Laser Eye Surgery In Birmingham

For those who want to know some of the more technical details about the laser, here they are. Laser surgery changes the shape of your cornea to correct the focus of your eye using a high tech, precise excimer laser.

Read on to find out how LASIK & LASEK are done.

LASIK & LASEK are similar treatments which change the surface curvature of the cornea to correct the focus of the eye. Both are incredibly accurate, blade-free wavefront treatments done with an excimer laser & take about 10 minutes to change your life. The results are equally good but some people prefer or are better suited to one of the types of excimer laser treatments.
The main difference between LASIK & LASEK is that LASEK takes a little longer to recover. If you want more details about each, then read on. But it’s best to come & see us & we’ll let you know if which treatment is best for your eyes.

LASIK is a blade-free laser eye surgery treatment & uses 2 different lasers. First, a femtosecond laser gently creates a layer of bubbles near the surface of your cornea (1). The femtosecond laser is so precise that each laser pulse lasts less than a billionth of a second. A thin flap is lifted (2). 

A second excimer laser gently & accurately reshapes your cornea (3). When the flap is closed the cornea has the right shape to correct the focus of your eye (4). 

LASIK is the best laser eye surgery procedure for a quick recovery. You can see the difference immediately & you can usually drive by the next day.

LASEK, also known as advanced surface treatment, is also a 2-stage laser eye surgery treatment using only the excimer laser. First, the surface skin (epithelial) layer of the central cornea is loosened (1).

Then the underlying surface is reshaped using the same excimer vision correction laser (2) & the epithelial layer heals back with the new shape &  focus.

The treatment is quick, but you recover slower than with LASIK. It’s the best laser treatment for people with thin corneas & is also the best for some sports & occupations.

SMILE or LALEX is a newer treatment using the femtosecond laser only. Two layers of femtosecond laser treatment create a thin layer of tissue which is removed through an incision in the surface of the cornea to reshape the cornea & adjust the focus. The recovery is usually slightly slower than LASIK & quicker than LASEK. SMILE is slightly less accurate & is usually more expensive than LASIK. Also, SMILE is not licensed for hyperopia treatments.

At Laser Eye Surgery Birmingham your eyes will be treated with advanced technology to ensure that your laser eye surgery is as precise, safe & efficient as possible & so that you can achieve the best possible visual outcomes. We use the Schwind AMARIS 750RS excimer laser which is a fantastic laser because …

1.  It’s a fast laser, but not too fast.

The clue is in its name. 750RS means that it produces a 750 laser pulses a second. The Schwind AMARIS 750 takes about half the time to treat your eye as many other lasers. But the speed of the laser is like Goldilock’s porridge. It should not be too fast or too slow. It must be just right.

If the laser is too fast, it heats the cornea causing an unpredictable result. If the laser is too slow the cornea become dry which also causes an unpredictable result. The Schwind AMARIS is fast but uses an intelligent thermal control system which prevents overheating & results in reliable healing.

2. It’s a precise laser.

Our eyes are constantly making tiny, involuntary flickers of movement called saccades. Your eye can saccade horizontally, vertically, move forward & back, roll horizontally & vertically & rotate around a central axis. So, the laser must constantly adjust the direction of the laser pulses to compensate for saccades in all these directions. The laser can then precisely centre the pulse on the correct spot & give you the best result possible. The Schwind ARMARIS is the only laser that tracks (follows) your eye in all these dimensions to create a precise vision correction & can compensate for all these movements.

The Schwind AMARIS has earned international awards because of these features.

So, the Schwind ARMARIS is a reliable, precise & gentle laser & you can rest assured that you will be treated with the highest level of precision & accuracy.

You are suitable if:

• You are 18 years or older
• Your glasses prescription is stable
• You want to reduce your dependence on glasses or contact lenses
• You don’t have any general health problems that affect your eyes.
• You don’t have another eye condition such as glaucoma or cataracts
• You’re not pregnant or breastfeeding
• You’ve had vision correction surgery before
• You have realistic expectations of what can be achieved with laser eye surgery & understand the risks

There are other considerations, so come for a full consultation to find out if you’re suitable for this life changing treatment.

The laser permanently changes the shape of your cornea & the effect doesn’t “wear off”. But the overall focus of the eye can change. The overall focus of the eye depends on 3 factors:

1. The shape of the cornea where the laser is done.
2. The length of your eye.   
3. The lens inside your eye. 

Once you & your eye have finished growing in length, the focus of your eyes should remain stable for many years. If you’re young & your eye grows a little more in length after you’ve had laser eye surgery, then the focus of your eye will change a little. A little more laser eye surgery can easily be done to correct the focus again. 

 Around middle age, the ageing lens in your eye may change focus slightly so the overall focus of the eye may change a little & has nothing to do with the laser eye surgery.  Once again the focus can be corrected with a little more laser eye surgery or multifocal intraocular lens implants may be a better long term solution. 

As we approach middle age & the lens inside our eyes ages, we develop a condition called presbyopia. People who wear contact lenses or who have never worn glasses start to need glasses to read & see their phones. Short sighted people take their glasses off to read or get varifocal glasses. And others need thicker & heavier glasses for driving & seeing their phones.

Presbyopia can be treated with multifocal intraocular lens surgery or monovision laser eye surgery.

Yes, Mark Wevill has had laser eye surgery himself & over 90% of eye surgeons who do refractive surgery (vision correction) have recommended it to or performed refractive surgery on their immediate family members. Refractive surgeons are five times more likely than the general public to have refractive surgery on their own eyes. Mark has recommended & done refractive surgery on fellow surgeons, optometrists, friends & family, including his sister & wife.

There is a very long list which includes Sir Elton John, Brad Pitt, Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Kim Kardashian, Richard Branson, Jessica Simpson, Nicole Kidman, Cindy Crawford & many others. Mark has treated some well-known personalities.

All surgical operations carry risks which you should carefully considered before having the treatment. Advances in laser eye surgery have resulted in even better results & lower risks than before. 

There are also risks with wearing glasses & contact lenses. No vision correction solution is risk free & you should consider the risks of each type of vision correction carefully before deciding which vision correction solution you want. 

We’ll discuss the laser eye surgery risks in detail at your consultation. But here are some of the more severe & common laser eye surgery risks.

• A severe infection can cause corneal scarring. The risk of developing an infection with LASIK is lower than the risk of an infection from wearing contact lenses & is less than 1/1000.
• There’s a small chance that a few months later you may need more laser surgery to adjust the correction if it isn’t quite right, just like when you receive a new pair of glasses & they aren’t quite right & need adjusting. 
• All optical corrections cause some night vision disturbances which can affect driving at night. LASIK usually causes less night vision problems than glasses & contact lenses.
• LASIK can cause short or occasionally long term dry eye symptoms but usually causes less symptoms than contact lenses.

At your consultation we’ll talk about whether you are suitable for & the risks of laser eye surgery in more detail to help you decide if you want to have laser eye surgery.

Vision correction laser eye surgery has been done for over 30 years, over 50 million procedures have been done & laser eye surgery is one of the best studied of all surgical operations. So laser eye surgery is not new & we know a lot about the short & long term effects & how to treat eyes well.

Most people treated at our Birmingham eye clinic are completely satisfied with their vision correction treatment & many have 20/20 vision or even better! 

Photographers & astronomers minimise blur & aberrations with special wavefront error, aberration reducing lenses to take crisp, clear photographs or see distant stars & planets more clearly. Wavefront errors or aberrations aren’t corrected by your glasses or contact lenses or older lasers & can cause some blur. Advanced, wavefront-enabled vision correction eye lasers can treat these aberrations with LASIK & LASEK.

Ensuring that the treatment is done safely & well is expensive (find out more on costs here). We have a highly skilled team & the advanced lasers we use for LASIK & LASEK in Birmingham are extremely accurate & cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.