The Wavefront technology in LASIK eye surgery has been touted as the greatest advancement in LASIK eye surgery for the past year or two. But a new innovation has revolutionized the field of LASIK eye surgery which promises to be bigger and better than the Wavefront innovation. This is iris registration.

Before we go into the details of what iris registration is let us first understand how a LASIK surgery is performed.

It takes about five to ten minutes to complete the operation. First a mild anesthetic will be administered. Also eye drops are used to numb the eye and avoid pain during the operation. Though the operation is pain free there have been patients who have complained of discomfort. Once the eye is numb, a little device known as the microkeratome is attached to a suction ring placed on the eye. The microkeratome has a blade which cuts a thin flap on the surface of the cornea. The doctor will next fold back the flap and expose the stroma which is basically a layer of tissue. The stroma is searched for debris and is then dried. Now the surgeon will ask you to focus on a fixed spot while he, with the aid of laser mends the corneal tissue according to results of pre-operation examination. Once through, the flap is put back to position and an eye patch is provided to allow it to heal.

Today the microkeratome has been replaced by Intralase where instead of the metal blade cutting the flap, the job is performed by a computer guided laser.

So what is iris registration? Previously, lasers followed the patient’s eye moving up, down, left or right. Therefore as long as you move your eye left or right or up or down the laser beam can track the movement of the eye fine. However, there are other ways in which you can move your eye. For example, you can you’re your eye closer to the laser or away from it. Iris registration can track such movements and relay them to the laser so that the operation becomes more accurate. So is the case with you eye rotating. You can rotate you eye clockwise or anti-clockwise, which previous lasers wouldn’t have tracked. But Iris registration doesn’t fail here too. This is truly a remarkable progress in the field of LASIK eye surgery.

Nearsightedness

Nearsightedness occurs when the eye is too long and light rays focus in front of the retina, instead of focusing on the retina. Some of the symptoms of nearsightedness are blurred distant vision, eyestrain, and squinting, along with having a difficult time seeing at night.

Although nearsightedness can be easily fixed with glasses or contact lenses (when not too severe), many people don’t like to hassle with either one. With this new lasik procedure, folks will now be able to have pure vision.

Any surgery has its own sets of risks and complications. So it is advisable that before going into a surgery a patient should have a clear and complete knowledge of what the operation involves. It is generally the surgeon who explains beforehand what the patient might expect prior to and after the operation. Even the process of operation is at times explained, albeit in a lucid and easy to understand manner. It should be no else with this surgery also.Why would one go for LASIK surgery? Primarily because it is generally accepted these days that that surgery comes with the promise of improving one’s vision permanently so that the need for glasses or contact lenses is no longer there. So you are no longer dependent on them. In a way, you discover new liberty and freedom.So whom do you go to for a LASIK surgery? To the optometrist, of course. The first thing he will do is to conduct a number of tests on you to see if you are the right candidate for this surgery. Basically this eye surgery is used to cure three main types of eye conditions myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. Myopia, also know as nearsightedness is the problem of not being able to see what is far away without glasses. Hyperopia, also known as farsightedness, is the other way round. Astigmatism is something different where the patient has irregularities in his cornea which as a result distorts the image formed on the retina of the eye.What will the optometrist be looking for? There are a few basic things that any optometrist will look for before a eye surgery. That would primarily include your eye health history. In case of a particular few diseases the chances of you undergoing a this surgery will significantly decrease. These would include glaucoma, herpes, eye injuries or thin corneas. Any of these conditions can disqualify you as a suitable candidate for eye surgery. Another important criterion is whether there has been an alteration in your eyewear prescription over the last year. Before this operation your eyes should be steady. If they are not then the optometrist might just postpone the surgery for a few months until he is satisfied that your eyes are ready to undergo that surgery.These are some of the basic things that you need to know as part of your pre-surgery preparation. Of course once you are considered suitable for the operation the doctor will brief you about the surgery itself and post operative care.

Opting for the right LASIK surgery to correct your vision today is not the same as it was a decade ago. This is comparatively a recent medical breakthrough. It was only in 1994 that the first eye surgery was performed. Back then surgeons didn’t have much option on how to go about the entire procedure. All they had was a microkeratome, a small mechanical blade which helped to create a flap on the cornea. Once the flap was created, conventional excimer laser was used for reshaping the tissue underneath. That would allow the cornea to focus light directly on the retina exactly as it happens in a normal eye. This is all the option that an optometrist had about a decade ago. Since the this surgery has gone through a sea change and amazing advancements have been made in the technology that is being used. Lasers have become much smoother and precise which has allowed patients to have better vision than they could have ever imagined before. One of the newest addition to this opertation technology is the machine called Intralase. This machine makes the metal blade redundant during a operation. Here flap creation is also done with the help of laser. So with the help of Intralase one can actually complete the entire surgery only using lasers. This makes the operation an all-laser surgery .The greatest USP of Intralase is that it significantly reduces the risks of flap complications. When one is using the microkeratome to create the flap on the cornea there are risks of complications. These would include a flap being cut too thin, that the flap can tear, or may be it will not cut completely. Once you start using Intralase, such possibilities are almost done away with. As the level of accuracy increases with the use of Intralase, the cases of re-operation also drop. That way it is a much safer option compared to microkeratome. But it must be understood that Intralase is not completely risk free. Flap related wrinkles and other similar problems are still a possibility eve with Intralase around. But it is also true that Intralase will bring down the actual cases of complications. There are detractors to Intralase whose man line of argument would be that it is too new a method to jump to conclusions and that there is no substantial evidence that prior risks are negated. Also Intralase increases the length of an operation thereby increasing the opportunity for other complications to be introduced.

Although popularly we know it as lasik eye surgery it is also known as refractive this surgery or vision repair surgery. The last name describes the surgery best as it actually repairs one’s vision. What does is that it reshapes your cornea thereby allowing you to have normal vision without any external aid like glasses or contact lens. And recently there has been a lot of advancement in the field of this operation.They has been embraced by many a patient over the last decade to correct some specific eye defects. It has caught the imagination of people and has been gaining popularity every year. But this surgery does have its own effects and it varies from one patient to another. So before you actually decide on getting an operation done, you should always consider the pros and the cons.Basically this is used to cure three main types of eye conditions - myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. Myopia, also know as nearsightedness is the problem of not being able to see what is far away without glasses. Hyperopia, also known as farsightedness, is the other way round. Astigmatism is something different where the patient has irregularities in his cornea which as a result distorts the image formed on the retina of the eye. After this surgery the need for glasses or contact lens will either be negated, or your dependency on them will be significantly reduced.But eye operation comes with its own set of risks and they should always be considered seriously before you actually sign-up for an operation. First of all, you will not be eligible for the operation if you are suffering from diabetes, glaucoma, cataracts, arthritis, and lupus. Even pregnant women are not eligible. With these conditions, undergoing surgery can cause permanent damage to your vision. Other problems that might be caused due to surgery are double vision, glare, and halo. One’s nighttime vision can also be affected, especially for certain operation procedures. Even permanent blurry vision and diminished contrast may be the effects of the surgery. We are not trying to imply that surgery is something that involves a lot of risks. All that we are saying is that you should properly educate yourself about the risks also so that you can take a considered decision.Some patients experience discomfort in the first 24-48 hours after surgery. Other side effects, although rare, may include:Glare, Seeing halos around images, Difficulty driving at night, Fluctuating vision, Dry eyes. The FDA has found no long-term side effects from laser eye surgery.Lasik surgery is too new to know if there are any long-term ill effects beyond five years after surgery.Before the surgery, your surgeon should explain to you the risks and possible complications, and potential side effects, including the pros and cons of having one or both eyes done on the same day. This is the “informed consent” process. If you experience aggravating or unusual side effects, report them to your doctor immediately.

There is no local treatment to cure piles. The treatment of the basic cause, namely, chronic constipation, is the only way to get rid of the trouble. To begin with, the whole digestive tract must be given a complete rest for a few days and the intestines throughly cleansed. For this purpose, the patient should adopt an all-fruit diet for at least five days. He should have three meals a day of fresh juicy fruits such as grapes, apple, pear, peach, orange, pineapple and melon. For drinks, unsweetened lemon water or plain water either hot or cold may be taken.

In long-standing and stubborn cases, it will be advisable to have a short fast for four or five days before adopting an all-fruit diet. When on short fast, the patient may have the juice of an orange in a glass of warm water. An enema with lukewarm water should be taken daily in the morning while fasting. This will cleanse the bowels and give much needed rest to the rectal tissues.

After the all-fruit diet, the patient may adopt a diet of natural foods aimed at securing soft stools. The diet should be low in fat and should not contain more than 50 grams of fat. Foods which contain less fat are skimmed milk, buttermilk, curd and cottage cheese made from skimmed milk; all vegetables except cabbage, onions, dried beans and peas; cooked and dried cereals, fruits and fruit juices.

The ideal diet for the patient with piles should consist of fruits like papaya, musk melon, apple and pear; green vegetables, particularly spinach and radish, wheat, porridge, whole meal cereals and milk. Lentils and daals should be avoided, as they constipate the bowels. The patient should also abstain from meat, fish, eggs, cheese, white sugar, sweets, rice, all fried foods, all white flour products, tea and coffee. Dry fruits, such as figs and raisins and coconuts should form part of the diet.

The most important food remedy for piles is dry figs. Three or four figs should be soaked overnight in water after cleaning them thoroughly in hot water. They should be taken first thing in the morning along with the water in which they were soaked. They should also be taken in the evening in similar manner. This treatment should be continued for three or four weeks. The tiny seeds of the fruit possess an excellent quality of stimulating peristaltic movements of intestines. This facilitates easy evacuation of faeces and keeps the alimentary canal clean. The pressure on the anus having thus been relieved, the hemorrhoids also get contracted.

The mango seeds are valuable in bleeding piles. The seeds should be collected during the mango season, dried in the shade and powdered and kept stored for use as medicine. This powder should be given in doses of about one and a half gram to two grams with or without honey twice daily.

The patient should drink at least eight to ten glasses of water a day. He should avoid straining to pass stool.