There is a myth that LASIK, after 10 years, wears off. But, LASIK is permanent. LASIK permanently corrects the vision prescription that you have at the time of surgery. This means that it cannot wear off.
However, the answer to how long LASIK lasts depends on your age and the speed of your eye deterioration. Typically, LASIK lasts about 10 years before natural deterioration in eyesight (as comes with age) may cause an altered dependency on corrective lenses.
The average age for LASIK has historically been from the mid-30s up. We know that when patients return unhappy with their vision about 10 years after a LASIK procedure, the chief suspects are presbyopia and cataract. So the answer is: “It's almost always the lens, not the LASIK.”
Generally speaking, there isn't a limit to how many times you can get LASIK surgery during your lifetime, but that doesn't mean that you're a good candidate for an enhancement. The main driving factor in whether or not you can continue to get LASIK is how thick your cornea is.
LASIK is permanent, but eyesight can and does change, even after laser surgery. There are many potential causes of eyesight changes after refractive surgery.
If you develop blurry vision 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years after surgery, your eyes have likely changed with age. Visit your doctor for a comprehensive eye exam to rule out issues like glaucoma and cataracts. If your eyes are healthy, you may have age-related nearsightedness LASIK can't prevent or treat.
PISK is an inflammatory reaction caused by the instruments used during the procedure that can erode the corneal stroma. This condition can occur within days or sometimes even years after the surgery. Symptoms of PISK include severe eye pain, blurry vision, redness, and sensitivity to light.
You can get LASIK more than once. But undergoing more than three LASIK procedures can be harmful to your health and cause severe vision problems. Each time you undergo LASIK, the surgeon removes corneal tissue. If your corneas are too thin after the first procedure, you may not be able to have a second LASIK surgery.
A LASIK retreatment may also be necessary if your eyes change over time. The enhancement rate increases by approximately 1% per year. So, for example, up to 20% of people may need a LASIK enhancement after 20 years.
Even though LASIK corrects current nearsightedness or farsightedness, it cannot stop its progression. If your eyes are prone to these issues, they might continue to develop, which could ultimately lead to less-than-ideal vision.
Many people believe that after LASIK surgery, they will finally have 20/20 vision. However, this isn't always the case. In fact, some patients may still need to wear glasses or contact lenses for tasks like reading small print or driving at night.
The most common side effects in the early postoperative period after LASIK surgery are dry eyes, halos, and glare at night. Those typically dissipate within one month, but they can sometimes last up to three to six months. If these symptoms persist, they are treatable with very rare exceptions.
In most cases, the effects of LASIK are permanent. Once people reach their 40s, most begin to experience presbyopia — otherwise known as difficulty focusing up close.
With modern LASIK, the enhancement rate is 1-2 percent in the first 12 months and then about 1 percent a year after that as patients' eyes can change with time. So, for example, 10 years after LASIK, approximately 10 percent of patients may require an enhancement procedure to maintain their excellent vision.
While the effects of LASIK surgery are permanent, the benefits can decrease over time. For most patients, the results of this surgery will last a lifetime. About 10-12% of patients nationwide will need an enhancement surgery because of anatomical changes to the eye/eyes.
The most common reason to need LASIK a second time is age-related vision changes. Several factors, including how old you were when you had LASIK, your vision pre-surgery, and your family's vision history, can contribute to the need for a second procedure.
LASIK's Most Common After-Effects
In the two to three hours immediately after surgery, your vision will be blurry. Although your eyesight will greatly improve within 24 hours, you may still experience intermittent blurriness and fluctuations in your vision for some time as your eyes adjust to the reshaped cornea.
Symptoms include pain, discomfort, watering, and/or blurry vision. Many people worry about how to tell if a flap moves after LASIK, but things will feel distinctly different.
You have a thin or irregular cornea
If you have a predisposition to corneal shape irregularity, this can be made worse by laser eye surgery, and a condition called corneal ectasia may develop. This occurs infrequently and can often be treated successfully without the need for a corneal transplant.
The LASIK complication rate is less than 1%. LASIK complications include infections as well as dislocation of the corneal flap that's made during the surgery. Surgical complications from laser vision correction are extremely rare.
The best recorded vision in humans is 20/10 vision—the ability to see objects clearly from 20 feet when a normal human can only see them at 10 feet.
Scarring from a previous eye injury or surgery can impede the surgeon's ability to perform the operation safely. Other eye diseases that affect the cornea or infections must be resolved before you can get LASIK. In some cases, you may find that because of eye diseases or another procedure, you cannot get LASIK.
LASIK surgeons blame the economy, citing that it has yet to recover from the recession, meaning that fewer people can afford the surgery. While this may be true, other ophthalmologists claim that the millennial generation is choosing different ways to care for their eyes, if they choose to care for their eyes at all.
Patients who previously felt doomed to ever-worsening vision were seeing 20/20 again. Some of them even improved their site to better than 20/20. While most patients received much-needed relief, some ran into trouble. At the end of the 90s, the rate of procedures where LASIK went wrong was approximately 5%.