Are you considering LASIK eye surgery? Well then, you NEED to hear about PRK and why you may want to consider this procedure over LASIK!
If you have depended on glasses or contact lenses for most of your life, there is nothing better than waking up in the morning without having to reach for glasses and contact lenses and to see clearly, and both LASIK and PRK can make that dream come true.
In any laser refractive surgery, the goal is to change the shape of the cornea, the clear layer in front of the eye, to focus light to the back of the eye without glasses or contact lenses. In both LASIK and PRK, this is done using a laser that breaks the chemical bonds in the middle layer of the cornea, or the stroma, in a customized pattern for your eye.
While the actual resurfacing is the same, there are different techniques to access that middle layer.
In LASIK, your surgeon will use another laser or a blade to make a thin flap, lift the flap, and then reshape the cornea.
But before LASIK, there was PRK. PRK or photorefractive keratectomy, is nearly the smae procedure but instead of creating a flap, your surgeon removes the top layer of the cornea, reshapes the cornea, and lets the cornea heal on its own.
So what’s the difference?
RECOVERY TIME
LASIK wins for recovery time. Most people can see perfectly and are pain free within 24 hours. However, because it takes time for the top layer of the cornea to grow back, PRK can be painful for up to 7 days and blurry vision can last up to 1 month.
VISION
The long-term visual results are the same after healing.I authored a study where we performed LASIK in one eye and PRK in the other eye and the visual results were exactly the same by 3 months, with a slight increase in vision in the LASIK eye over the PRK eye at the 1 month mark. I’ll link that paper down below.
PRK can result in cornea haze, which is usually does not affect the vision and is gone within 6 months in nearly all cases.
LONG-TERM SIDE EFFECTS
LASIK loses when it comes to long term effects because the presence of a flap can result in flap dislocation with even minor trauma, glare and halos at night due to light hitting the flap edge, and worse dry eye since we cut cornea nerves that provide our tearing reflex. Watch my video on LASIK to learn more about LASIK side effects.
Hope this was helpful! Feel free to check out my YouTube video on LASIK versus PRK and let me know in the comments which procedure you would choose!