In my last blog post, I spoke about new technologies which have fundamentally changed treatment for my patients. One is SMILE laser eye surgery. For many years, the two laser eye surgery options have been LASIK and surface laser (ASLA). The success rates of both these procedures is really high- laser eye surgery basically has the highest satisfaction rating of any elective procedure. However, in patients with higher degrees of shortsightedness or myopia, the accuracy was not quite as good. This was because the higher the degree of shortsightedness, then the greater amount of laser required. The greater the amount of laser required, the longer the eye was exposed to the environment and it's

If you are lucky, you get to be part of one medical advance in your career that fundamentally changes treatment for your patients. So far I have been incredibly fortunate enough to be involved in 3: collagen crosslinking for keratoconus, laser assisted cataract surgery and SMILE laser eye surgery. Today I am going to tell you about collagen crosslinking for keratoconus. In my last blog post, I told you about keratoconus: a genetic condition that causes progressive loss of vision in mainly teenagers and adults. Previously, there was no treatment to stop it. Patients wore hard contact lens until the bulge in their cornea (front lens of the eye) became too great and then ended up with a corneal

It's World Keratoconus day and I am guess you are asking, how do you say that word and what even is it? Keratoconus is a degenerative genetic eye condition which affects teenagers and young adults. The cornea, the primary focusing lens of the eye, becomes distorted and warped in shape, leading to bad vision. Glasses can't fully correct it. Laser eye surgery can't fix it. In severe cases, patients can end up having a corneal transplant. It is the most common reason for corneal transplants in Australia. While it is not super common, keratoconus should be considered in any child or teenager with worsening eyesight, especially if there is a family history of keratoconus. Common warning signs ar

I see a number of patients each year whom had laser eye surgery in the 90s and early 2000s. They come back and ask me "Can I have laser eye surgery again?" And I tell them: "It depends..." Firstly it depends on why your vision has changed. If it is due to ageing changes of the eye such as cataract, then doing further laser eye surgery will not work or it won't last. In these cases, doing early cataract surgery or lens exchange surgery may be a more appropriate way to fix your vision. Secondly it depends on what laser you have had previously. If you were -10.00 and had a lot of laser, then there may not be enough remaining corneal thickness to do more laser. You also may not end up having the

Unless you are uniquely special, you don't wake up and immediately have crystal clear vision. Like the rest of the body, everything takes a little while to get going with the eye- the tear production system, your focusing eye muscles and even your tissues need time to unswell as your eyelids have been closed overnight, a bit like having the lid closed on a soup pot and having the condensation underneath. As you get older, everything takes a even a bit longer to get going ... I know that all too well :) But how long is too long for your vision to get going? What if you are blurry for like an hour? Well usually this a sign something isn't quite right. The most common reason for prolonged blurr

I tell about 1 in 5 people who come for laser eye surgery that they are unsuitable. Sounds like quite a high percentage right? That's because the number one consideration is safety, especially given laser eye surgery is an elective procedure. There can be many reasons why you are found unsuitable for laser eye surgery. Some of the more common reasons are: -cornea too thin -cornea too irregular -prescription too high -prescription not stable yet -eye too dry Of course, you won't know all of this unless you come in for a suitability assessment. And even then, it may be a matter of you being more suited to one kind of laser eye surgery than another. For example, if you have a higher degree of s