10 Reasons for Not Cutting the Flap
When the flap is cut, the nerves are too! Your eye is super-sensitive. A tiny fleck of dust can really irritate your eye. The nerves also tell you when to blink. After the flap is cut and the nerves are too, you blink less often leading to dry eye.
Glare and haloes are very common after the flap is cut. The cornea used to be one solid sheet of collagen. After the flap is cut, it becomes 2 parts. An interface is formed when the flap is replaced. When light rays hit the interface, they scatter causing glare and haloes.
Surgeons can treat higher prescriptions when they don’t cut a flap. Not only is this good for people who are very near-sighted, ASA impacts less healthy corneal tissue all the time. Isn’t that the goal of any procedure?!
Flaps can get dislodged years down the road. If you play sports, or have ever been poked in the eye by a toddler, you’re at risk! That doesn’t happen with ASA! This is why the US military prohibits flap-cutting for its members.
One of the worst complications is a free flap, when the flap gets dislodged and is ripped off the hinge.
A button-hole flap is a malfunction where there is a hole in the middle of the flap and again the procedure has to be aborted.
Inflammatory cells can creep in under the flap causing haze and blurry vision
Sometimes the flap can fold underneath itself like a taco shell. This affects healing and vision.
When a flap is cut, suction is placed on the eye and the pressure of the eye can go up to 90-100 mmHg. The normal eye pressure is 10-22mmHg. Pressure elevations like this can cause optic nerve damage.
LASIK patients can have more difficulty seeing in dim light because of a loss of contrast sensitivity.
At Moskowitz Eye Care, there’s NO cutting. We only do ASA, not LASIK.
