A common concern among prospective LASIK patients is whether they will be awake during the procedure. The answer is yes, patients are awake during the procedure. But there's no need to worry if you accidentally blink or move your eyes during surgery. Thanks to advanced LASIK technologies in Billings, your eyes will remain comfortably stable while our doctors provide you with the vision correction results you need to see as clearly as possible.
No, the laser has an advanced tracking device that follows the small movements of the eyes during surgery. Your only job is to concentrate as best you can on a flickering light. If you need to sneeze, cough, or even scratch your nose, the laser will stop when you move too much. Once you've settled down, the laser will start exactly where it left off and continue with the procedure.
Rest assured that there is nothing wrong you can do during surgery. Fortunately, this movement is not a cause for concern in modern laser eye surgery, since our lasers have eye tracking technology. As the eye moves upward, the laser will simply move the spots upward to follow the eye. If you move too far up, the laser will stop firing pulses until you look at the fixing light again.
The same thing happens if you get scared and look the other way for any reason. If the laser stops, I will simply remind you to find the light again and we will continue as if nothing had happened. The reason you keep your eyelids open and look straight ahead like a serial killer with eyes of steel is that you don't really feel any real need to do the opposite and blink. However, during surgery, this means that attempts to blink and squeeze will move the eye upward and away from the fixing light.
We keep the surface of the eye lubricated with drops so that it doesn't dry out and you don't feel the need to blink. Professor Dan Reinstein explains how looking the other way, blinking, coughing, or sneezing during the procedure don't affect the results of laser eye surgery. This is because the surgeon takes care of the blinking and applies regular anesthetic drops to numb the cornea. Then, they'll use an instrument that will keep your eyes open, so you don't have to worry about blinking throughout the procedure.
All of this means that not only will you not be able to blink during laser eye surgery and your eyelids will not be able to accidentally interfere with the procedure, but after a few seconds, it won't even cross your mind. Just as eye drops and eyelid spectrum allow blinking to not interrupt laser eye surgery, eye tracking technology prevents coughing, sneezing, or jumping from affecting the results of the procedure.
