Hi Dr. Chynn,
I hope you are well. I’ve read your research about LASIK and the complications attached to it. I wanted to get an opinion from you. I hope you will answer my question as it’s very important to me.
I got my LASIK done 5 days ago from a local clinic in Pakistan. The corneal flap got folded after the procedure. The doctor placed BCL (Bandage Contact Lens) in both of my eyes right after the procedure.
On next morning, my left eye was almost clear, but my right eye is blurry since then. It’s corneal flap has wrinkles. It’s been five days and no improvements yet. The doctor says it will get better within a couple of weeks. Will it get better automatically or should I get it checked from another surgeon? What should be the next step?
Please advise me as soon as possible.
I’ll be highly thankful to you.Bundle of thanks and prayers!
Regards,
F. H.
Dear F.H.
One of the reasons I stopped performing LASIK, after having performed 5,000 and having LASIK myself, is I got tired of having to deal with flap complications, which, although relatively uncommon, are pretty common if you’re a busy refractive surgeon such as myself. For example, the incidence of flap wrinkles and striae (which is your problem) in the hands of a good surgeon is “only” about 1%, but because I’m lasering about 1,000 eyes each and every year, that’s WAY TOO HIGH, because it means I will have to deal with that TEN TIMES EVERY YEAR. 🙁
Hopefully your surgeon is Cornea Fellowship Trained and Specialized in refractive surgery, unlike most surgeons doing LASIK, who are general ophthalmologists. If he’s a general eye MD, he might have just stuck the flap back, put a contact lens on, and hoped for the best. That would risk your having permanent wrinkles and distorted vision, unfortunately. 🙁
But if he’s a cornea specialist, he would evaluate your situation, and if MILD, do what he did. If MODERATE, he would lift the flap, irrigate with hypotonic saline to swell up the flap to get rid of the wrinkles, then replace it (with a tight BCL), if SEVERE, he would do that, PLUS SUTURE the flap edge down to “stretch out” the wrinkles, or use an “iron” which is a metal instrument you heat up to “iron out” the wrinkles (this is not a joke, it’s a real device invented at Harvard when I was there).
You can show this email to help “guide” your surgeon. If he’s cornea-trained, he can join “kera-net” which is only for cornea specialists, and ask for advice. I used to spend an hour per day giving out free advice there, but then stopped because I really have to try to “get a life” and find a nice girl to marry and start a family, instead of sitting on the computer at night helping out stranger’s eyes, like now, ha-ha! 🙂
Hope this helps, and best wishes!
Yours,
Emil William Chynn, MD, FACS, MBA
