Sharp as a Hawk: How LASIK and Implantable Contact Lens Gets you 20/20 Vision

LASIK is very different from implantable contact lenses (ICL). There is only 1 price for LASIK regardless of your degree, and regardlass of whether you are treating myopia alone or together with presbyopia and astigmastism. ICL is very different because there is only one company in the world that manufactures it. For ICL, it will be cheaper for lower degree myopia and more expensive for higher degree myopia. Addition of astigmatism degree would make the cost even more expensive. To put it simply, ICL varies according to the power of your degree but LASIK doesn’t.

For LASIK, my advice is 2-3 checks with your eye clinic after you have done your LASIK. If you are happy with your vision and are still seeing clearly, you do not have to go back on an annual basis. If you feel that your eyesight is regressing, you can just visit an optician. However, for ICL, you should do a follow-up every 1-2 years to check if the implant fits your eye.

If the patients' pupils are very large, especially the night time diameter, then the patient can get glares and haloes if the treatment zone is not big enough to cover the entire pupil diameter. The clinic has to ensure that the ablation zone is big enough to cover the pupil diameter. If the ablation zone is smaller than the actual night time diameter, the patient could suffer from glare and haloes.

I feel that people in their 20s are at the best age to do LASIK as they recover so well and do not seem to have problems with dry eyes. The young tissues have amazing ability to achieve so much more vision than the older tissues.

Yes, you can get them the next day, because they are different parts of the eyes. One’s on the skin and one’s on the cornea.

The only sport that you should abstain from is swimming for two weeks post operation. Contact sports such as badminton or tennis can actually be played the next day. Contact sports like boxing and rugby can be played 5-7 days post operation. You can also resume gymming and jogging the next day.

100%. 100 out of 100 patients get post-op dry eyes for sure. However, patients in their 20s and 30s can recover very fast. The younger the patient, the faster they recover. Typically, they only require the hydration droplets for about 4 weeks before they feel so comfortable that they do not continue. Patients in their 40s and 50s would typically take the full 3-4 months to recover, and they would still go to the pharmacy to purchase moisturizing eye drops. A fit and healthy person will always recover.

LASIK won’t cause cataracts at all. Implanted contact lenses can cause premature cataracts if the sizing is incorrect (e. g. too small) and it is not removed. Hence, instead of developing cataracts at 60 years old, you’ll probably have it at 40 years old.

It is permanent only up to the day you develop cataracts. The average age of symptomatic cataracts in Singapore would be 60 years old. At about 60 years of age, you will develop some blurred vision at near or at far distance because the lens inside your eye has turned white or cloudy. Therefore, LASIK can only last until the day your cataracts set in. The earlier you do your LASIK, the more mileage you get from it.

If we talk about failure rate such as complications leading to loss of vision, I think it is about 0. 1-0. 2%, as it is so rare having a patient lose vision. Failure rates in terms of the patient's satisfaction (is he/she able to see everything he/she desires without wearing a spectacle), I think that you can consider it to be about 1-2%. If the 1-2% of patients who are over- or under-corrected are unhappy, they have to face something called “LASIK enhancement”. Most LASIK clinics would give an enhancement period of 3 years at a special price.