Laser Eye Surgery Risks and Side Effects: What’s Normal?

If you rely on glasses or contact lenses to see well, laser eye surgery might be on your radar. Laser vision correction can be life-changing for the right candidate, but it's still surgery, and comes with potential risks and side effects.

At Re:Vision, our team has done over 50,000 laser eye surgeries and is recognised as one of New Zealand’s most experienced laser teams. We believe good surgery starts with transparent advice. So, in this guide, we take you through the common, less common, and rare laser eye surgery risks and side effects.

Is laser eye surgery safe?

For suitable patients, laser eye surgery has a strong safety profile. But that's not to say you won’t notice anything after your laser procedure.

Dryness, glare, and light sensitivity are common and short-lived side effects which are considered normal and usually improve on their own as your eyes settle. Serious surgical complications are very uncommon, but they can still happen, which is why comprehensive suitability testing is so vital.

Laser eye surgery risks and side effects

Here's a more detailed look at the three groups of laser eye surgery risks and side effects:

1. Common risks and side effects that usually settle during healing
2. Less common risks that may need closer management
3. Rare but serious complications that should be understood before treatment

Common risks and side effects

• Dry eyes: Your eyes might feel tired, watery, scratchy, or gritty, kind of like having an eyelash or dust in your eye. Screen time or air conditioning might make it worse, because laser eye surgery procedures can temporarily affect your tear film and corneal nerves that help regulate moisture.
  
  
• Glare and halos: You might see halos or starbursts around lights, especially headlights and streetlights, making driving at night harder than usual. This is typically caused by light scattering as it passes through the treated cornea while your eyes are still healing. It often resolves within weeks to months.
  
  
• Light sensitivity: In the first few days or weeks of healing, bright lights, like sunlight or fluorescent indoor lighting, can feel harsher than usual. This is mostly because the treated corneal tissue is more reactive when settling after treatment.
  
  
• Fluctuating vision: During early healing, you might notice your vision bouncing between sharp and a blurry, especially in the later afternoons or evenings. This is frequently associated with dry eye and tear film changes, which affect the way light enters your eye.

Less common risks and side effects

• Undercorrection or overcorrection: Sometimes vision heals marginally under or over the intended correction. You might need glasses for certain activities in the interim. Further laser surgery is only considered once your vision has stabilised.
  
  
• Regression: Regression is when your vision slowly creeps back to your pre-surgery prescription. This can happen as your eye continues to heal, potentially making your vision feel less sharp than it did soon after surgery.
  
  
• Infection or inflammation: The first few days are the most critical here. Let your clinic know straight away if pain, redness, light sensitivity, or discharge worsens, or your vision suddenly declines.
  
  
• LASIK flap issues: Because LASIK requires a thin flap in the cornea, flap-related issues can occur. Your surgeon will lookout for these during the early healing stages and at your follow-up appointments.
  
  
• PRK haze: PRK haze refers to a cloudiness in the cornea that can make vision look misty or dull. It's quite uncommon, but still needs monitoring in the weeks and months after having PRK.

Rare but serious complications

• Corneal ectasia: This is when the cornea weakens and slowly starts bulging forward, which can distort your vision. Corneal ectasia is one of the major reasons we check corneal shape, thickness, and strength so carefully before surgery.
  
  
• Ongoing visual symptoms or reduced visual quality: A small handful of people may experience glare, halos, ghosting, poor night vision or reduced contrast that doesn't go away after the initial healing period. If you still notice these symptoms months after your laser eye surgery, you need a review, as they can affect your 'real life' vision even if you can still read well on an eye chart.
  
  
• Loss of best-corrected vision: This means losing two or more lines on an eye chart, even with the help of glasses or contact lenses. A large review of modern LASIK results found this happened in just 0.61% of eyes, making it extremely rare. When it does happen, it's usually linked to a serious complication such as infection, inflammation, corneal instability, scarring or an unusual healing response.

Are the risks different for LASIK and PRK?

There's some overlap, but LASIK and PRK also have their own risks. While both come under laser eye surgery, they're different procedures with different healing processes.

• LASIK: Vision usually recovers faster than with PRK, but LASIK carries flap-related risks and can cause dry eye over the short-term.
  
  
• PRK: There's no flap-related risks, but you might feel more discomfort in the earlier stages of recovery than you would with LASIK. Visual recovery can also be slower with a small risk of healing-associated haze.

As for which procedure is better for you, there's no one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on your prescription, corneal measurements, tear film, lifestyle, eye health, and vision goals.

How Re:Vision reduces risk

Most risk reduction happens before surgery. Here are some of the steps we take at our Auckland eye clinic:

1. We check whether your eyes are suitable

This includes us checking your prescription, prescription stability, eye health, lifestyle, medications, and pre-existing conditions. These details help us flag potential risks before recommending treatment.

1. We take detailed measurements of your eyes

We check the shape, thickness, and structural strength of your cornea through a process called corneal mapping, which is basically a series of detailed eye scans. These scans are a very important part of the process, often showing irregularities that routine eye tests don't.

1. We assess the surface of your eyes

Dry eye testing helps us determine if your tear film is healthy enough for surgery. If your eyes are already dry or irritated, we may need to treat this first.

1. We choose the procedure that the best fit for you

There is no cookie-cutter approach to laser eye surgery. We make sure your treatment plan is a great match for your measurements, prescription, visual goals and risk profile, whether that's LASIK, PRK, ICL or another option.

1. We monitor your healing after surgery

Follow-up appointments let us check healing, manage dryness or inflammation early on, and make sure your vision is settling as expected.

Trusted laser eye surgery in Auckland

Laser eye surgery can reduce or even eliminate your need to rely on glasses or contact lenses for sharp vision. But, like any surgical procedure, it comes with risks and side effects.

At Re:Vision, we do our utmost to minimise risk before, during, and after refractive surgery. With 900+ five-star Google reviews, advanced laser technology, and a modern and purpose-built Auckland clinic, you can rest assured knowing you're in very experienced and trusted hands from the outset.