No Touch Laser Eye Surgery: A Guide to No Touch & Bladeless Eye Surgeries

Copyright © Rebecca Turner

No touch laser eye surgery is the group name for the latest wave of corrective eye surgeries. The main feature is they don't use any mechanical instruments to cut open the corneal flap, which is what happens in traditional eye surgery.

However, no touch eye surgery is still an invasive procedure and uses a laser to vaporize your cornea. So before getting any kind of laser eye procedure, take the time to fully research the procedure, after care routine, common side effects and risks. Because once you have laser eye surgery, there's no going back.

Types of No Touch Laser Eye Surgery

There are various "no touch" techniques coming into use, such as:

• No Touch PRK - developed by London Eye Centre. It is used to treat any degree of nearsightedness, up to +6 diopters of farsightedness, and some degrees of astigmatism. It cannot cure aging vision. During surgery, the eyelids are held open with a clasp to prevent you from blinking. Numbing drops are used, then a small amount of the cornea is vaporized using the Excimer laser. See a demonstration of this no touch laser eye surgery:

• No Touch All-Laser Epi-LASIK - also known as Trans-Epithelial Surface Treatment. This technique also uses the Excimer laser to ablate the outer layer of the cornea (epithelium). Round two involves reshaping the cornea to correction vision. Bandage contact lenses are placed over the cornea for a few days afterwards during healing.
  
  
• Bladeless LASIK - a femtosecond laser creates the corneal flap instead of an automated mechanical microkeratome blade. Although technically a no touch laser eye surgery, once the flap is opened, this procedure is exactly the same as LASIK. So the pros and cons of bladeless LASIK are largely the same as traditional LASIK.

Pros of No Touch Laser Eye Surgery

There are two major pros to this latest form of eye surgery when compared to traditional LASIK methods:

• Free movement of the eye during surgery - Unlike LASIK, where the patient's eye has to be held in place with a suction ring, no touch surgeries allow the eyeball to move freely. This makes the procedure somewhat more comfortable for the patient.
  
  
• No corneal flap is created - Also unlike LASIK, most "no touch" eye surgeries do not involve cutting open a corneal flap. This speeds up healing and reduces flap-related pain, removes all risk of flap-related complications, and reduces the risk of corneal bio-mechanical instability.

Cons of No Touch Laser Eye Surgery

Unfortunately, for all the improvements to this methodology, there are other disadvantages to be aware of:

• Increased pain during recovery - Compared to traditional LASIK, no touch laser eye surgery creates more pain for 1-2 days after treatment.
  
  
• Longer recovery period - While LASIK can start producing clear functional vision the day after surgery, "no touch" patients typically have to wait 7-21 days for their functional vision to return.
  
  
• Need for steroid eye drops - To aid visual recovery, the patient must use steroid eye drops for at least three months.
  
  
• Increased risk of corneal haze - Compared to LASIK, there is a greater risk of suffering corneal haze (where the cornea becomes cloudy or opaque due to scarring). This creates a permanent disturbance in normal vision, and has been described as like looking through fog.

Who is No Touch Laser Eye Surgery For?

This kind of surgery is not recommended for everyone. It will largely be up to your eye doctor to decide, based on your specific circumstances. Generally, "no touch" eye surgery is suitable for:

• Patients who play contact sports (rugby, martial arts) or have careers that pose a greater risk of injury (police, armed forces).
  
  
• Patients who are highly anxious or worried about LASIK flap creation (but who also accept the new risks posed by no touch laser eye surgery).

• Patients with compromised corneal bio-mechanics (dependent on the shape and thickness of your cornea and your current prescription).
  
  
• Patients who are likely to suffer flap-related complications with LASIK (such as having small, deep set eyes).
  
  
• Patients undergoing follow-up eye surgery to correct previous imperfect LASIK or Epi-LASIK procedures.

It is essential that you have an in-depth consultation with a professional before deciding whether no touch laser eye surgery is right for you. Find your local laser eye clinic online and ask whether they offer "no touch" surgery yet.

Natural Vision Correction

If the risks of no touch laser eye surgery seem too great, know that there are natural vision improvement options available to you. For ranges of refractive errors (seen in nearsightedness, farsightedness, aging vision and astigmatism) a routine of daily eye exercises can help. Many people start to see results in days.

For a reputable course in eye exercises, I recommend Rebuild Your Vision. It is both downloadable and arrives in the mail so you can spend 20 minutes a day using the charts and tools to improve your vision at home. I used this course in 2008 to cure my astigmatism and reduce my nearsightedness from 20/150 to 20/40. I am no longer dependent on glasses for everyday life and am released from any need whatsoever so seek out surgical solutions for my vision.

I highly recommend this as an alternative to any no touch laser eye surgery.

Read My Full Rebuild Your Vision Review Here