Refractive Surgery Concerns

 I wrote this page as a resource for the few, rare, but concerned patients who want to know all about the fine technical details about refractive surgery concerns.

 This page goes over the extremely rare complications that come about from refractive surgery. I wrote this page as a resource for patients who wanted to learn more. As a corneal and refractive surgeon, I have seen many, many happy patients with fantastic vision and great outcomes. However, this also means I have also seen some of the very few patients who have had complications from refractive surgery. While I have been personally fortunate to never have had a complication performing refractive surgery, I've now met patients who have sought me out for second, third or fourth opinions about what may have happened, and what can be done to fix it. We end up having a long discussion, and many patients still want to learn more. Nonetheless, for every single one of these patients, my anecdotal experience is that, while many of them have a prolonged recovery, nobody has gone permanently blind, and 100% of them, given the option, would still do it all over again. Refractive surgery, such as LASIK, PRK, ICL surgery, etc., can be a life-changing experience - I know this very well having performed cases on many patients over my career, and having had LASIK myself.

I want to emphasize that in general, refractive surgery is an elective surgery, and is overall an extremely safe, extremely low-risk surgery. If you are considering refractive surgery (LASIK, PRK, SMILE, ICL, a clear lens exchange) your doctor will have you best interests in mind, and will discuss with you the different options and which refractive procedure may best benefit you.

-Jimmy Y. Hu, MD