by LasikExpert » Tue Aug 08, 2006 12:00 am
Whether planned or not, refractive surgery is considered by the cornea as a wound. A part of that wound response is the development of opaque white cells. The cells create a haze effect within the cornea itself. Corneal haze is rare in patents that need less than about 6.00 diopters of correction and is almost nonexistent in Lasik and IntraLasik patients.
By performing the laser ablation under a flap of corneal tissue, the cornea is "fooled" into not realizing that it has had surgery. This mutes the wound response. Because the cornea does not know it has had surgery and there is little wound response, vision recovery is quick and there is virtually no pain.
Surface ablation techniques like PRK, LASEK, and Epi-Lasik don’t fool the cornea quite as well as Lasik and IntraLasik. For this reason (and others) vision recovery is slower, less comfortable, and the probability of corneal haze is elevated for patients with more than about 6.00 diopters of correction.
Haze can be limited or even removed with the topical application of Mitomycin C. Mitomycin C is a strong medicine that is probably best avoided if possible, but appropriate when needed.
Another technique to reduce the probability of corneal haze is for the patient to take 500mg of vitamin C twice a day for at least a week before surgery and two weeks after surgery. With the use of 100% UVA, UVB sunglasses, the incidence of corneal haze drops dramatically.
Because you had IntraLasik, the incidence of corneal haze due to wound response is quite low. Light scatter at the interface of the IntraLasik flap is much more likely, but your doctor will be the one who can identify the location of haze, if any.