Centre for Sight has always had the very highest standards in hospital safety and procedures and Intralase decreases the risk of infection further. IntraLASIK also uses one-time use disposable instruments, further improving this level of safety.

Laser eye surgery with appropriate patient selection and treatment provides excellent outcomes. With current technology, serious problems are extremely rare. There are however some side effects that you must be aware of:

Dry eye: Laser eye surgery affects the nerve receptors that sense dry eye and as a result tear production can be temporarily reduced. To compensate for this, artificial tears (provided) are required for at least 6 to 12 weeks whether or not there are dry eye symptoms. Consider there may not be symptoms as the nerve endings will not have recovered. As nerve endings and receptors recover, dry eye improves. Patients at risk of severe dry eye are identified at consultation and either treated for dry eye beforehand or declined for laser surgery.

Over-correction, under-correction, and regression: It is possible but very unusual for the eye to be overcorrected, under corrected or slip back (regression) slightly over the first 6 weeks. Much depends on how the eye responds to surgery, how it heals and whether or not artificial tears are used. Dry eye (symptomatic or not) can result in regression. If this is significant and affects the visual outcome, an enhancement will be performed to correct this at 3 months as long as the eyes are stable. To reassure you, this occurs infrequently at Centre for Sight with less than 1% of our patients requiring an enhancement and there is no further charge for correction within the first year of treatment.

Night vision disturbances: It is normal to experience some initial disturbance after the procedure which rapidly decreases over a period of days to two weeks. This occurs from mild swelling of the cornea and subsequent light scatter. Long term disturbances are rare with the correct treatment choice being tailor-made for each eye (i.e. with Aspheric and Wavefront Aspheric treatments).