry eyes, diabetes), unstable prescriptions, thin corneas, or participate in high-impact sports, as risks include chronic dryness, halos, glare, flap complications, or vision regression, though many potential issues are manageable and modern tech has reduced severe risks, but significant downsides like prolonged healing (PRK) or potential permanent glare/dryness can occur.
Certain health conditions can increase the risks associated with LASIK surgery or make the outcome less predictable. Doctors may not recommend laser refractive surgery for you if you have certain conditions, including: Autoimmune conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Con: Some LASIK risks are possible
Although LASIK may cause dry eyes for up to three months (and can be managed with artificial tears), the odds of it becoming a permanent issue are rare. Another uncommon side effect: nighttime glare or halos.
Certain eye conditions may result in complications or poor outcomes of surgery. These include: Eye diseases that cause continued thinning of your cornea, such as keratoconus. Inflammation, such as keratitis or uveitis; and infection, such as herpes simplex.
Laser treatment works very well for most people, but it doesn't work for everyone. You'll need to wait 4 to 6 weeks to find out if the treatment worked. Most people will need to keep taking glaucoma medicine even after laser treatment. You'll also need a few follow-up visits so your doctor can check your eye pressure.
Scarring: Laser surgeries are not meant as a permanent fix to glaucoma, so your natural healing/scarring tendencies may eventually cause the higher pressure to return. Restarting your glaucoma medications or undergoing revisions can be used to re-address the pressure.
What is the regret rate for laser eye surgery? - Precision Vision. The regret rate is extremely low, under 5%. When patients have a clear understanding of what the surgery can and cannot achieve, satisfaction is typically very high. Clear communication with your surgeon is essential.
The long term side effects of laser eye surgery
For most patients, these side effects improve with time as their corneas heal. However, there are a small percentage of patients for whom these side effects become permanent. Side effects can include: Double vision, also called ghosting.
In an interview that broke the internet (literally—over 1.3 million viewers crashed YouTube), Taylor didn't just announce her new album “The Life of a Showgirl.” She casually credited LASIK with helping her fully experience the emotional connections that made her tour so special.
Refractive Lens Exchange (RLE)
Also called clear lens extraction, RLE improves focusing ability at all distances with an advanced IOL, such as a multifocal or accommodative lens implant. RLE is a LASIK alternative for people with severe farsightedness (hyperopia) who do not meet the key qualifications for LASIK.
We ask that you avoid wearing contact lenses and make-up prior to LASIK surgery. To avoid potential complications, we request patients wearing soft contact lenses discontinue their contacts 2 weeks prior to surgery, while those wearing hard or gas permeable contacts discontinue them 3 weeks prior.
A beam shone directly into a person's eye can instantly cause damage, especially if the laser is a powerful one. Moreover, eye injuries caused by laser light often do not cause immediate pain. Vision can deteriorate slowly and, therefore, may go unnoticed for days.
However, LASIK complication rate statistics are extremely low. Less than one percent of LASIK patients experience serious surgical complications. That's one percent, as opposed to the up to 30 percent of patients that report experiencing short-term side effects. In other words, LASIK complications are very rare events.
According to NHS guidelines, laser eye surgery is generally considered appropriate for those aged 18 years or older.
It's needlessly invasive and not always effective. Plus, more and more patients are finding that, while their procedure corrected their vision for a while, it unfortunately didn't last. Even eyes that have been treated with LASIK can regress as they age.
Is LASIK Eye Surgery 100% Safe? No surgery is 100% risk-free, but LASIK is considered one of the safest vision correction procedures available today. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), LASIK has a high success rate when performed on suitable candidates.
If you're looking for a behind-the-scenes look at LASIK, you may want to watch Kim Kardashian's procedure, which was featured on Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Nicole Kidman's results after LASIK
The procedure gave Kidman perfect 20/20 eyesight. She was amazed by how long she had lived with poor vision: “I can't believe I spent so many years blurry… Now I notice if people are watching me, but I also smile right back if someone waves, which helps”.
The top 3 rarest eye colors are typically considered red/violet, green, and gray, with red/violet often cited as the absolute rarest (less than 1%) due to albinism, followed by green (around 2%) and gray (around 3%), though some sources place heterochromia (different colored eyes) as rarest, also under 1%. These rare colors stem from extremely low melanin levels or unique light scattering in the iris.
According to a 2020 meta-analysis published in Ophthalmology, around 10% of LASIK patients may experience some regression after a decade, meaning their vision could drift slightly back toward nearsightedness or astigmatism (Schaefer et al., 2020).
Advanced Surface Ablation (ASA) is the safest surgical alternative for vision correction, surpassing LASIK, SMILE, and even PRK in terms of safety and long-term outcomes.
3% of patients have serious problems after LASIK, such as dry eyes or infection. 90% of LASIK patients experience 20/20 vision after surgery. Furthermore, 99% of patients achieve 20/40 vision. Only 3% of patients regret getting LASIK.
LASIK has never been reported as a cause of blindness and is in fact a very low-risk procedure. However, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report that each year, 1 out of every 500 contact lens wearers experiences a severe corneal infection that could result in loss of vision.
Here's the thing you might not realize about LASIK: you can only have the procedure if you qualify for it. LASIK is a surgical procedure, after all. About 15-20% of potential candidates are not approved for LASIK because they don't qualify. This even applies to celebrities like Kylie Jenner and Taylor Swift!