Dr. Vlada Nakhlis proudly co-manages with several prominent ophthalmologists in the chicago-land area for all major eye surgeries by providing all the necessary pre- and post-operative patient care.
Cataract Surgery: Cataract eye surgery involves removing the discolored, cloudy lens of the eye and replacing it with an artificial lens that contains your glasses or contact lens prescription. The new lens can contain a fixed or accommodating mono-focal lens, a multi-focal lens or a lens that corrects for astigmatism. This means that once your surgery is complete, you may not need to wear corrective lenses.
LASIK Surgery: the procedure involves cutting a thin flap in the cornea and folding it over. Then, the exposed part of the cornea is cleaned and prepared for the surgery. Next, a laser will be positioned over your eye, and the cornea will be reshaped. After your surgery, you will be given between 30 and 60 minutes to recover.
Cornea and External Surgery: Diagnosing and treating diseases related to the cornea, sclera and eyelids are the primary focus of this specialty. Training within this specialty includes doing corneal transplant surgery and other types of corneal surgery.
Glaucoma Surgery: This specialty concentrates on medical and surgical treatment of glaucoma and other age related vision disorders that can create optic nerve damage through increased ocular pressure.
Neuro-ophthalmology: A nonsurgical specialty focused on diseases affecting the optic nerve and visual pathways. It deals with the relationship between neurologic and ophthalmic diseases and can be combined with eye and orbital surgery.
Ophthalmic Pathology: An ophthalmic pathologist examines tissue samples culled from the eye and adnexa in helping to diagnose eye diseases and vision problems.
Ophthalmic Plastic Surgery: With this specialty, the focus is on reconstructive surgery in facial and orbital areas. It can include complex surgeries on eyelids, orbits, certain facial bones, and the lacrimal system.
Pediatric Ophthalmology: This specialty focuses on dealing with vision problems and eye diseases affecting children. Pediatric ophthalmologists offer medical and surgical treatment of genetic ocular abnormalities and serious eye diseases before a patient reaches adulthood.
Vitreoretinal Diseases: Medical and surgical treatment of diseases affecting the retina and vitreous are the focus of this specialty. These diseases can be genetic and systemic in origin. A vitreoretinal ophthalmologist uses tools like ultrasound fluorescein, angiography and electrophysiology to make a diagnosis. From there, they treat vitreoretinal diseases through using such procedures as laser therapy, cryotherapy, retinal detachment surgery and vitrectomy.
Eye Surgery Evolution
Advanced technology has made it possible to reshape eyes and restore vision to healthy levels for many people from all walks of life. Surgical techniques and tools have rapidly evolved over the past two decades to create procedures that are both safe and helpful.
Corrective surgeries for eyes now include everything from using lasers to reshape the cornea surface to inserting artificial lenses. These procedures correct how light entering the eye is processed – leading to much sharper vision in patients.
The state of the cornea is a determining factor in these surgeries. Thinner corneas with a high degree of myopia, for example, usually require a more invasive surgery to reshape the eye surface enough to improve vision.
Types of Eye Surgeries
Laser correction surgeries offer a snapshot of evolution in eye surgeries. Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK) became the first successful surgery to change the shape of the cornea through removing tissue. The FDA approved PRK in 1995 and it is still widely used early in the 21st Century. With PRK, it only takes a few days for vision improvements to be realized.
LASIK followed on the heels of PRK. It involves cutting a thin flap in the outer covering of the eye to reshape the cornea. Unlike PRK, it only takes a few hours to gain sharper vision with LASIK surgery. There is some risk of suffering dry eye and other complications such as halos around bright lights until the flap fully heals. LASIK can be done with the aid of a mechanical cutting tool, using all lasers or incorporating wavefront technology that measures how light hits the eye.
Nearsighted patients are not alone in benefiting from surgeries. Farsightedness can be corrected through Conductive Keratoplasty (CK). It uses a small probe and low heat radio waves to create spots around the cornea periphery. CK steepens the cornea to give patients better near vision.
Some eye surgeries require implanting new artificial lenses to produce vision improvements. Implantable lenses similar to contact lenses can correct more severe levels of nearsightedness. These artificial lenses go permanently over the natural lens on the eye. Refractive Lens Exchange (RLE) takes it a step further and replaces the natural lens with an artificial lens of a different shape. RLE is done to correct extreme farsightedness.
Eye Surgery Considerations
Our eyes change as we age, so some corrective surgeries are not a good option for everyone. People under 18, for example, are not good candidates for laser eye surgeries because their eyes change rapidly as their bodies are growing.
Health also factors into eye surgeries. If you have diabetes or other medical conditions that impact eyesight, certain eye surgeries may pose serious risks.
