LASIK Procedure Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C.

Educating Patients About the LASIK Process

Description

Dr. Andrew Holzman explains the process of LASIK surgery from the time you arrive at his office, to the details about the 10 minute eye surgery, as well as the numbing drops you’ll be given after the surgery. Before the LASIK procedure starts in any of the Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C. locations, Dr. Holzman or a member of his staff will break down the process to relieve any questions and concerns.

DR. ANDREW HOLZMAN: What’s the surgery like? It takes me about five to 10 minutes well, about 10 minutes total you’re in the operating suite, okay? It’s very, very quick. We talk you through the whole process. On the day of the surgery you’re going to need to come in with a driver, okay? We’re going to go over all your paperwork. I’m going to examine your eyes. We’re going to make sure everything looks perfect. We’re going to answer all your questions. And then we’re going to prep you. We’re going to go through a few things and practice a few things and we’re going to prep you for the procedure. And then we bring you back there. There’s nice music playing. Usually whatever you want. And it’s very relaxing. I coach you through it, and talking the whole time. And it only takes, like I said, about 10 minutes. You walk out, you can see. Okay, it’s not crisp, but you can see. You’re going to need a driver, obviously, to get you home. We don’t want me [phonetic] giving you a sedative before the surgery. We give you a little sedative to help you relax. It’s not going to knock you out. But you want to get right home and take a three-hour nap, okay? A three-hour nap’s going to work miracles for you because after the nap you’re going to wake up and there’s not going to be any stinging or burning and you’re going to be able to see a whole lot better. On the way home usually there is a little bit of stinging. The numbing drops have worn off so we give you a little numbing drop to go home with in a vial and you can put it in right before your nap. And that’s usually all it takes. We’re located right next door to a beautiful hotel, the Ritz-Carlton. We have special rates for you. If you’re interested in just walking over there and taking a nap or spending the night there. Because that’s a very convenient place to go and you’ll never get a cheaper room than if you’re a TLC patient that day. Then you wake up and you’re usually pretty happy. You’re not on any long-term drops. You just have to use medicated eye drops for about a week, okay? And you should keep your eyes moist for about a month or two for sure. Just keep lubricating them. Don’t rub your eyes for a few weeks and don’t go swimming for a few weeks. Those are very important things. Pretty much anything else you can do. Just don’t bang your eyes, okay? So you can exercise. You can drive, you can work, you can travel, all those kinds of things. But just obviously, don’t bump or rub your eyes. And so that recovery is usually very, very fast. And contact lenses need to be out of your eyes before our scan. So many of you have already been out of them. We want you to get out of contacts usually a minimum of two weeks before we do the very important scans on your eyes. And those scans are going to be driving our laser. So it’s important not to cheat and come in and tell us that, you know, you’ve been out of them for two weeks and actually you wore them yesterday. Because it’s going to throw off your scan. So it’s an important protocol we want you to follow. Sometimes it takes us longer for your eyes to stabilize out of contacts. And we might tell you come back in four weeks out of your contact lenses. So what’s the very best, to sum this up? Well, the very best is to create a flap with the IntraLase and that’s the safest way to do it, the most precise and decreases the risk of complications dramatically. And then to use a Custom Laser Treatment to fix the vision for the quality of vision and to decrease night vision problems. And that’s the summary of what we’ve just gone over. The next step in this process for you is to meet with counselors after we’ve done our testing on you. They’ll schedule you for a pre-op exam. There’s no commitment financially for the pre-op exam. It’s very simple. You just come in, we’re going to have to dilate your eyes and things like that. So it’s going to be a little bit more than we do today. But they’ll give you an appointment for that. There’s no charge. So you can come in for that. If you decide you don’t want the surgery then there’s no charge. Of course, we’d rather you have the surgery, but if you’re a candidate. They will also schedule you for a tentative surgical procedure. So if they give you a pre-op date, they’ll give you a tentative date for your surgery. Again, no financial commitment. You can cancel it, change it at any time. And there’s no charge, okay? But it just works best for our center we’re a busy center if you schedule a pre-op date, and it works best for you in terms of your schedule, to know what day you may be having this and that way you can work towards that date. I will finish by telling you that we have about 150 local eye doctors that refer patients here. And they’re all our TLC affiliates. So if you are one of their patients you don’t have to come here for all of your care. We actually would like you to use the TLC affiliate doctor for a lot of your care. You can go there for the pre-op dilation portion and you can go there for all your post-op care as well. There’s no additional charge to use your affiliate doctor, okay? So you don’t, you know, always have to come here for everything. You’re going to need a one day follow-up visit. You’re going to need a one week follow-up visit. You’re going to need a one month follow-up visit. And then we go three months, six months and one year. And that’s usually the standard, okay? But you can come any time you want if you have any issues, or you can call us anytime. You’re not limited the number of visits you can have here. And we really take patient education very, very seriously, as you can tell from this seminar. I think it was hopefully, very informative for you. And thanks very much for coming here. Are there any questions on anything that I didn’t cover? I think you’re referring to an old report on some climbers to Mount Everest who had radial keratotomy years earlier and then their vision got blurry at the summit. This procedure is not nearly as structurally destabilizing. So it’s more of a superficial treatment. So we haven’t seen that at all with altitude changes with LASIK. So it hasn’t seemed to be an issue. The only thing I’ll tell you is if you’re going to go scuba diving we want you to wait a month before you go scuba diving just for safety purposes. But, you know, you can fly and skydive and all those kinds of things. With appropriate goggles. I think that maybe TLC and their paperwork offers a procedure that has conventional technology. So that means using, you know, the bladed micro keratome to do the procedure and/or doing the laser treatment without a custom laser, okay? So it’s an option, but because I don’t believe in that option, I don’t do it. So if you’re going to have surgery here with me I only provide what I would provide for my sister or my family members and I’m going to treat you with what’s the very best. I mean, it’s like going out and buying a television today. Would you want to buy a TV that didn’t have a high-def component to it? And it’s probably it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. You want to take today’s technology and use it to your advantage when you’re getting this procedure. Thank you very much for listening to me and thanks very much for coming.